On Jan. 11, 2002, the first prisoners enemy combatants started arriving at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They have been plunged into what human rights activists call a legal black hole. There is still no end in sight.

Some excerpts from the BBC story:

In all some 775 prisoners have been at the camp since 11 January 2002. Just under half, 379, have been released.

Fourteen detainees are high-profile prisoners, who had been held at secret CIA prisons elsewhere and who were sent to Guantanamo Bay last September.

It is thought that the tribunals will start with some of them, led perhaps by Khaled Sheikh Mohammed.

But what of those, probably the majority, who will not face a tribunal?

They are subject to an annual Administrative Review Board (ARB) "to determine whether you still pose a threat to the United States or its allies", as a document given to the prisoners states. ...

It is seen by the Bush administration as a vital tool in the "war on terror". It is one that enables suspects who are not US citizens to be interrogated and held, indefinitely if necessary, in a US-controlled territory but not subject to normal US court rules.

Critics say it is a legal black hole in which suspects have been abused and face either military tribunals or open-ended imprisonment. ...

Even close allies of the United States including Britain have called for the camp to be closed. President Bush himself said he would like to see the end of it.

But it remains in being and there is no end in sight.

Here's my review of the film The Road to Guantanamo.

Amnesty International is running a campaign to close Guantanamo.