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                 Obama Renews Pledge to Close Guantanamo Prison

   by VOA News

   In a speech addressing U.S. national security and counter-terrorism
   strategy, U.S. President Barack Obama announced additional steps to
   reaffirm his pledge to close the military detention facility at
   Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
   He said Guantanamo "has become a symbol around the world for an America
   that flouts the rule of law."
   In a speech Thursday at the National Defense University in Washington,
   President Obama called for Congress to lift restrictions on the
   transfer of Guantanamo's 166 detainees.
   He said he has asked the Defense Department to find a site in the
   United States to hold military commissions for every detainee to decide
   which to transfer to other countries, and which to try in civilian
   court or the military justice system.  The president said he is naming
   an envoy to arrange the transfer of detainees to third countries.
   Congress and the White House have disagreed over the fate of the
   suspects.  In the meantime, the detainees have been held for years
   without being charged with a crime or given a trial.
   More than 100 of the Guantanamo prisoners have launched a hunger strike
   to protest their indefinite detention, and the military has force fed
   32 of them to keep them from starving.

   President Obama said history will cast a harsh judgment on this aspect
   of the fight against terrorism, "and those of us who fail to end it."
   He asked if America wants to be a country that, "Ten years from now, or
   twenty years from now ... is still holding people who have been charged
   with no crime on a piece of land that is not a part of our country."
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   [1]http://www.voanews.com/content/Obama-pledges-to-close-Guantanamo/166
   7136.html

References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/Obama-pledges-to-close-Guantanamo/1667136.html