Turkish detainees at Guantanamo Bay Turkish detainees at Guantanamo Bay The United States Department of Defense acknowledges holding five Turkish captives in Guantanamo. A total of 778 captives have been held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba since the camps opened on January 11, 2002 The camp population peaked in 2004 at approximately 660. Only nineteen new captives, all "high value detainees" have been transferred there since the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Rasul v. Bush. As of July 2012 the camp population stands at 168. Several released Turkish captives have filed a lawsuit against the USA for their
Guantanamo Bay detention camp Mail privileges of Guantanamo Bay detainees). "The New York Times" and other newspapers are critical of the camp; columnist Thomas Friedman urged George W. Bush to "just shut it down", calling Camp Delta "... worse than an embarrassment." Another "New York Times" editorial supported Friedman's proposal, arguing that Guantánamo is part of "... a chain of shadowy detention camps that includes Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the military prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and other secret locations run by the intelligence agencies" that are "part of a tightly linked global detention system with no accountability in law." In November