Sun 17 January 2021:
At a press conference on Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova announced that Moscow hopes that the US will keep its promise and close Guantanamo Bay.
“We hope that the new US administration will keep Washington’s promise and close the Guantanamo prison without delay, and provide its inmates with access to fair, independent and unbiased administration of justice,” she stated.
“We [Russia] hope that the United States will conduct a necessary investigation and bring all the perpetrators, including those in the highest government positions, to justice for authorizing, conniving and engaging in secret detentions, arbitrary arrests of civilians, torture, abuse and the use of harsh interrogation tactics, even under the pretext of combating terrorism,” she elaborated.
Guantanamo Bay, where 19 years ago the US opened a military detention centre notorious for its human rights abuses, was once promised by US President-elect Joe Biden to be shut down. Biden is now under pressure to deliver.
The decision on establishing this specially-designated prison at the naval base was made by the Pentagon as part of the ‘war on terror’ crusade by then US President George W. Bush. Between November 2001 and March 2002, the Bush administration issued a series of decrees on establishing a prison for especially dangerous criminals, determining their status and creating special judicial bodies – military commissions under the US Department of Defense. The temporary detention camp at Guantanamo was later converted into a full-fledged penitentiary facility.
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