We, the undersigned former Guantanamo prisoners, strongly condemn US President Donald Trump’s executive order to expand detention facilities for undocumented people at Guantanamo Bay.
Guantanamo is not just a prison – it is a place where law is warped, dignity is stripped, and suffering is hidden behind barbed wire. We lived it. We know the clang of metal doors, the weight of shackles, and the silence of a world that looked away. We know what it means to be caged without charge, without trial, without hope.
Now, the same system that stole years from our lives is expanding to imprison migrants, people seeking safety only to be sent to a place that exists outside the law designed to strip them of their rights. Guantanamo does not just allow abuse; it ensures cruelty. This executive order does not just enable injustice; it guarantees it.
Detaining migrants at Guantanamo denies them constitutional protections, trapping them in the same legal limbo we endured. This deliberate ambiguity enables abuse, just as it did with us. We know firsthand what happens when a system is designed to break people. This is not about security; it is about power, control, and using Guantanamo’s darkness to conceal yet another injustice.
This decision is a direct result of the impunity the US has enjoyed for the crimes committed at Guantanamo. The failure to close the prison and reckon with its legacy has not only allowed these injustices to continue but has now enabled their expansion. Guantanamo should have been shut down long ago; instead, it is being revived for new victims.
We refuse to stay silent. We refuse to let others be swallowed by the same nightmare we endured. No one deserves to be thrown into a system built to erase them. We will not stop speaking. We will not stop fighting. We will not let Guantanamo’s horrors be repeated.
Close Guantanamo. End indefinite detention. Stop this order.
We are not just survivors of Guantanamo. We are witnesses. And we will not let the world forget.
In solidarity,
Mansoor Adayfi (GTMO441)
Moazzam Begg
Ahemed Errachidi
Lakhdar Boumediene
Ghaleb Al Bihani
Hisham Sliti
Abdul Latif Nasr
Sufyian Barhoumi
Hussein Yafai
Abdul-Almalik Abud
Ayoob Mohammed
Tarek Dergoul
Mohsin Alaskari
Djamel Ameziane
Hammami Hedi
Omar Deghayes
The views expressed in this article are the authors’ own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
The post An open letter to Trump from former Guantanamo prisoners appeared first on Al Jazeera.
