It's time to shut down the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay
once and for all. Guantánamo has become a symbol world-wide of the Bush
Administration’s arrogant disregard for the most basic of human rights.
In a hard-hitting editorial on Sunday, June 5, The New York Times wrote: "The
best thing Washington can now do about this national shame is to shut it down.
It is a propaganda gift to America's enemies; an embarrassment to our allies;
a damaging repudiation of the American justice system; and a highly effective
recruiting tool for Islamic radicals, including future terrorists."*
Please write your representatives in Congress and the members of the Senate Judiciary
and Foreign Relations committees and tell them to shut down Guantánamo
and either try the remaining 540 detainees in a court of law or release them.
The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the fight against the detentions
at Guantánamo Bay. From the day the government made clear they planned
to ship prisoners there to keep them beyond the reach of law, indefinitely, and
without any chance to challenge their detention or know the charges against them
CCR has fought for the detainees to have their day in court. CCR won the fight
in the Supreme Court one year ago and is leading a team of more than 350 attorneys
from around the country representing the detainees in the courts, but the Bush
Administration has defied the ruling of the highest court in the land and stonewalled
detainees’ access to the courts and to counsel. We urgently need your help.
Please contact your representatives in Congress and tell them the time has come
to shut down the Guantánamo prison camp once and for all. And please help
if you can with a donation to help us keep at this critical fight: CCR does
cutting edge work, and we can’t do it without you.
In response to increasing documentation of abuse and the now admitted intentional
desecration of the Koran, Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pennsylvania) will be holding
hearings in June on the treatment of the detainees, and Senator Joseph Biden,
(D-Delaware), who has just called for Guantanamo to be shit down, has proposed
an independent commission to investigate the situation. CCR has long called for
an independent special prosecutor with the power to prosecute the human rights
abuses being committed in our name as Americans. And now we’re calling for
the immediate closing of the Guantánamo prison camp.
*Read the full text of the Times editorial here.
Text of the petition:
The time has come to shut down the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, try the
remaining detainees in a court of law, or release them if there are no real charges
against them. Guantánamo is a black eye on America’s reputation around
the world and has become a symbol of the Bush Administration’s disregard
for the most basic of human rights.
I join the Center for Constitutional Rights and The New York Times to say that
if America is to represent democracy and freedom it cannot at the same time lock
people away without access to courts or attorneys. Guantánamo Bay must
be shut down and the remaining 540 detainees must be charged and tried or released.
Nor must the Administration be allowed to ship the detainees off to be tortured
and abused in countries with appalling human rights records and no direct American
accountability, as has already happened.
Guantánamo does not represent American values. Shut it down.
Petition
to Shut Down Guantánamo