THE account of Saifullah Paracha, a septuagenarian prisoner of Guantánamo Bay, published recently in this paper is truly harrowing. Mr Paracha, who arrived at the infamous American gulag located in Cuba in 2004, has never been charged with a crime. Moreover, the description of one of his hearings, which was held in the US, and which he was briefly allowed to listen to via an audio link, is akin to “a George Orwell novel”, as he puts it. Besides, the detainee says he was tortured and abused by the Americans while incarcerated at Bagram, another American gulag, in Afghanistan. These aren’t of course the first revelations of abuse linked to Guantánamo and other detention centres that acquired a notorious reputation in the aftermath of 9/11. Sadly, in these dark spaces away from the public eye, the high principles that the US and other Western states claim to respect appear to be held in abeyance.

While the law must be firm against militants and those involved in terrorism, clearly what goes on in Guantánamo and other similar facilities flies in the face of due process and the rule of law. If states use extrajudicial methods to counter terrorism, then they sacrifice the moral high ground. Soon after Barack Obama entered the White House in 2009, he had promised to close Guantánamo “... no later than one year from the date of this order”. Today, in the third month of 2020, this presidential order is dead and buried. Donald Trump appeared ambiguous when questioned about the facility, but has questioned the costs of operating it. The fact is that holding prisoners without charge, and worse physically and mentally torturing them, is a blot on the image of a nation that claims to offer “liberty and justice for all”. Those accused of militancy must be tried and punished if found guilty through a transparent legal process. And the sooner ‘black sites’ such as Guantánamo are shuttered, the better it will be.

Published in Dawn, March 15th, 2020