Guantanamo Bay prison camp serves as a joint military prison and interrogation centre which occupies a portion of the United States Navy's base at Guantanamo Bay, located at the south-eastern end of Cuba.

The detention areas consist of three camps: Camp Delta (which includes Camp Echo), Camp Iguana and the now closed Camp X-Ray.

In January 2002, the US authorities transferred the first "war on terror" detainees - hooded and shackled - to the US Naval Base. Despite major international outcry and condemnation, hundreds of people of around 35 nationalities remain there.

The prison holds people suspected by the US Government of being connected with al-Qaeda and Taliban. Prisoners were captured in Afghanistan, Bosnia, The Gambia and other countries.

Find out more about our push to close Guantanamo Bay

Presumption of guilt

Many of the Guantánamo Bay detainees have not been convicted of any criminal charge. Hundreds of them have been released from the base without charge or any form of compensation for the many years they were unlawfully detained at Guantánamo.

Yet the US authorities still label those held as "terrorists", or "the worst of the worst", flouting their right to be presumed innocent and wrongly justifying the denial of many of their most basic human rights.

None of the Guantánamo detainees have been granted prisoner of war status or brought before a "competent tribunal" to determine that status, as required by international law. The US government refuses to clarify their legal status other than to label them "enemy combatants" and "alien and unlawful".

First-hand accounts from detainees

Facts about Guantánamo Bay

  • The detention centre opened on 11 January 2002
  • Today more than 350 detainees are being held
  • About 775 detainees have been held at Guantánamo since it opened
  • Up to 17 of those detainees were under 18 years old when taken into custody, four of them were still held at the camp at the end of 2006
  • More than 40 suicide attempts have been reported and three men died in June 2006 after apparent suicides
  • Up to 200 detainees have gone on hunger strikes since 2002; many of these detainees have been force-fed to be kept alive
  • Ten people were "charged" prior to US Supreme Court declaring Military Commissions unlawful in September 2006
  • There have been countless allegations of torture and other ill-treatment from current and former detainees
  • Fourteen detainees were transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006 after they had been held incommunicado in secret CIA custody for more than four years
  • Australian citizen, Mamdouh Habib, was held for three years and released without charge in 2005
  • Australian citizen, David Hicks, was held from 2002 until 2007 and according to his military lawyer, Major Mori, was placed in solitary confinement in March 2006

More information