FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: August 15, 2016
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U.S. Faith Coalition Praises Guantanamo Transfers
WASHINGTON – People of faith applauded today when 15 people were transferred from Guantanamo to the United Arab Emirates. The transfer leaves 61 people still detained in Guantanamo more than fourteen years after the prison there was opened.
Matt Hawthorne, Policy Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture released this statement:
"The prison at Guantanamo is a betrayal of our values and a detriment to our security. All people deserve to be treated with dignity and no one should be held for over a decade without trial in an off-shore prison camp designed to be beyond the reach of law. These transfers are a good step. We pray that our government will follow up with further steps to close the prison at Guantanamo forever."
Earlier this year a group of 20 national faith leaders sent a letter to Congress calling on Members to close Guantanamo by the end of the year:
"The prison at Guantanamo was created to hold people outside the reach of U.S. law. The torture that was inflicted upon prisoners there and the indefinite detention they continue to suffer is deeply immoral. If there was ever any logic for keeping Guantanamo open, that time has passed. Both morality and logic point toward closing Guantanamo as soon as possible."
The faith leader letter is available at:http://www.nrcat.org/storage/documents/guantanamo-letter-may-2016.pdf
The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is a membership organization committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Since its formation in January 2006, more than 300 religious organizations have joined NRCAT, including representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Baha’i, Buddhist, and Sikh communities. Members include national denominations and faith groups, regional organizations and local congregations.
