For more than two decades there have been constant requests from human rights groups to close the prison located at the Guantanamo naval base, a territory that the United States illegally occupies in eastern Cuba and that the international community has incessantly demanded to be returned to the Cuban people.

By María Josefina Arce

For more than two decades there have been constant requests from human rights groups to close the prison located at the Guantanamo naval base, a territory that the United States illegally occupies in eastern Cuba and that the international community has incessantly demanded to be returned to the Cuban people.

In recent days, 150 civil rights groups on U.S. soil have called on President Joe Biden to close the enclave, where 36 detainees are still being held in legal limbo.

Within days of taking office in January 2021, eight U.N. human rights experts urged Biden to close the detention center, which they called a disgrace to the world and to the United States.

In his two years in the White House, Biden has received multiple such requests from U.S. lawmakers, politicians, governments and celebrities from around the world.

More than 770 people have been held in that prison since 2002, when, following the attacks on the Twin Towers in New York and other targets on U.S. soil a year earlier, Washington launched its so-called fight against terrorism.

Under that pretext, the government of then President George W. Bush opened illegal prisons all over the world, Guantanamo was one of them, in a new offense to the Cuban people.

Several reports revealed that 60% of the inmates were taken to this military enclave without being a probable threat.

Already known for occupying, against the will of the Cuban people and government, a piece of national territory, Guantanamo became also known worldwide for the torture and ill-treatment applied there.

The prison at the Guantanamo naval base is another chapter of ignominy against the Cuban people, who have been the object of provocations and aggressions from that usurped zone since the revolutionary triumph of January 1959.

In addition, the inhabitants of the area suffer from hearing problems or associated illnesses such as headaches, due to the military exercises carried out at the base, which also deprives them of the right to enjoy several beaches located in Guantanamo Bay.

Along with the demand that the prison be closed, there is the demand that the United States return to its true owner, the Cuban people, the territory it has illegally occupied for more than a century in Guantanamo Bay, which is not only an affront to Cuba's sovereignty, but also a threat to peace and security.