Demand to Close GITMO Unanswered After 24 Years

WASHINGTON (01-11) – As they have for the past twenty years, human rights and legal advocates held a global vigil marking the anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center on January 11. Protesting outside the White House and in cities across the US, in addition to London, Brussels, and Mexico City, activists called for the closure of the once-secret prison and the removal of the last fifteen remaining prisoners being held there, by arguing that “24 years is too long.”

Dressed as prisoners in orange jumpsuits with black hoods over their heads, activists from Amnesty International and Witness Against Torture, along with cosponsors and supporters, proclaimed: “We believe that Guantánamo undermines US values, harms its national security and must be closed. We stand for what is right, just and true, by calling on our government [to] close our Guantánamo Bay prison.”

While President Biden failed in fulfilling his 2020 campaign promise to close the prison before he left office, he did reduce the population in early January 2025 by releasing 11 prisoners to Oman. With the change of administration, President Trump began his second term in office wasting no time in announcing that he is committed to keeping the detention center open where the last fifteen prisoners continue to be held.

During the prison’s existence over these many years, numerous detainees have been tortured, held in solitary confinement, and had Constitutional due process rights denied them because “they are non-citizens held outside the United States”—a deeply contentious legal issue—all while enduring human rights and other violations contrary to both US and international law.

The status of the fifteen remaining prisoners presently is that two have been convicted on terrorism charges by a court, three are being held indefinitely in “law-of-war detention” having never been charged with a crime but having been judged to present so great a threat to national security that they will not be released. Three others have been approved for transfer to another country, that has been stalled, while the remaining seven have been charged and are awaiting trial including the alleged 9/11 mastermind, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

Incarcerating the fifteen prisoners at the remote facility costs the US government $13 million per prisoner per year. Those who have been released in most cases were repatriated to their countries of origin while others have been sent to third countries making their ability to assimilate even more challenging.

And according to Witness Against Torture, former prisoners face numerous personal struggles “suffering from mental and physical disabilities, lack of health care, lack of legal documentation, government surveillance, community suspicion and unemployment.”

“Secret prisons, torture, detention without charge, and secrecy itself are signs of a morally bankrupt nation,” activists charge.

In addition to the detention center prison, President Trump has expanded the use of Guantánamo through a memorandum he issued shortly after taking office to house, in his words “high-priority criminal aliens” along with people that are “hard to deport” most of whom are transferred there without due process before departing the US.

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

© 2026 nuzeink all rights reserved worldwide