Close Guantanamo NOW Ad Appearing in The New York Times

Call to Action

Stop the Torture! Close Guantanamo! End the War Crimes and Violations of Fundamental Rights!

166 men remain imprisoned at Guantanamo. Most are on hunger strike and for many it is more than 100 days that they have been refusing food. Some are near death, many imprisoned for more than ten years. They have lost hope of ever being released, although a majority were cleared to leave years ago. As Adnan Latif, a detainee, wrote during an earlier hunger strike, "Where is the world to save us from torture? Where is the world to save the hunger strikers?" Mr. Latif was cleared for release as well, but he died in September 2012, still waiting for justice.

On Eve of Obama National Security Speech, Writers, Performers, Academics Call for Closure of Guantanamo, End of Indefinite Detention & War Crimes

Press Releases

For Immediate Release
May 22, 2013       
Contact: (866) 973-4463                                  
worldcantwait.net                              

Inspired by the hunger strike of most remaining Guantanamo prisoners, hundreds of people in the arts, law, public life and academia have made an urgent call to Obama to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, where 166 men are still held, and “the release of the cleared Guantanamo prisoners now, and an end to indefinite detention without charge for the others, before they lose their lives.”  

Learn More about the Guantanamo Detainees

Torture and Detention

In a statement released by Reprieve, the British human rights organization, Guantanamo hunger strikers directly addressed Obama, saying,

Under his existing powers, Obama could order an authorisation to be signed immediately that would allow prisoners cleared for release to be transferred out of the prison at once. Another detainee, Nabil Hadjarab - who has been cleared for release since 2007 - takes issue with the President's previous claims that Congress prevents him from taking action: “You say that Congress gives you no power? Are you not the President? In the end, the last word is yours,” he says.

Protesting on the Day 100 of the Guantanamo Hunger Strike

Video

Abortion on Demand and Without Apology

Reproductive Rights

Reproductive rights are in a state of emergency. Abortion is an issue that divides this country. This is no accident. How one thinks and feels about abortion flows fundamentally from how one views women.

A Call from Noche Diaz & Jamel Mims: Mass Incarceration + Silence=Genocide...

Mass Incarceration

Why Obama Can & Should Close Guantanamo NOW

Obama

While promoting the message to Close Guantanamo that we are raising funds to publish in The New York Times, we  have been hearing, especially in the Twitterverse, that people think, because Obama promised to close Guantanamo, and says that Congress is not allowing him to do that, the main problem is with Congress.

Statements from Signers of the Close Guantanamo Ad

Torture and Detention

The following statements were made by signatories to the Close Guantanamo ad which will be placed in The New York Times.

M. Cherif Bassiouni, Emeritus Professor of Law, DePaul University College of Law:

Like you and many others, I have given a great deal of thought to what can be done to encourage the Obama Administration to release from Gitmo as many persons as possible within the framework of existing legislation and to ultimately close it. This concern has only been heightened by the hunger strike in which a reported 130 men held at Guantanamo are engaged in.

New Guantanamo policy: Genital “pat down”

Torture and Detention

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – A new policy has been implemented at Guantanamo that calls for prisoners to submit to a “pat down” of their genitals and buttocks when they leave the detention camps to meet with their lawyers, an official here confirmed Tuesday.

Navy Captain. Robert Durand, a Guantanamo spokesman, told Al Jazeera the new procedures were introduced about two weeks ago in an effort to stave off the alleged flow of “contraband” into the detention camps. It’s one of several new strict protocols that went into effect at the detention facility since February.