WASHINGTON, December 9 (Sputnik) – The transfer of six cleared prisoners from the US Guantanamo Bay detention facility to Uruguay should have happened a long time ago, a human rights attorney has told Sputnik.
"Their [Guantanamo prisoners"] release is long overdue. It is part of [US] President [Barack] Obama's renewed effort to close Guantanamo. But with so many detainees left to transfer, President Obama has his work cut out for him," David Remes, a lawyer who has represented some of the Guantanamo captives, said Monday.
Remes added that it is difficult to persuade other countries to accept detainees when the United States itself refuses to take them.
"It also doesn't help that we have painted the detainees as the worst of the worst. It's hard to dispel that perception even if a detainee is cleared," the attorney explained, saying that the remaining 136 Guantanamo detainees should be charged with crimes or released, rather than retained over concerns about future potential wrongdoing.
"It's unjust to keep a man in prison because the government is afraid — or says it is afraid — that the man might do something bad if he's released," Remes said.
The six Guantanamo prisoners in question had been cleared of criminal charges years ago, according to the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), an organization of civil rights attorneys. They were finally transferred to Uruguay on Sunday, becoming the first prisoners transferred to South America from the US detention facility.
Obama signed an order for the closure of Guantanamo Bay in 2009, after promising to shut the camp down during his election campaign, describing it as a "sad chapter in American history". The closure has not taken place yet.
The detention facility, located in Cuba, has been the subject of harsh criticism by human rights groups, governments and media since its establishment in 2002. Health workers, inspectors and former detainees have described the conditions at the camp as cruel and inhumane, reporting the use of torture.
