“What has happened at Guantanamo Bay…does not represent the will of the American people. I’m embarrassed about it, I think it’s wrong. I think it does give terrorists an unwarranted excuse to use the despicable means to hurt innocent people.” — President Jimmy Carter When President Barack Obama took office for his first term in 2009, he vowed to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year. Four years later, the prison still stands and prisoners remain in solitary confinement. It has been called ‘President Obama’s Shame’. In a recent speech, the President called Guantanamo unsafe and expensive for the American taxpayers and that it certainly lessens cooperation with US allies. He said he would really like to shut it down and is going to “work on it.” While the President ponders on what to do about the situation and when to close the prison, the vast majority of the 166 men still held at Guantanamo have been detained there for more than 11 years without being charged or getting a fair trial. And 86 of those prisoners were cleared for release three years ago and yet are still there with no hopes of being released. It has been established that the Navy, Army and Marines have no basis to press charges against them. At the moment, more than 100 prisoners are on a hunger strike, with 21 being force fed and five hospitalised. According to the prisoners who have experienced the forced tube feeding, that itself is an act of humiliating torture. A medical team of at least 40 has arrived at Guantanamo Bay as the number of inmates participating in the hunger strike continues to increase. Many have called Guantanamo a gulag, a scandal, a shame and rightfully so. Inspectors from the Red Cross and detainees who have been released in the past have reported torture, including sleep deprivation, beatings and locking in confined and cold cells. In any case, according to human rights groups, indefinite detention constitutes torture. If the argument is that these detainees are related to terror groups and are a threat of any sort, why then have they not been charged with any crimes, provided with legal assistance and tried? Is this indefinite circle of detention, torture, humiliation and the lack of any information as to the status and release of these people a bargaining or disciplining act on the part of the United States in order to establish fear amongst anyone planning to attack it? What could possibly be the logic (for the lack of a better word) and justification for unending detention and torture imposed on human beings without any charges brought against them and any legal process followed? It is surprising that more international pressure has not been placed on the United States to do something humane regarding this situation. However, having said that, what does this say about us as Americans and more importantly, as human beings? Such monumental, blatant human rights violations in this day and age and no one to this day has been able to do anything about it! Shocking does not even begin to describe the situation. These prisoners have no hope of being released, of seeing their families, of being home, of even knowing in so many instances why they are locked up and tortured. And when after over a decade of this unbearable, inhuman torture they decide to go on a hunger strike out of extreme frustration and utter lack of will to continue living, what does the United States government do? Send in medical staff to force feed them to make sure they remain alive. Why? So that they can continue to torture them with no justifications? President Obama’s hands are not tied on this matter. The Congress has imposed restrictions but the President does have the power to waive the process created by the Congress. The President can start the closure policy of Guantanamo by directing from the White House and not Pentagon bureaucrats. Furthermore, he can order the Secretary of Defence to begin transferring detainees who have been cleared, which is more than half of the population of prisoners at Guantanamo. President Obama can stop this unlimited torture and hunger strike of these people or their deaths will be on his hands. Why he has not exercised this power yet is anyone’s guess. This is not what the United States is about, is it? Whatever happened to the founding principles of the country where people were not to be thrown into captivity like the practices at the Tower of London in Britain? Did the founding principles of the United States not want to move away completely from such practices? If that was true for the time of the American Independence 237 years ago, why has the United States deviated from it today when so much more attention is placed globally on human rights violations? The answer is perhaps because it is so powerful. Because it can. But, that is just not justifiable any longer. The solution is simple. Those detainees who have been cleared for release by the Bush and Obama administrations should be set free. If there are no charges against the rest of detainees, there are no grounds to hold them as prisoners either. It is high time that the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay is closed and human dignity respected, and it is high time President Obama kept his promise. The writer is an English and French professor and columnist residing in the USA and France. She can be reached at scballand@gmail.com