January 11 marks 20 years because the opening of Guantanamo Bay, the notorious US jail situated in Cuba that critics say permits detainees to be held indefinitely exterior of regular legal guidelines or judicial oversight.
A product of the so-called “conflict on terror”, US President Joe Biden, like his predecessor Barack Obama, had mentioned he wished to shut the power. As an alternative, it will likely be expanded below the Biden administration with a brand new $4m courtroom to be constructed this 12 months, the New York Instances has reported.
In the course of the previous 20 years, 780 males have handed via the power, which was created within the wake of the September 11, 2001 assaults. Immediately, the power holds 39 males, in line with disclosures from the US authorities’s interagency Periodic Evaluation Board made in October.
“These are detentions which are inescapably certain up with a number of layers of illegal authorities conduct through the years – secret transfers, incommunicado interrogations, pressured feeding of starvation strikers, torture, enforced disappearance, and a whole lack of due course of,” mentioned Amnesty Worldwide’s Daphne Eviatar in an announcement.
Al Jazeera seems again at some key occasions over 20 years of controversy surrounding the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.
November 13, 2001: George W Bush, the US president, points a army order on the “Detention, Therapy and Trial of Sure Non-Residents, within the Battle In opposition to Terrorism”. The order authorises the US to carry international nationals in custody with out cost indefinitely, and prevents them from endeavor any authorized course of to problem their detention.
December 28, 2001: A memorandum from the US Justice Division to the Pentagon explains that prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay should not eligible for habeas corpus rights defending in opposition to arbitrary detention as a result of they don’t seem to be on US soil.
January 11, 2002: The primary 20 detainees arrive at Guantanamo Bay’s Camp X-Ray and are held outside in wire mesh cages.
January 18, 2002: The Worldwide Committee of the Purple Cross begins visiting prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. On the identical day, the Bush administration guidelines that Guantanamo prisoners don’t qualify as prisoners of conflict and should not entitled to the safety of the Geneva Conference.
January 27, 2002: Dick Cheney, the US vice chairman, describes the prisoners as “the worst of a really unhealthy lot,” including that: “They’re very harmful. They’re dedicated to killing hundreds of thousands of Individuals.”
February 21, 2002: A US federal choose dismisses a problem to the detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay filed by the Heart for Constitutional Rights, a authorized advocacy group.
March 21, 2002: The Bush administration pronounces new army tribunal rules.
April 5, 2002: Prisoner Yaser Esam Hamdi is transferred from Guantanamo to army custody on the mainland after it’s found he was born within the US state of Louisiana.
April 25, 2002: Development of the brand new Camp Delta, a everlasting jail facility with a capability of greater than 400, is accomplished.
August 1, 2002: A memorandum from the Division of Justice to then-White Home Counsel Alberto Gonzales advises that the president can authorise a variety of “enhanced interrogation methods” that may not quantity to torture and subsequently not be prosecutable below US legislation. Even when torture did happen, the memorandum argues, the idea of “necessity” or “self-defence” might be used to remove any prison legal responsibility.
September 15, 2002: One prisoner, Abdul Razaq, turns into the primary inmate to be repatriated to Afghanistan.
December 2, 2002: Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, approves a spread of interrogation methods to be used at Guantanamo together with sensory deprivation, isolation, stress positions and the usage of canines to “induce stress”.
March 11, 2003: A federal appeals court docket guidelines that Guantanamo detainees haven’t any authorized rights in america.
Might 2003: Guantanamo jail inhabitants reaches 680 detainees.
Might 9-14: Seventeen prisoners are repatriated to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia.
July 3, 2003: Bush designates six suspected members of al-Qaeda eligible for the primary army tribunals because the second world conflict.
October 9, 2003: The Purple Cross warns of the “deterioration within the psychological well being of numerous detainees”.
November 10, 2003: The US Supreme Court docket agrees to listen to appeals within the Guantanamo case over whether or not inmates have a proper to entry civilian courts to problem their indefinite detention.
December 3, 2003: David Hicks turns into the primary Guantanamo prisoner to be given a lawyer.
January 12, 2004: 5 army attorneys assigned to defend detainees say they consider that a few of the guidelines drawn up for the army tribunals are unconstitutional.
