Al-Sahwa [Archives:2008/1122/Press Review]
January 17
Top Stories
-HR Minister stresses increasing human rights awareness among judiciary staff
-HOOD condemns capture of one of its staff members by police in Hodeida
-Chairman: Supreme National Anti-Corruption Authority's powers specified by the law
-Ibb Joint Meeting Parties' bureau demands authorities to stop oppressing any peaceful functions and activities
-Yadomi: We decided to continue peaceful struggle until government performs its duty in a required way
-Yemeni detainees constitute biggest hurdle to closure of Guantanamo Bay, Washington says
Yemenis held at Guantanamo Bay pose the biggest obstacle to closing the military prison, because the United States has little faith that Yemen's government will keep the detainees from turning to terrorism once they return, the weekly quoted Washington officials as saying. About 100 of the 275 detainees at the controversial prison camp are Yemenis, now outnumbering Afghans and Saudis. They have become the single largest nationality remaining at Guantanamo as the prison's population steadily declined from a peak of 600 in 2003.
The Pentagon has been repatriating detainees to their native or third countries after receiving assurances of humanitarian treatment, along with the enactment of measures to limit the likelihood that prisoners will resume terrorist activity. The Yemeni population at Guantanamo has not been significantly reduced for several reasons, including our concerns about the level of threat the detainees would pose to the international community and the track record of the Yemeni government in mitigating that threat,” Commander Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, said.
In a letter to President George W Bush delivered Saturday to the US embassy in Sana'a, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh urged that Guantanamo be closed and the Yemeni detainees be sent home. Attempts for comment from the Yemeni embassy in Washington were unsuccessful. Bush has said that he wants the US prison camp in Cuba closed, but only if the prisoners can be responsibly returned to countries where they will not present a danger to the rest of the world. A US military official said the Yemeni population is the “main reason” Guantanamo is still open.
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