Even though Obama gave the orders to close Guantanamo, there have been new allegations of torture at that facility since he took office. Al-Jazeera reports on a Yemeni prisoner who wrote a letter to his lawyer detailing the allegations of torture.
Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni national held since 2001, said in a letter to his lawyer dated April that "oppression has increased, torture has increased and insults have increased".
"I have seen death so many times," he wrote. "Everything is over, life is going to hell in my situation. America, what has happened to you?"
There have been two prisoners who have come forward with allegations of torture since Obama took office. Here is the second prisoner:
The letter emerged on Thursday, two days after another inmate, Mohammad al-Qurani, told Al Jazeera in a phone call that he had been mistreated since Barack Obama, the US president, was elected last November.
David Remes, one of Abdul Latif's lawyers, said he had seen evidence of abuse on his client during meetings at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba.
"We have met with our clients, we know the men and the experiences are uniform and universal," he said.
"I've seen the marks on these men, I've taken inventories that show the scars, that show the open wounds, that show the rashes.
"Adnan Latif ... has a badly dislocated shoulder blade. I've seen the evidence of physical torture and I've also heard about the evidence of psychological torture."
The nature of the allegations include beatings and tear gassings. And a spokesman at the State Department hints that this is only the tip of the iceberg:
On Thursday Robert Wood, a US state department spokesman, said he had not seen the allegations regarding al-Qurani and "did not want to get into specific cases".
However, he did say that the state department would "certainly have been looking into a number of these issues".
Obama has stated that he would not prosecute those who acted under what he called "good faith." Now, it seems that either the people in the facility didn't get the message that torture was to stop, or they are not acting in good faith. President Obama should immediately order a review of our treatment of prisoners in Guantanamo and immediately discipline and/or prosecute those who are continuing to torture prisoners in violation of the Constitutional prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment, the Geneva Conventions, and Obama's own executive order against this conduct. Anything less would suggest that Obama's orders on the second day of his administration would have no meaning whatsoever.