Guantanamo prison 20 years on: Can it ever be closed? | DW News

The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is turning 20 years old - 39 out of almost 800 prisoners have been kept there through today. Some of them without criminal charges. On September 11, 2001 the United States was hit by unparalleled terror attacks carried out by al-Qaida. Thousands of people died. The United States and its allies were shaken to the core. The US government was looking for an answer that was equally forceful and clear. The answer came soon: The United States and its allies launched a global war on terror. More and more suspects were captured – and later sent to the US navy base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. A place outside the public eye. Far from American soil. Where the US constitution does not exist and nobody is watching. Very soon, Guantanamo hit the headlines: Reports of torture came to light. And that led to some fundamental, and unsettling, questions: Was America, a longtime fighter for human rights, hiding its terror suspects in a detention facility, tucked away on a small bit of land in Cuba, so that nobody could see what was really happening there, behind barbed wire fences? Was America losing its moral authority?

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