Thanksgiving Turkey Pardoned by Obama Passes Sixth year in Guantanamo
By Grace Quigley
Nov. 15, 2015
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This information again brings to the forefront the controversy over the United States’ practice of detaining suspected criminals in the prison, located on the American Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. The facility, which was opened in 2002 as a holding place for particularly dangerous criminals–namely, terrorists–has been a source of debate ever since its conception due to reports of torture and human rights violations, including humiliation, solitary confinement, hours constrained in painful positions, and sexual assault. In addition, many detainees maintain that they have been denied writs of habeas corpus.
When President Obama pardoned the turkey, a broad-breasted white gobbler named Courage by White House staffers, it was assumed that the bird would live a life of leisure, at least by turkey standards.
“I hereby pardon Courage so that he can live out the rest of his days in peace and tranquility in Disneyland,” were the words by which the President solemnly pardoned Courage almost 6 years ago. At the time, the Obama Administration had no knowledge of the bird’s ties to suspected terrorists.
According to prison records, Courage was detained on November 2, 2009, only two days after the President’s pardon.
Since the bird was largely out of the news until his lawyer revealed that her client was taking part in the hunger strikes prisoners initiated in 2013 to protest the poor treatment they had received and to demand trial for the accusations that brought them to the prison in the first place.
The hunger strike, involving 106 out of the 166 prisoners in the camp, sparked debate when 46 of the prisoners reported force-feeding by a tube inserted into the naval cavity when their weights dropped below 100 lbs. Courage’s body weight dropped over 50 percent, from his Thanksgiving peak of 46 lbs (20.9 kg) to almost 12 lbs (5.4 kg) after 61 days on strike.
