U.N. rights chief: U.S. must close Guantanamo

GENEVA - The U.N. human rights chief says the U.S. government must close the Guantanamo Bay prison as President Barack Obama promised a year ago.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, says "the facility continues to exist and individuals remain arbitrarily detained — indefinitely — in clear breach of international law."

Obama pledged to shutter the U.S. Naval Base prison in Cuba in his annual address to Congress last year.

Pillay said Monday — ahead of Obama's next annual speech Tuesday — that she is deeply disappointed the U.S. government "has instead entrenched a system of arbitrary detention."

Pillay said she also is "disturbed at the failure to ensure accountability for serious human rights violations, including torture, that took place."

[joesapper]

yes i totally agree that gitmo should be closed, yes we should should close gitmo hours after sending its guest to the bride in the sky, we must consider their wish and assist them in their goal that starts at the end of a rope. and than we should spruce the place with some new fencing and paint so that the next group of guest feel welcome on every level of physical and emotional distress. make no mistake folks gitmo does not entertain sweethearts, these guys have earned their points to free flyers club to this resort.

[ajvw]

Lets send the UN to Haiti.

[lucifersshadow]

Obama is full of hot air, he talks a lot, but does nothing.

[usunus]

Navi Pillay,the UN Human Rights Commissioner,is always so full of good advice to everybody.The lady is a South African.And she is totally blind to about 20,000 people slaughtered in her own country's crime spree each year.Probably,she does not want to offend Jacob Zuma,the South African president.

[lilbear925]

How about closing the UN first?

[myth1958]

American imperialism has won us lots of territory over the centuries. From Hawaii to Puerto Rico to Guantanamo Bay, we've taken what we wanted whenever we had the military might to back it up (just ask any Native American). But is this ring of possessions around the globe representative of our democracy in this century - or does it harken back to the bad old days of gunboat diplomacy, massacres of native populations and unbridled greed? We haven't had open relations with Cuba in decades - ever since the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. Perhaps President Obama could extend a solid-gold olive branch by offering to return Guantanamo Bay to that nation's people as a means of opening discussions on normalizing relations once again. After all, Cuba is much less of a threat to us today than China is, and we trade with them. Russia has thousands of nuclear missiles which could obliterate this country in a heartbeat - but we trade with them. The issue of nationalized properties (seized when the 'communists' took over) should be settled, too: Cubans need to pay something to those heirs of property and companies which Castro took during the revolution. We, too, have taken lands without compensation to their rightful owners and never thought twice about it: the entire country from coast-to-coast. Showing our strength and taking the high road by returning to Cuba this spit of land would be a noble first step in the right direction. It would cost us nearly nothing, but might gain us some respect.

[tiredofliberals]

I could care less about the UN. They don't do anything worth while and they cost us billions

[tsigili]

Sure.......right after the middle east stops making war against the non-Islamic world.

[bobbyduck1]

Another Bush / Cheney / Rove / Rumsfeld legacy that is one of the worst blights in U.S. history. Guantanamo and all of the secret torture prisons all over the world, along with "extroardinary rendition" of U.S. citizens should have never happened.

This blatanly illegal and immoral idiocy is exactly what the U.S. stood AGAINST for all of our history before the criminal Busheny regime. Shame on US!

[John782011]

Send them on a plane to Switzerland and let them be the guest of the UN high Commisioner.