GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — Today 181 detainees remain housed at the detention camps at Guantanamo Bay, despite the Obama administration’s initial pledge to close the facility by this past January.
The administration plans to move some detainees to the Thomson Correctional Center in northern Illinois. The rest have either received a recommendation for release from the Department of Justice or would be transferred overseas. But the planning process has been slowed by the need to get congressional funding for the purchase of the new facility and by complaints from human rights groups. The groups argue that relocation will not alleviate concerns over the legality of detaining terrorist suspects indefinitely without trial or the use of military commissions to prosecute those for whom the government deems there is sufficient evidence.
While the administration wrestles with the future of Guantanamo, it has made an effort to improve both the conditions in the detainment facility and the public’s perception of it. Newly branded “safe, humane, legal, transparent” by the Department of Defense, some of the facilities now feature communal living, television and language classes for the detainees. However access to sections of the facility, such as Camp 7, where some high value detainees are being held, remains extremely limited.
Click below to watch a slideshow on the current living conditions inside the detention facilities at Guantanamo.