February 23, 2004: The Bush administration brings the primary prices in opposition to detainees. Ali Hamza al-Bahlul from Yemen and Ibrahim al-Qosi from Sudan are charged with conspiracy to commit conflict crimes.
June 28, 2004: The Supreme Court docket guidelines that the federal courts have the authority to determine whether or not non-US residents detained in Guantanamo Bay are wrongfully imprisoned, and that the chief department doesn’t have the facility to carry indefinitely a US citizen with out fundamental due course of protections enforceable via judicial evaluate.
July 7, 2004: The Pentagon launches army panels, referred to as Combatant Standing Evaluation Tribunals or CSRTs, to find out the “enemy combatant” standing of every prisoner.
August 13, 2004: Evaluation tribunals start.
October 27, 2004: 4 former British detainees launch authorized motion in opposition to the US authorities. Within the first case of its variety, Rasul, Iqbal, Ahmed and al Harith every demand $9m as compensation for alleged torture and different human rights violations. The Pentagon declares that the boys should not entitled to a payout as a result of they had been captured “in fight”.
November 8, 2004: US District Choose James Robertson orders a halt to the army commissions, saying they’re illegal and can’t proceed of their present type.
March 29, 2005: The CSRT course of is accomplished. Of the 558 detainees assessed, 38 had been judged as “not enemy combatants” and had been made eligible for launch.
April 19, 2005: The Related Press launches authorized motion in opposition to the US Division of Protection in an try to drive the discharge of transcripts and different paperwork associated to Guantanamo army hearings.
Might 20, 2005: The Related Press lawsuit ends in the discharge of practically 2,000 pages of paperwork, though detainees’ names and nationalities blacked out. The paperwork embody excerpts from prisoners’ testimonies.
July 15, 2005: Choose Robertson’s order to halt army commissions is overturned by the US Court docket of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit Court docket.
August 29, 2005: US District Choose Jed Rakoff orders the federal government to ask every prisoner whether or not they need private data that might be used to establish them to be launched to the Related Press. Of 317 detainees who acquired the shape, 63 mentioned sure, 17 mentioned no, 35 returned the shape with out answering and 202 didn’t return the shape.
November 10, 2005: The US Senate approves an modification that continues to withhold the fitting for prisoners to file habeas corpus petitions.
December 30, 2005: The Detainee Therapy Act comes into legislation. The Act bans the usage of merciless, inhuman or degrading therapy of prisoners, however severely curtails their proper to problem their detention.
February 15, 2006: UN report recommends closure of Guantanamo.
February 23, 2006: The Pentagon is ordered to launch the identities of lots of of Guantanamo prisoners to the Related Press on account of its Freedom of Data Act lawsuit.
March 28, 2006: The US Supreme Court docket hears oral arguments in Hamdan v Rumsfeld, a case difficult the legality of detentions at Guantanamo Bay below the Geneva Conference on the legal guidelines of conflict and the US Army Code of Uniform Justice.
April 20, 2006: The Division of Protection releases the names of 558 individuals who have been held at Guantanamo Bay.
Might 2006: Repatriations for detainees proceed for international locations in Europe, the Center East, Asia and Africa. Two Guantanamo detainees try suicide and a riot breaks out in response to the occasion.
June 10, 2006: Saudi Arabian nationals Mani Shaman Turki al-Habardi al-Utaybi and Yasser Talal al-Zahrani, and Ali Abdullah Ahmed of Yemen, die by obvious suicide.
June 29, 2006: The Supreme Court docket guidelines that the Bush administration’s army commissions violate the legal guidelines of conflict and worldwide conventions. The court docket additionally reiterates that detainees may pursue circumstances in civilian courts.
July 12, 2006: Bush repeals his February 2002 directive and accepts that the Geneva Conventions apply to detainees.
September 6, 2006: Fourteen “excessive worth” detainees are transferred to Guantanamo from secret websites.
September 26, 2006: The Purple Cross sends a delegation to Guantanamo to satisfy with the 14 newly transferred prisoners.
