GUANTANAMO REMEMBERED: 10 YEARS

January 2002. I was at the mere age of 10, learning the rights and wrongs of life. Having fun with friends seemed like the most important thing and was probably the main reason for going to school. Life passed by in complete and utter innocence, without any stress and worries of the world. While I was living this innocent life amongst loving family and friends; far in the US, a facility was established by the Bush Administration to hold prisoners from the invasion in Afghanistan and later Iraq.

January 2007, five years on. I was 15 and amidst the big crowds of secondary school. Life had changed from utter ignorance to having some responsibilities, with pressure to achieve good GCSE grades and secure my future. Education was the biggest priority and life still seemed blissful with no worries, other than doing well at school. While I was living a fun filled life, detainees in Guantanamo Bay were held captive for being associated with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, many with no evidence just suspicion of the US government.

January 2012, another five years have passed. From a young and naive 15 year old girl, I have matured into a 20 year old adult. An excitement filled life has become filled with stress, worry and a heavy work load. Each day the balance between everything that life throws at us has to be found; but yet again, life has been nothing but kind.

Yet again, life has given me and us- the British, the freedom to express our opinions, our voices and our emotions. We have been blessed to explore the surroundings around us without any fear, without any hesitation and most importantly we can live life the way we wish to.

But what about the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay? Are they able to do the same? Do they have the same amount of freedom as people like us? These questions race through the minds of many people, but the real answers are only known by those who have experienced life in Guantanamo Bay.

Guantanamo Bay; a notorious detention camp established in 2002, observed its ten long years of existence this January. The camp started off with 779 detainees. 

Up to 17 of those detainees were under 18 years old and four of them were still held at the camp at the end of 2006, barely reaching the age of 22. More than 40 suicide attempts have been reported, three of which were successful by the end of June 2006. Today, there still remain 171 detainees who are yet to be convicted of the crimes they are accused of, but not proven to have committed. Life in Guantanamo Bay could not even be imagined by people like us, who are so consumed by readily available worldly goods, that we forget we have a responsibility towards those who can only be free to live their life with our support. 

Since its opening, up to 200 detainees have protested against the immense torture inflicted at the camp by going on hunger strikes; many of these detainees have been force fed to be kept alive. Mr Aamer, the last UK detainee from South London, has spent the last ten years locked up in the camp. Speaking for the first time, through his letters, Mr Aamer has expressed his emotions about the actions of the captors by stating ‘Please torture me in the old way... Here they destroy people mentally and physically without leaving marks.’ His letters have raised increased fear amongst his friends and family, indicating the poor health that the detainee has been battling with for the past ten years. Is this an act of humanity? Is this how people, young or old, despite not being convicted of any crime deserve to be treated? 

Life in the past ten years has changed dramatically for an average person like myself, but what about the people like Mr Aamer? What is it that they have done to deserve to be treated worse than animals? In 2008, during his Presidential campaign, Barack Obama used the phrase “sad chapter in American history” to describe Guantanamo Bay and promised to close down the prison camp in 2009. Two years on and the President has not acted upon such a promise. He is continuing to let people in the camp- people like you and me, lose their sanity because of unending detention and torture.

The horrible and tormented life of those detainees needs to be put an end to with their release, and with that I leave you with a question that every human being should ask themselves: what could I do to put an end to the misery of all those that have been suffering for the past ten mind numbing years?

By Nowrin Irna