{"id":13082,"date":"2016-02-24T00:07:00","date_gmt":"2016-02-24T00:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.catholicnewsagency.com\/news\/obamas-plan-to-close-guantanamo-echoes-call-of-us-bishops-54199\/"},"modified":"2016-02-24T00:07:00","modified_gmt":"2016-02-24T00:07:00","slug":"obamas-plan-to-close-guantanamo-echoes-call-of-us-bishops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/02\/obamas-plan-to-close-guantanamo-echoes-call-of-us-bishops\/","title":{"rendered":"Obama\u2019s plan to close Guantanamo echoes call of US bishops"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

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Washington D.C., Feb 23, 2016 \/ 05:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News<\/a>).- U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday his intent to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, a proposal that Catholic bishops have long supported in principle.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops would not comment on the specific details of President Obama\u2019s plan, but the bishops have supported \u2013 and still support \u2013 the closing of the prison, a spokesman for the bishops\u2019 conference told CNA.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cFor many years, it\u2019s been clear that the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay does not advance our national security \u2013 it undermines it,\u201d Obama stated on Tuesday morning at the White House.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cMoreover, keeping this facility open is contrary to our values,\u201d he added. \u201cAs Americans, we pride ourselves on being a beacon to other nations, a model of the rule of law. \u00a0But 15 years after 9\/11 \u2013 15 years after the worst terrorist attack in American history \u2013 we\u2019re still having to defend the existence of a facility and a process where not a single verdict has been reached in those attacks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama delivered his plan for the closure of the facility to Congress, whose members will now discuss how to proceed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba was opened in 2002 as a supposedly secure way to detain terror suspects who were captured from the War in Afghanistan, and later in Iraq, and who were deemed too much of a national security threat to keep on American soil.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Detainees were treated as \u201cenemy combatants,\u201d and since they belonged to a terrorist group rather than a country, the U.S. considered as complying with the Geneva Convention to hold them on non-U.S. soil and try them in a military court. Almost 800 detainees reportedly passed through Guantanamo from 2001-2008.<\/p>\n

Human rights experts commissioned by the United Nations expressed their concern about the \u201cinterrogation techniques\u201d at the prison in a 2006 United Nations report based on information from the U.S., former detainees and their lawyers. The techniques \u201camount to degrading treatment,\u201d the experts said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In recent years, the U.N.\u2019s human rights head repeatedly asked the United States to close the prison, speaking out against the prolonged detention of prisoners without trial.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bishops in the U.S. and at the Vatican have in the past disapproved of the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantanamo and the conditions at the prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDetainees have the right to a just and fair trial held in a timely manner,\u201d Bishop Richard E. Pates of Des Moines, Iowa, wrote then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in 2013 over the situation at the prison.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bishop Pates cited Catholic social teaching to protest against indefinite detention in his November, 2013 letter to the U.S. Senate:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the same time, our moral teaching says that the human rights of detainees must be respected and that \u2018the identification of the guilty party must be duly proven.\u2019 The Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church calls for \u2018trials (to be) conducted swiftly: their excessive length is becoming intolerable for citizens and results in a real injustice (No. 404).\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

After visiting the prison in 2006, Cardinal Renato Martino, the then-president of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, told the Italian wire news service ANSA that \u201cit seems clear that human dignity is not being fully respected in that prison.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone has a right to a fair trial,\u201d he added. \u201cWherever in the world inmates are being held in such conditions, without even knowing the charges they face, we will not fail to defend them.\u201d<\/p>\n

In December of 2014, Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Vatican and sought their help in re-settling remaining detainees.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is unclear where the administration intends to move the detainees \u2013 91 in number, according to President Obama. He said Tuesday that 35 prisoners have been cleared for removal \u201cto other countries,\u201d and said that the administration would \u201cwork with Congress\u201d to find a secure place in the U.S. to house the remaining prisoners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cKeep in mind, this process involves extensive and careful coordination across our federal government to ensure that our national security interests are met when an individual is transferred to another country,\u201d the president said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The president will now have to wait for Congress to act on his proposal. Republican congressional leaders expressed their disapproval of the plan on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) criticized the plan\u2019s lack of a specific place to re-settle the prisoners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Obama has yet to convince the American people that moving Guantanamo terrorists to our homeland is smart or safe,\u201d he said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The House Speaker said any proposal to place the prisoners in the U.S. was \u201cdead on arrival.\u201d<\/p>\n

Photo credit: Benjamin Haas via www.shutterstock.com<\/a><\/i><\/p>\n

\n<\/a>\n<\/div>\n

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Washington D.C., Feb 23, 2016 \/ 05:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday his intent to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, a proposal that Catholic bishops have long supported in principle. <\/p>\n

The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1031,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-us"],"yoast_head":"\nObama\u2019s plan to close Guantanamo echoes call of US bishops<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Washington D.C., Feb 23, 2016 \/ 05:07 pm (CNA\/EWTN News).- U.S. President Barack Obama announced on Tuesday his intent to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba, a proposal that Catholic bishops have long supported in principle.  The...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/catholicnews\/2016\/02\/obamas-plan-to-close-guantanamo-echoes-call-of-us-bishops\/\" \/>\n<meta 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