GITMO IN PHOTOS: A decade of American 'hell' on earth

Despite widespread efforts to shut it down, Guantanamo Bay, the infamous extrajudicial detainment and interrogation facility of the United States located in Cuba, completes a decade of existence on Wednesday.

The facility was established in 2002 by the George W Bush administration to hold detainees from the war in Afghanistan and later Iraq.

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It is operated by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo of the United States government in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which is on the shore of Guantanamo Bay. The detainment areas consist of three camps: Camp Delta (which includes Camp Echo), Camp Iguana, and Camp X-Ray, the last of which has been closed.

During the 2008 US presidential campaign, Barack Obama described Guantanamo Bay as a 'sad chapter in American history,' but even his promises to shut down the controversial facility are yet to transform to reality.

It is notorious for unbelievable torture techniques. In 'Gitmo,' many detainees have alleged that prison authorities have exhorted to techniques like sleep deprivation, beatings, locking in confined cold cells, forcible drugging, on convicts, which often led to suicide attempts. Human rights group have argued that indefinite detention itself constitutes torture.

After the US Department of Justice advised that the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp could be considered outside US legal jurisdiction, the first 20 captives arrived at Guantanamo on January 11, 2002.

The Bush administration asserted that detainees were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions, stating that detainees were not prisoners of war and did not enjoy necessary safeguards for men/women in uniform.

However, the US Supreme Court ruled in 2006 that they were entitled to the minimal protections listed under Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

In 2009, Susan J Crowford, an officer in Bush administration, admitted that torture was prevalent in Gitmo.

On January 22, 2009, the White House announced that President Barack Obama had signed an order to suspend the proceedings of the Guantanamo military commission for 120 days and that the detention facility would be shut down within the year.

On January 29, 2009, a military judge at Guantanamo rejected the White House request in the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, creating an unexpected challenge for the administration as it reviews how America puts Guantanamo detainees on trial.

On May 20, 2009, the United States Senate passed an amendment to the Supplemental Appropriations Act of 2009 to block funds needed for the transfer or release of prisoners held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. As of January 2012, 171 detainees remain at Guantanamo.

The final report of the Guantanamo Review Task Force dated January 22, 2010 published the results for the 240 detainees subject to the review: 36 were the subject of active cases or investigations; 30 detainees from Yemen were designated for 'conditional detention' due to the security environment in Yemen; 126 detainees were approved for transfer; 48 detainees were determined 'too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution'.

In 2011, President Obama signed the 2011 Defense Authorization Bill which contains provisions preventing the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to the mainland or to other foreign countries, and thus effectively stops the closure of the detention facility.

After the United Nations called unsuccessfully for the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to be closed, one judge observed, "America's idea of what is torture ... does not appear to coincide with that of most civilised nations."

In April 2011, whistleblower website Wikileaks began publishing 779 secret files relating to prisoners in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

Many detainees, especially Muslims, have alleged ongoing torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging and religious persecution being committed by the US forces at Guantanamo Bay.

Former Guantanamo detainee Mehdi Ghezali was freed without charge on July 9, 2004, after two and a half years internment. Ghezali claimed that he was the victim of repeated torture.

Omar Deghayes, a Libyan citizen and British resident captured in Pakistan, alleged he was blinded by pepper spray during his detention.

Juma Al Dossary, a Bahrainian detainee, claimed he was interrogated hundreds of times, beaten, tortured with broken glass, barbed wire, burning cigarettes, and sexual assaults.

Many former detainees have also alleged forced feeding during hunger strikes for better living conditions. It is also worthy to note that by 2008, there were at least four official suicides and hundreds of suicide attempts at the facility.

On June 10, 2006, three detainees were found dead, who, according to the Pentagon, "killed themselves in an apparent suicide pact."

Then prison commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris claimed this was not an act of desperation, despite prisoners' pleas to the contrary, but rather "an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us."

At the time, human rights groups called for an independent public inquiry into the deaths.Amnesty International said the apparent suicides "are the tragic results of years of arbitrary and indefinite detention" and called the prison "an indictment" of the George Bush administration's human rights record.

Saudi Arabia's state-sponsored Saudi Human Rights group also blamed the US for the deaths. "There are no independent monitors at the detention camp so it is easy to pin the crime on the prisoners... it's possible they were tortured," said the group's deputy director in a statement.

In an online New York Times Op Ed called "Guantanamo Forever?", published on December 12, 2011 by retired United States Marine Corps Generals Charles C Krulak and Joseph P. Hoar, both generals said that a provision of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 "would further extend a ban on transfers from Guantanamo, ensuring that this morally and financially expensive symbol of detainee abuse will remain open well into the future.

"Not only would this bolster Al Qaeda's recruiting efforts, it also would make it nearly impossible to transfer 88 men (of the 171 held there) who have been cleared for release," the report added.

Both Generals concluded their assessment by saying that "We should be moving to shut Guantanamo, not extend it."

As such, even after a decade of 'torture', this American 'hell' gives no concrete signal of fading into oblivion.

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