October 17, 2006: President Bush indicators the Army Commissions Act into legislation. The Act strips US courts of jurisdiction to listen to habeas corpus appeals from any international nationwide held as an “enemy combatant” in US custody anyplace on this planet. It additionally narrows the scope of the Battle Crimes Act, by not expressly criminalising Frequent Article 3’s prohibition on unfair trials or “outrages upon private dignity, specifically, humiliating and degrading therapy”. The Act will permit the CIA’s secret detention programme to proceed.
March 18, 2007: Two UK residents, Ahmed Rashidi and Ahmed Belbacha are cleared by a Pentagon tribunal for launch from the jail however face indefinite detention as a result of the UK refuses to authorise their launch.
March 26, 2007: Abdul Malik Abdul-Jabbar, a citizen of Kenya, is transferred to Guantanamo Bay, marking the primary time since September 2004 {that a} detainee has been straight transferred to Guantanamo. Repatriations of detainees to different international locations proceed all year long.
Might 20, 2008: Murat Kurnaz turns into the primary ex-Guantanamo detainee to testify earlier than the US Congress, which he does from Germany through videolink.
June 12, 2008: America Supreme Court docket guidelines on Boumediene v Bush and Al Odah v United States that detainees at Guantanamo Bay ought to have a proper to problem their detention in US Federal Courts via habeas corpus petitions.
November 16, 2008: Barack Obama, then a candidate for US president, declares his intention to shut Guantanamo.
January 14, 2009: A public assertion admitting {that a} detainee was tortured is launched for the primary time by a senior Bush administration official chargeable for reviewing practices at Guantanamo Bay. The assertion admitted that the therapy of a Saudi nationwide met the authorized definition of torture.
January 22, 2009: President Obama points three govt orders: one ordering the closure of the jail at Guantanamo Bay in a single 12 months, one other banning the usage of controversial CIA interrogation methods, and a 3rd ordering a evaluate of detention coverage choices.
Might 15, 2009: Inmate Lakhdar Boumediene is transferred to France. He had been held since 2002 and had been utilized by attorneys to win the landmark Supreme Court docket case which dominated detainees at Guantanamo Bay had the fitting to habeas corpus. In the meantime, President Obama pronounces he’ll proceed with the much-criticised system of army tribunals that President Bush created to attempt terrorism suspects, albeit in a distinct type.
June 9, 2009: The primary detainee, Ahmed Ghailani, who just isn’t an American citizen is introduced from Guantanamo Bay to the US mainland to face a federal trial. He’s ultimately given a life sentence for his function in bombing US embassies.
June 11, 2009: Mohammed el Gharani, the youngest prisoner to be held in Guantanamo Bay, is launched. He was 14 when he was arrested in Pakistan in 2001.
November 2009: Obama admits a deliberate deadline for closing the power by January 2010 will probably be missed.
January 22, 2010: The US Justice Division determines that almost 50 of the remaining 196 detainees in Guantanamo Bay needs to be held indefinitely with out prices or trial. A hand filled with detainees face army tribunals via the remainder of the 12 months.
March 7, 2011: Obama indicators an govt order to renew army trials at Guantanamo Bay, formally establishing a system to carry some detainees indefinitely. The order is a decisive break from one in every of his marketing campaign guarantees.
April 4, 2011: Legal professional Basic Eric Holder pronounces a choice to prosecute 5 males accused of plotting the September 11, 2001 assaults earlier than a army fee at Guantanamo Bay. “The Obama administration has squandered a key alternative to reject the illegal counterterrorism insurance policies of the previous,” Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, mentioned on the time.
April 24, 2011: WikiLeaks releases categorized US army recordsdata, exhibiting that Guantanamo Bay held greater than 150 harmless males for years. By this time, 604 inmates have been transferred out of the jail whereas 172 stay detained there.
Might 5, 2012: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an alleged mastermind of the September 11 assaults and 4 different accused co-conspirators, are formally charged at a army tribunal in Guantanamo Bay. They appeared in public for the primary time in additional than three years.
March 12, 2013: Inmates launch starvation strikes over what they are saying are deteriorating circumstances. A spokesperson for the jail advised Al Jazeera on the time that, of the 166 prisoners, seven had been on starvation strike.
