As part of Amnesty International’s Human Rights Week, I, along with Donnie Wieand later in the day, stood in a replica Guantanamo Bay Prison Cell, which was featured in last week’s CT. I would like to give information as to why this is a situation deserving (demanding, really) of attention and action.

Guantanamo Bay is a U.S. military camp in Cuba where designated “enemy combatants” captured as part of the “War on Terror” have been detained since December 2001. Held indefinitely without charge or trial, with limited or no access to a lawyer, without fundamental protections under international human rights and humanitarian law or the US Constitution, these people endure years of abuse, interrogation, and even torture, though they may be completely innocent (and quite have few have been found to be so, only after years at Guantanamo).

The Military Commissions Act and the Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedure are the guiding manuals for procedure there. They forbid the invocation of Geneva Convention standards and the leakage or these documents verifies that torture is used. Last month, President Bush vetoed the Intelligence Authorization bill which would have prevented the CIA and other U.S. agents from using waterboarding, sexual humiliation and other techniques that amount to torture and are used at Guantanamo Bay.

According to BBC News and many other sources, 53 percent of detainees have been determined to have not committed any hostile acts against the U.S. and 40 percent of detainees have no definitive connection with Al Qaeda, often the purported reason for their detainment. Four people have killed themselves while there, and there have been hundreds more attempted suicides. Of the nearly 800 people, oh, excuse me, “enemy combatants,” that have been detained there since 2001, including the 275 that remain now, one, just one, has been convicted of a crime.

While I do not presume to be the authority on all things Guantanamo Bay, I did know these facts and felt compelled to act upon them. For more information and opportunities for action regarding Guantanamo Bay, go to www.amnesty.org/torture and contact your representatives in Congress to let them know you do not agree with these practices.