Detainee Rights Quotes

President Obama has been very clear as he laid out the goal, and the objective is to close Guantanamo.

Prisoners of war shall be treated as regards board, lodging, and clothing on the same footing as the troops of the Government who captured them.

With respect to the legal justifications or the policies relating to the treatment of detainees, I was not aware of any issues on that or the legal memos that subsequently came out until the summer, sometime in 2004, when there started to be news reports on that.

It troubled me that we had these reports of torture of detainees, we had people jailed at Guantanamo Bay who couldn't even talk to their lawyers and couldn't see the evidence against them - sort of fundamental bedrock civil liberties things.

From Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, international standards and the framework of international law are being given less when they should be given more importance. I am pleased that the courts in the United States are beginning to review what has happened to those detained in Guantanamo Bay. Similarly in Iraq we need to bring our strategies back within the framework of international norms and law.

Sometimes people decide to write reports even though they haven't been to Guantanamo . And so I would just suggest that people look at some of the work that's been done by people who have been there. But that's not to say that we will not be very glad at the day that conditions permit the closure of Guantanamo and the trying of its inhabitants or for their release.

Well, it is true that they did - the Pentagon did impose rules for governing the handling of the Koran in January of 2003, after there had been complaints about the handling of the Koran from detainees, from the International Red Cross.

If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners - they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.

Under the Geneva Convention, for example, a POW is required only to provide name, rank, and serial number and cannot receive any benefits for cooperating.

An institution like Guantanamo in its present form cannot and must not exist in the long term. We must find different ways of dealing with prisoners. As far as I'm concerned there's no question about that.

We got valuable information from debriefing of Al Qaeda detainees, and I don't think it's knowable whether interrogation techniques played a role in that.

There is no room for legal hair-splitting when it comes to the humane treatment of detainees - not in a nation founded on the rule of law and respect for human rights.

Now I don't know why he's denying them habeas corpus. I can only assume the guys they got detained over there did something really unforgivable. Like remind Obama he was once a professor of Constitutional Law.

The detainees at GTMO are treated exceptionally well - so well that some have even declined to be resettled, instead choosing to stay at GTMO.

We spend millions of dollars per year supplying more than adequate meals and a Koran to every detainee along with a prayer rug that meets their religious standards.

You treat detainees humanely because you know the other side will also treat detainees humanely.

[Barack] Obama believes you can hold enemy combatants, unlawful enemy combatants at Gitmo without a criminal trial because this is law of war detention.

Those who say [Joseph] Padilla should get a civilian trial are essentially saying that if you reject the rules of civilized nations, like those inscribed in the Geneva Convention, you therefore deserve to be treated better, not worse, than those rules require.

It is good that these terrorists are now facing justice, but in the reporting of the case, it would be helpful if the media didn't help them with their propaganda mission by unquestioningly repeating false information about their detention.