CCR: Close Guantánamo

As the 5th anniversary of the Guantánamo Bay prison camps approaches, the Center for Constitutional Rights has a new statement on the U.S. detention facility:

Nearly four hundred men continue to languish at Guantánamo. After five years of imprisonment outside the law, humiliation, physical & mental abuse and torture, and separation from their families, the notion that Guantánamo can ever be a normal prison for them must be abandoned.

CCR distinguishes itself from other NGOs in that it believes Guantánamo is beyond reform. Improvements in prisoner conditions and reforms in “interrogation techniques” are impossible to enforce and do not address the fundamental injustice of imprisoning human beings for years without charge. As CCR reasons,

If there are people in Guantánamo who have committed a crime, our government can subject them a court martial or civilian criminal trial. Any convicted defendants can serve out their time in existing military or civilian prisons. We don't need Guantánamo, and it has jeopardized our national security far more than it has furthered our security or intelligence...