Word: guant
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...incoming Obama Administration says it wants to shut down the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay. But even if Guantánamo closes, the controversial U.S. practice of jailing suspected al-Qaeda militants and other terrorists indefinitely won't end, because such detentions continue on an even greater scale at the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan, 40 miles north of Kabul. Approximately 250 detainees are currently being held at Guantánamo; an estimated 670 are locked up under similar conditions at Bagram...
...Amnesty International hailed the Portuguese offer as an important step forward in Europe's relationship with the U.S. on human rights. "It helps to end the ordeal of those unlawfully held, but also the international human rights scandal that is Guantánamo," says Daniel Gorevan, who heads Amnesty's Counter Terror with Justice campaign. "The E.U. can now exert a really positive influence as the new Administration tries to clear up the mess not just of Guantánamo but of the other related issues like torture and rendition...
...Although President George W. Bush has repeatedly said he wants to shut the Guantánamo camp, he reportedly turned down a proposal by Defense Secretary Robert Gates to bring the detainees to the U.S. And five years of cajoling European nations to take in detainees has had little success - only Albania had responded until now, accepting five Muslim Uighurs from China's Xinjiang region...
...suddenly step forward? "This new European interest is undoubtedly motivated by a desire to work closely with the new Obama Administration," says State Department legal adviser John Bellinger. "It's a courageous step by the Portuguese, however. It's a recognition that governments cannot complain year after year that Guantánamo must close yet not be part of the international solution...
...Europe's eagerness to clean the slate and forge a different relationship," he says. But the price of European cooperation will be the expectation that from now on the U.S. fight terrorism on the basis of international rules and norms rather than on the unilateral improvisations that created the Guantánamo problem in the first place...