Thursday, January 11, 2007

UN Chief: Close GITMO

UNITED NATIONS ( Reuters) - New U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon believes the U.S. prison at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay should be shut down, he said on Thursday.

"Like my predecessor, I believe that the prison at Guantanamo should be closed," Ban told a news conference. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who stepped down on December 31, had also called for the facility to be closed.

More than 770 captives have been held there since [the prison was opened 5 years ago], of whom only 10 have been charged with crimes.
 
Many of those 770 have been detained and released.  Some of them have filed lawsuits against the US.  The Pilgrim hopes those suits go forward so that Americans can be made more fully aware of the abuses that have taken place there, and more fully aware of the damage done to the US as a traditional moral leader in the area of human rights.
 
If the perpetrators of torture are arrested, tried, and punished, then some of the leadership of America can perhaps be restored. 
 
And perhaps people will think more carefully before following their leader blindly down the path of immorality.
 
GP

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