Washington, DC – Public parking at Guantanamo BayCuba, turns 23 on Saturday.
For Mansoor Adayfi, a former inmate of the prison, the festival commemorates 23 years of “injustice, lawlessness, abuse of power, torture and indefinite imprisonment”.
Only 15 prisoners remain at the US military prison, known as Gitmo, which held about 800 Muslim men – a small number that gives hope that the facility will be closed, opening the dark page of history that it represents. .
But Adayfi, who now serves as the Guantanamo Project coordinator for the advocacy group CAGE International, says closing Gitmo means bringing justice to detainees and former detainees.
“The United States must admit its mistakes, it must officially apologize to the victims, to the survivors,” Adayfi told Al Jazeera. “There should be pay, compensation and accountability.”
Guantanamo was opened in 2002 to detain prisoners who were called “war on terror”, which happened on September 11, 2001, in the US.
Prisoners have been held in countries around the world suspected of belonging to al-Qaeda and other groups. Many endured horrific torture in secret prisons, known as black camps, before being transferred to Guantanamo.
At Gitmo, detainees had few legal rights. Even those who were allowed to be released through Guantanamo's alternative justice system, known as military commissions, remained in prison for years without a reason to challenge their detention.
Therefore, the prison has become synonymous with the atrocities committed by the US government after 9/11.
In recent weeks, the administration of outgoing President Joe Biden has recommended the transfer of prisoners to Guantanamo, at the end of his term on January 20.
On Monday, the US government released 11 Arrested in Yemen and he resettled them in Oman. Last month, two prisoners were transferred to Tunisia and Kenya.
'Crazy'
Daphne Eviatar, director of the Security with Human Rights (SWHR) program at Amnesty International USA, said the closure of the site is possible.
He said the remaining detainees could be transferred to other countries or to the US, where they would go through the American justice system.
Congress blocked in 2015 the transfer of Gitmo prisoners to US soil. But Eviatar believes the White House can work with lawmakers to end the ban, especially with the few prisoners left at the facility.
“It's a symbol of lawlessness, of Islamophobia,” Eviatar said of Guantanamo.
“It is a violation of human rights. For the United States, which has held so many people for so long without freedom, without trial or trial, it is dangerous. And what's happening today, 23 years later, is crazy. “
Barack Obama made closing the prison one of his top campaign promises in 2008, but after taking office, his plans faced strong Republican opposition. Towards the end of his second term, Obama complained upon failure to close this place at the beginning of his administration.
Of the 15 remaining Gitmo detainees, three are eligible for release, according to the Pentagon. Three others may go before Guantanamo's Periodic Review Board, which evaluates them whether arrested are safe to transfer.
“We still believe that President Biden can transfer more prisoners before he leaves,” Eviatar told Al Jazeera.
While President-elect Donald Trump has previously promised to keep the prison open, Eviatar said he could see the facility become dysfunctional.
Plea sales
But the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL), a Quaker rights group, stressed the need for Biden to act before Trump takes office.
“With President-elect Trump strongly opposed to closing Guantanamo, the need for President Biden to close the prison is more important than ever,” Devra Baxter, director of the military and human rights program at FCNL, said in a statement.
“Closing Guantanamo will happen only after they transfer the last three men who have not been charged with crimes and finish their complaints with their accusers.”
However, instead of ending the prisoners' complaints, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin wanted to terminate the agreement of the three 9/11 suspects, who were reached by the military judges to save the prisoners from the death penalty, in exchange for the charges.
Now the courts they are checking the validity of the treaties and Austin's veto against them.
Eviatar said Austin's push to settle the complaint amounts to political meddling.
“It's a very strange situation. I don't understand why the Biden administration, who says they want to close Guantanamo, would have asked the secretary of defense to come in and stop the plea agreements. There is no sense.”
Mr. Adayfi of CAGE said the dispute over plea agreements shows that there is no justice system in Guantanamo.
“It's a big joke,” he said. “There is no justice in Guantanamo. There is no law. Absolutely nothing. It is the biggest violation of human rights in the 21st century.”
Adayfi added that the US can have its own views on freedom, democracy and human rights or Guantanamo, but not both.
“I believe they have Guantanamo,” he said.