NEW YORK — The Obama administration should show resolve in releasing Guantanamo Bay inmates or trying them in a court of law, says Navanethem Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Her statement challenges President Barack Obama's remarks last May indicating that some Guantanamo detainees were too dangerous to be released and might have to be held indefinitely. The high commissioner's comments represent some of the stronger reactions to President Obama's decision to limit investigation of past abuses of detainees and to continue to hold some detainees without trial.
"The Obama administration has taken aggressive action on this issue from day one, upholding our nation's fundamental values while making the American people safer," Mark Kornblau, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the United Nations, said in response, underscoring the administration's stand on human rights.