Presidential pledge to close Guantanamo Bay

In an interview yesterday President-elect Barack Obama promised he would close the detention centre at Guantánamo Bay.

Closing the prison used for holding people accused of being terrorists, mostly without evidence, is essential for the USA to live-up to its human rights responsibilities.

Speak-out now

You can use your voice to call on the USA to improve its human rights record by sending a message to the President-elect saying why you think Guantánamo Bay should be closed.

Amnesty is attaching all the messages we receive to an orange jumpsuit which we'll send to Mr Obama. For more information click here.

Doing this may help hundreds of people who remain detained in Guantánamo, completely separated from their families without charge and with little hope of a fair trial.

Family man waiting 7 years for trial

Belkacem Bensayeh for example, a family man of Algerian origin, has been imprisoned for the last 7 years and spends at least 22 hours a day in a solid steel cell with no natural light.

Bensayeh reported that a U.S interrogator told him, "I am going back to my wife and children, and you are going back to your cell like a dog."

Read more about his story and view photos here.

Poetry from Guantánamo Bay

In the past six years, at least 775 men have been held in the U.S detention centre at Guantánamo Bay. The men detained in the prison camp are routinely held in solitary confinement, condemned without a fair trial, many of them tortured.

Through all this, some of the detainees have taken sanctuary in poetry some of which is now available in a new book Poems from Guantánamo, the detainees speak.

Listen to this moving poetry written by detainees now by clicking here.

Call for an independent inquiry

Amnesty International is also calling on the President-elect to support an independent inquiry into all aspects of the USA's detention and interrogation practices in the "war on terror", and to ensure full accountability for human rights violations committed in that context.

The organisation has written to President-elect Obama urging him to make closing Guantánamo, ending torture and other ill-treatment, and supporting a commission of inquiry, are among his priorities for his first 100 days in office.

A copy of Amnesty International's checklist for President-elect Obama is available here.