July 7, 2013: One of many starvation strikers, Yemeni nationwide Moath al-Alwi, pens an opinion piece for Al Jazeera on why he’s refusing meals.
December 27, 2013: Obama urges lawmakers within the US to go additional in stress-free restrictions on transferring Guantanamo detainees to the custody of international governments. Obama additionally mentioned that Congress retained rules that stop the switch of prisoners to US soil, the place they might be tried in federal court docket.
July 5, 2014: Attorneys for 2 Guantanamo Bay detainees file motions asking a US court docket to dam officers from stopping inmates from collaborating in communal prayers through the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The attorneys argue that the detainees’ rights are protected below the Non secular Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA).
February 18, 2015: The primary terrorism conviction earlier than a US army court docket at Guantanamo Bay was reversed. Australian David Hicks, who had pleaded responsible to offering materials help to terrorism, had his conviction tossed by a US army appeals court docket.
September 26, 2015: US officers mentioned Shaker Aamer, the final British resident held in Guantanamo Bay, can be launched. Saudi-born Aamer had been held for 14 years and was launched following a plea from the UK prime minister.
February 23, 2016: Obama proposes a “as soon as and for all” plan to shut the army jail at Guantanamo Bay and switch remaining detainees to a facility within the US. The plan was not accepted by different lawmakers and was finally unsuccessful.
April 16, 2016: The US transfers 9 Yemeni males to Saudi Arabia from Guantanamo, together with an inmate who had been on starvation strike. The switch marked the biggest group of prisoners shipped out of the naval base since Obama rolled out his plan to close the centre earlier than he leaves workplace.
August 16, 2016: Fifteen Guantanamo Bay prisoners are transferred to the United Arab Emirates, leaving 61 detainees on the jail.
January 20, 2017: Donald Trump is inaugurated as president of america. On the marketing campaign path, he had pledged to “load it (Guantanamo) up with some unhealthy dudes”. Fewer than 50 detainees remained within the jail when Trump took workplace.
January 30, 2018: Trump indicators an govt order to maintain Guantanamo jail open. In his state of the union speech, Trump mentioned he anticipated that “in lots of circumstances” captured terrorists can be despatched to the jail.
April 27, 2019: The navy commander of the duty drive that runs the Guantanamo Bay jail, Rear Admiral John Ring, is fired for a “lack of confidence in his means to command”.
January 20, 2020: Joe Biden, who had signalled his want to shut Guantanamo, is inaugurated as US president.
January 22, 2020: One of many males credited with creating the CIA’s torture programme testifies at Guantanamo Bay as a part of a pretrial listening to for 5 males charged over the September 11 assaults. Jim Mitchell defended his function within the programme as a matter of ethical braveness.
June 21, 2021: Former President Trump thought of sending US residents contaminated with the coronavirus to Guantanamo Bay, in line with a brand new ebook. “Don’t now we have an island that we personal?” Trump requested workers within the State of affairs Room in February 2020, the Washington Put up reported in June 2021. “What about Guantanamo?”
September 10, 2021: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 11 assaults, together with 4 co-defendants appeared in a army courtroom at Guantanamo Bay for the primary time because the coronavirus pandemic started. Mustafa Ahmed al-Hawsawi, Ramzi bin al-Shibh, Walid bin Attash, and Abd al-Aziz Ali and Mohammed face the demise penalty in a trial by a army tribunal at Guantanamo Bay that has been bogged in course of.
October 29, 2021: A detainee held at Guantanamo Bay affords the primary public account in a US court docket of torture at a CIA clandestine facility. Majid Khan, a former resident of a Baltimore suburb, detailed being waterboarded, bodily and sexually abused, and struggling different types of torment at a CIA “black web site”.
December 27, 2021: Biden indicators a $770 billion army spending invoice, however his White Home criticises provisions within the laws barring the usage of funds to switch Guantanamo Bay detainees to international international locations or into the US until sure circumstances are met. Biden has mentioned he hopes to shut the jail earlier than his tenure is up however the federal authorities remains to be barred by legislation from transferring inmates to prisons on the US mainland.
January 11, 2022: Guantanamo Bay acquired its first inmates 20 years in the past at present.