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[Please welcome Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, and Jamil Dakwar, Director, Human Rights Program, American Civil Liberties Union]

Since January 2002, the US government has held more than 750 detainees in Guantánamo without fair trial or meaningful access to independent courts. Many detainees have been subjected to various forms of torture and abuse, including prolonged incommunicado detention, disappearances, beatings, death threats, painful stress positions, sexual humiliation, forced nudity, exposure to extreme heat and cold, denial of food and water, sensory deprivation such as hooding and blindfolding, sleep deprivation, water-boarding, the use of dogs to inspire fear, and racial and religious insults.

Today, 253 detainees classified as “alien unlawful enemy combatants” remain in US custody and only 23 have been charged before a flawed system of military commissions. The detainees are held in several detention camps under maximum security arrangements and almost complete isolation from the outside world. Since the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Rasul v. Rumsfeld which for the first time allowed attorneys limited access to the prisoners, a sea of information has been surfaced about the conditions and treatment of detainees at Guantanamo.

News reports, congressional investigations, lawyers' accounts, testimonies of former prisoners and official documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act litigation confirm that the abuse under the Bush administration's lawless detention policies was widespread and systemic.

Despite enormous restrictions and difficulties, a growing number of American lawyers – many of whom are doing it pro bono - and their interpreters are having access to the prisoners and are telling the stories that many American find it hard to believe that the U.S. government did in fact sanction abusive treatment and indefinite detention without trials of hundreds of men it deemed a threat to its national security. While some of the prisoners are considered dangerous and may have committed serious crimes against the United States, many of the detainees ended up in Guantanamo because they were in the wrong time and the wrong place and because someone had paid a high bounty for their capture. For more than six years they have yet to be given a chance to prove their innocence.

My Guantanamo Diary eloquently tells the human story that is often missing in political debates about Guantanamo. It includes compelling accounts of who the people are who have been detained for years without charge and were described as the “worst of the worst” by former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.

Despite the depressing situation, there is hope. First, the two major party presidential candidates have committed to closing Guantanamo. Second, last June the Supreme Court partially reinstituted rule of law in Guantanamo when it held that the U.S. Constitution applies to the detainees and restored their right to challenge their detention by bringing habeas corpus petition to a federal court. Third, just last week a federal court ordered the release of 17 detainees who were unlawfully held by the government even after they were cleared from any national security threat or charge since 2004. Finally, not only the international community is outraged by Guantanamo but, according to national polls, Americans are equally concerned and alarmed and strongly support closing it down.

Big questions however remain regarding the extent to which the newly elected president will deliver and act on their promises and finally bring an end to this shameful chapter in US history. In the meantime, personal accounts like My Guantanamo Diary will continue to offer a unique insight and shed more light on this dark spot in the hope that the public will be better informed about what is being done in their name.