One of the most controversial parts of U.S. President Barack Obama’s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison is where to transfer detainees. There’s a lively debate domestically regarding possibly sending detainees to U.S. supermax jails. Other countries have been mixed as to whether or not to accept prisoners from Guantanamo.Yesterday, Canada’s government opposed transferring any Guantanamo detainees including seventeen Chinese Muslims the White House asked Canada to take in. "There really is no rationale for accepting them into the country" said Kory Teneycke- spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper- who also admitted that Ottawa had previously rejected similar requests by the Bush administration.
Teneycke also mentioned that Canadian-born inmate Omar Khadr will not be taken by his home country. “He is facing serious charges and is in the middle of a judicial process to determine his guilt or innocence…We will wait for that process to run its course.”
In the meantime, European Union (EU) states agreed on several conditions where individual countries can take in detainees. "It is materialized by a system of information-sharing, politically confirmed at the highest level” added EU Counterterrorism Coordinator Gilles de Kerchove on the guidelines agreed upon during a meeting of the bloc’s interior ministers.
Despite the agreement, some EU countries like Germany are reluctant to house detainees:
“What we want to know, besides much more information about their past, is why the former inmates will not settle in the U.S. and why they cannot return home,” said (German interior minister Uwe) Schünemann. Until then, he said, Germany will not be prepared to accept any former detainees.Image- AP (“In this photo, reviewed by the U.S. military, a guard stand outside the gate of Camp Iguana detention facility, which houses the Chinese Uighur Guantanamo detainees, who are cleared for release but with no country to go to, at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba, Monday, June 1, 2009. (AP Photo/Brennan Linsley, Pool)”)
Online Sources- Guardian UK, Reuters, New York Times, AHN, UPI, The Latin Americanist, MSNBC
1 comment:
I don't understand why doesn't the US take them all. I mean they are their prisoners, they put them in Guantanamo bay and it's their prison so why close it and get rid of all the prisoners by sending them all over the world...sounds like a great idea :( ...I'm proud of Canada standing up to the US and saying no to this nonsense.
Take care, Elli
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