Interesting and informative article on the American prison system. As of December 31, 2006, American prisons held 2,258,983 inmates in prisons. In 2005, about 1 out of every 136 U.S. residents was incarcerated either in prison or jail. Much of this is because of the ‘war on drugs’.
A recent poll showed that 68 percent of Americans said water-boarding was torture. And that result is from CNN, a particularly right wing corporation. Imagine all the people who do not participate in CNN surveys. I expect the result would be even higher than 68 percent in that case.
The senate have recently passed legislation to ban water-boarding, regardless of Bush saying he will veto the vote, on his usual, pathetic, lazy stance that it will encourage ‘terrorism’. Yes, because kidnapping, arresting, then illegally torturing foreigners (and Americans) without fair trials is keeping terrorism down. Well done Bush, you ignorant liar.
Bush also said that they are placing to much trust in the intelligence ‘community’, by placing their trust into the hands of left-wingers. Of course! How silly and solipsistic it is to trust people who believe in equal rights, habeas corpus, and the constitution…
Another recent line of Bush is:
‘The American people will find it baffling that on a day that House leaders are trying to put off passing critical legislation to keep us safer from the threat of foreign terrorists overseas, they are spending scarce time to become the first congress in history to bring contempt charges against a president’s chief of staff and lawyer’
No, Bush, the American people will finding baffling in the future, to think that someone as authoritarian and evil as you could get into power. That’s the confusing part.
57 percent of likely voters also oppose telecom immunity. In a real democracy, the majority call goes through. But the USA is not under a democracy. It is under despotism.
I can’t wait for Bush to get out of power. The world is getting tired of his ridiculous, irrational decisions and comments. Obama will be a breath of fresh air for the world if he comes into presidency, because the statue of liberty must be pretty depressed right now.
Why does Guantanamo bay prison still exist?
Guantanamo bay, as of August 9 2007, holds 355 people. Most, if not all, are probably innocent. None have had a fair trial, all the inmates are detained without ever seeing a judge or a jury. There are even children there. It is unconstitutional. It is illegal. Habeas Corpus does not exist in Guantanamo bay detention center.
Conditions are so bad that 4 people have committed suicide, many self harm and there have reportedly been hundreds of suicide attempts. The Bush administration is ignoring international law and violating the human rights of all the inmates, and is completely going against the Geneva conventions.
Guantanamo is a ‘monstrous failure of justice’. It is not right for people to be tortured at all, but when people are tortured without being given a reason and without going before a court, it is truly sickening that the way these people are being treated.
What would you do if you saw someone who was chained to the floor, with no chair, water or food and deprived of sleep, and these people are very likely innocent. They have been ripped from their homes and put into prison without having a trial, let alone a fair one.
It is an outrage that Guantanamo bay detention center exists. It is an outrage towards human rights, justice and liberty. It is an insult to all things good and to democracy. It is as unacceptable today as it has ever been. Torturing innocent people is not going to stop terrorism – it is going to fuel it. It is not going to protect national security, it is going to endanger it. There is no excuse for what is happening at Guantanamo. It is unjustifiable. It has made no-one safer. It is a shameful act of terror towards humanity.
Put simply, Guantanamo bay is a torture camp. In it’s six years of existence, it remains a torture camp.
Information gained by torture is unreliable. One British detainee confessed to being in a video with Osama Bin Laden, when in fact at the time the video was filmed, he was working at a store in the midlands.
For the families of the detainees, some of them don’t even know where their children are. They have never been informed. These parents often do not know that their child has been scooped up and dumped unlawfully in a detention center, and been exposed to horrific abuse, and terrible conditions.
However, Guantanamo is a mere distraction to the 13,600 prisoners, whose names aren’t even known, in secret American prisons all over the world. The ten British Guantanamo prisoners there in 2007 were all promised legal aid by the British government, but none was ever given. The British government is doing nothing to stop this abomination. Nothing.
How can we turn a blind eye to this monstrosity, to this evil prison, and other evil prisons supporting, run even, by so-called democracies like the UK and America, around the world? How can we be living in democracies if our countries don’t even adhere to international law or the Declaration of Human Rights? If this is a democracy, then I’d hate to live under a dictatorship.
Guantanamo is driving inmates into madness, due to psychological and physical abuse. And it is driving the world into madness.
Guantanamo, and all other illegal prisons, must be shut down, and the inmates must finally get fair trials. Let justice come at last.
We want justice; We want Guantanamo prison shut down.
