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PRESSURE ON OBAMA
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Rights Groups Urge Closure of Guantanamo
The future of the military prison at Guantanamo Bay barely featured in the campaign, but with the election over, advocacy groups are stepping up calls for the next administration -- with the assistance of U.S. allies -- to shutter the controversial facility immediately.
The ACLU took out a full-page ad in the New York Times yesterday urging President-elect Barack Obama to restore "America's moral leadership in the world" on the first day of his administration by ordering the closure of the prison in Cuba, where about 255 detainees are being held. The group also said in a news release that there is "no reason that Guantanamo detainees cannot be prosecuted in traditional U.S. criminal courts or military courts governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice."
The Obama transition team yesterday denied news reports that it was considering a new national security court to handle some detainees -- and future captures -- who might be difficult to prosecute in federal court but who are regarded as too dangerous to release. The size, and even the existence, of a "not prosecutable but dangerous" group has been at the heart of an escalating debate about the next administration's detention policy.
"There is absolutely no truth to reports that a decision has been made about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled," said Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser for the transition team, in a statement.
Five human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, also called on European governments to take in detainees who have not been charged with crimes but cannot be repatriated because of the fear that they will be tortured if sent home. Any European largess would probably only follow a decision by the Obama administration to resettle a small group of detainees in the United States, advocates said.
-- Peter Finn
