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2755d ago / 2:00 PM UTC

The Lawyer: 'Guantanamo Was Barbaric'

In January 2002, just five months after the largest terror attack on American soil, the U.S. opened a military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It was marketed to the American public as a place to detain the worst killers and terrorists in the world. In reality, it was a place uninhibited by the confines of international and U.S. law.

Rooted at the core of Guantanamo, at the very design and implementation, was a visceral Islamophobia, said J. Wells Dixon, a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who represented detainees held inside the facility.

“There was a mass hysteria about Arab and Muslim men following 9/11,” Dixon said. “Guantanamo was designed to be prison for the Muslim men and boys who the United States government thought should not be entitled to protections of U.S. and international law.”

Then-Sen. Barack Obama built a core tenet of his 2008 presidential campaign on the promise to close Guantanamo. On his second day in office, President Obama signed an executive order to release the 245 detainees still held at the naval base and to shut down the facilities within a year.

Despite his promises, Obama approaches the final days of his second term with the Guantanamo Bay detention center still in operation. With political will waning in pledges to close Guantanamo down, the facility represents the hardships of reversing a policy built upon fear.

“What the United States did to Muslim and Arab men in Guantanamo was barbaric,” Dixon said. “How did it happen? When you’re so afraid of something or somebody that you don’t understand, there is a tendency to view that person as someone, something other than a fellow human being.”

2758d ago / 11:26 PM UTC

9/11 Memorials and Services

Here's how the three sites of the attack — New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania — and others will remember the fallen. For memorials around the world, go here.

Sept. 11

"Tribute in Light" (New York)

The Municipal Art Society of New York presented this public art tribute for 10 years. Today, the twin beams of blue light emanating from Ground Zero are under the direction of the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. The 88 7,000-watt xenon light bulbs, arranged and positioned to recall the Twin Towers, will shine from dusk to dawn the next day. They're visible from a 60-mile radius, and reach 4 miles into the sky.

National Day of Service and Remembrance (Anywhere)

Visit 911day.org for opportunities in your community.

Sept. 12

"Rendering the Unthinkable" Exhibit (New York)

The 9/11 Memorial opens an exhibit of artistic reactions to the deadly attacks, collecting the work of 13 artists. For more information, go here.