WASHINGTON, April 9 (RIA Novosti), Lyudmila Chernova – Human Rights Watch released a video showing the suffrage of Guantanamo detainees’ families to raise awareness among the general public and make people recognize that the prisoners should have the same rights as anyone else on the globe, HRW counsel told RIA Novosti Tuesday.
“We wanted to show another aspect of what’s wrong with Guantanamo,” Andrea Prasow, senior national security counsel at HRW, said commenting on the reason behind his organization’s endeavor. “They should have the same rights as anyone else around the world. We hope this video we’ll help people understand how difficult it is to be trapped in Guantanamo.”
“They are alleged terrorists. They are Muslim. They are from different parts of the world than many people. So it’s easy for some people not to think of them as human beings,” Prasow continued. “However, seeing their loved ones in the video, talking to their families, reminds us that these are men who are trapped in this prison, who are being held illegally.”
HRW made the video during the trip to Yemen last January on the 12th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo but only released it this April.
“To hear them describe their frustration, anguish, suffering and confusion was very powerful. And so we made a short video based on those interviews, and decided to write to Obama about those issues hoping he’ll move forward and starts sending some of these men home,” HRW counsel said.
In an open letter issued by the HRW this Tuesday the organization urged the US President Barack Obama to speed up the return of 56 Yemeni prisoners cleared for release from the Guantanamo detention center.
Reminding the US president of his 2008 promise to close Guantanamo, the rights organization stated “the return of Yemeni detainees to Yemen is an essential component of any plan to close the detention facility.”
Since it was established in 2002, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp has been the target of criticism by human rights activists and many international government officials, who have condemned its controversial interrogation methods and the dubious legality of holding prisoners indefinitely without charging them with crimes.
Moscow has repeatedly condemned human rights violations at Guantanamo.
Russian delegation led by Konstantin Dolgov, the foreign ministry’s Commissioner for Human Rights, Democracy and the Rule of Law, visited the US military jail in January to meet a Russian prisoner and to convince Washington that the facility must be closed down as soon as possible.
