One year ago we were celebrating.
When President Obama put pen to paper on the closure of Guantanamo Bay we thought we'd finally put an end to seven disgraceful years of failed detention policies. Instead, a year later, our disappointment only deepens as we watch Obama's own deadline to close the prison pass us by.
Now more than ever, his administration needs the world's action to carry through this promise: Click http://www.amnesty.org.au/action/action/22417/?utm_medium=email&utm_sour... to reaffirm your support for the closure of Guantanamo, and the resettlement of the people still held there.
It's a complicated, awful problem. It's not a case of decision-makers refusing to do the right thing; but committed people in the Obama administration wrestling with real questions about safety and a concerned public. After evidence linked the Christmas Day bomb plot to Yemen, President Obama agreed to indefinitely detain all Yemenis in Guantanamo, including those previously cleared for release.
Once again, we're making the false choice between feeling safer and doing what's right. Help send the message that we're better than that; and our bedrock values and respect for human rights must no longer remain a casualty of war.
In all this legal, moral and security uncertainty we need to return to our core values. 198 people remain in Guantanamo, and the rest of the world - including Australia - can and should help to close the prison by accepting detainees who have been cleared, but who cannot be returned home for fear of torture. Only in this way can we, as citizens of the global human rights community, grease the wheels of change.
Join our call for Australia to accept detainees who have been screened and cleared- and we'll hand deliver your message to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
The world has not forgotten about Guantanamo. As Amnesty International supporters, we don't believe in locking people up and throwing away the key. We no longer wish to sustain a legal system where people are punished first, and tried later. We are stronger than that. We know better than that. And we've come too far to fall back on failed policies of the past: let's not stop now.
Thanks for standing up,
Katie Wood
Torture and Terror Campaign
Amnesty International Australia
PS. Let's not forget fellow Australian David Hicks: that it was lack of political will, not a threat to national security, that kept him imprisoned in Guantanamo for so long without a trial. Now there are many others who face a similar fate, and again it requires us summoning our own courage to compel our political leaders to find a way forward.
Sign our petition to close Guantanamo
