Guantanamo: When Will It Get Foreclosed? from SOJO 14JAN11

WHILE Pres Obama prepares to meet with the prc's pres hu, (see my earlier post AHEAD OF VISIT BY CHINA'S HU, OBAMA MEETS WITH ADVOCATES FOR HUMAN RIGHTS 14JAN11) and plans to raise the issue of human rights in the prc the U.S. government has one of it's own glaring, hypocritical human rights issue, GUANTANAMO, or GITMO if you prefer. Our own government is guilty of violations of human rights and civil rights as provided by our own constitution as well as by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Geneva Convention. This travesty of justice has to end, the government has to stop kow-towing to those right wing fanatics who use the alleged terrorist held at Gitmo to spread fear and resolve this problem by bringing these people to the U.S. mainland and grant them trials to face the charges against them. The federal court system has already convicted over 440 terrorist without incident in U.S. civilian courts, there is no reason not to trust our judicial system to hold fair trials for these other detainees. From SOJO......

photo © 2005 Peter Burgess | more info
Please keep in your prayers those who are fasting and praying at the U.S. capitol between January 11 to 21, keeping vigil for the closing of the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo. As an opening to their prayer vigil Wednesday, they engaged in a little prophetic street theater in front of the Justice Department.
In August 2007, candidate Obama promised to close Guantanamo, saying, “As President, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act and adhere to the Geneva Conventions. Our Constitution and our Uniform Code of Military Justice provide a framework for dealing with the terrorists.”
In January 2009, one of President Obama’s first official acts was to sign an executive order promising to close Guantanamo within one year. “This is me following through on not just a commitment I made during the campaign, but I think an understanding that dates back to our founding fathers, that we are willing to observe core standards of conduct, not just when it’s easy, but also when it’s hard,” he said.
Christians and others are taking the lead in holding President Obama accountable for his pledge.

A group of 173 human rights activists, each wearing an orange jumpsuit and a black hood and representing the remaining 173 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, rallied in front of the White House on Tuesday to mark the ninth anniversary of the detention center’s opening and to protest the Obama administration’s inability to close it.
“Detainees, halt!” yelled Carmen Trotta, a volunteer with the group Witness Against Torture, who wore military fatigues as he gathered the protesters in Lafayette Park. “Turn left. Face the home of your captor.”
The rally and street theater were organized by a coalition of groups — including Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights and September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows — that are calling on the administration to either try Guantanamo Bay detainees in federal court or release them.
“We believe in and promote the rule of law,” said Valerie Lucznikowska, whose nephew was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and who described the military detention center in Cuba as a “living stain on America.”

Last January 2010 passed and we now move into a second year of with 173 men and boys still held in an extrajudicial setting. Obama has learned that the issue “is complicated.” Indeed it is. But it must be done. America’s democracy requires that we “observe core standards of conduct, not just when it’s easy, but also when it’s hard.”
Rose Marie Berger, an associate editor at Sojourners, blogs at www.rosemarieberger.com. She’s the author of Who Killed Donte Manning? The Story of an American Neighborhood available at store.sojo.net.