Guantanamo Bay is now infamous for detaining of so-called Muslim terrorists after the 9/11 attacks, most of whom have not been charged with any crime. Several people faced injustice detainment and severe torture in these facilities.

 

Guantanamo Bay is a detention center and was first established December 10, 1903 in Cuba. The land was obtained as US spoil from its intervention in the Cuban war for independence in 1898 and has since served as a U.S naval base.. After 9/11 the Bush administration transformed the Bay into a prison and detained over 200 people most of whom were never charged with a crime. Even after Obama’s executive order of 2009 to close the detention center “still 40 people are detained there with the vast majority never charged with a crime”. President Trump unfortunately did not make the situation any better since he ordered that the facility remain open indefinitely.   
 

Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was held in Guantanamo, wrote a famous Guantanamo Diary that will help understand the severity of the situation. He writes that his cell will often be cooled down to the point where he is shaking. He would go through 70 days of no sleep and interrogation despite the fact that there is no evidence for his charge. He was in Guantanamo for more than 14 years separated from his family in Mauritania. The torture was also not just limited to physical torture and force feeding but also psychological torture where they would threaten to torture Mohamedou’s Mom if he does not confess.  

 

Mouhamedou’s writing is symbolic in that it “resembles...a body of American literature whose testimonies represent the clearest arguments against human bondage and systems of brutality that this country has ever produced” and he “counters the dehumanizing rhetoric of the war on terror”. The redactions that the government made on his diary just serves to show that the government is trying to hide the cruel acts of violence perpetrated on the detainees of Guantanamo Bay.

 

As result of the atrocities in Guantanamo Bay, several attempts have been taken to try to close the detention center. One prominent such event is the boycott of the White House Iftar during the Obama administration in 2014. The boycott was an attempt to get the government and the public attention of the pressing issue. The boycott was part of a debate among Muslims in America on how to best address this problem. One one side people thought that since the seats of the Iftar will be filled anyway it would be best to go and address the problem by speaking directly to government officials. On other hand, people believed that the iftar was just for show and that boycotting the spectacle would bring greater public attention to the issue leading to greater public pressure on government officials.  

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The detention of Muslims at Guantanamo Bay and the controversies it provokes within Muslim communities in the United States demonstrate the very complex and very dangerous consequences of racialization.

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Sources

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5 things to know about Guantanamo Bay on its 115th birthday by Jana Lipman

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Guantanamo Diary, Mohamedou Ould Slahi

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Project Muse, Zeinab Mcheimech  

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Solidarity with Guantanamo Bay & Palestine: An Open Letter Calling for the Boycott of the

White House Iftar