United Nations, Jan 23: The UN human rights watchdog today expressed "deep disappointment" that the Obama administration has not lived up to its promise to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, where individuals continue to be detained "indefinitely" in clear breach of international law.
 Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said with its failure to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, the US government has "entrenched a system of arbitrary detention."
 The UN rights chief said she was also disturbed at the failure to ensure accountability for serious human rights violations, including torture, that took place there.
 "It is ten years since the US Government opened the prison at Guantanamo, and now three years since 22 January 2009, when the President ordered its closure within twelve months. Yet the facility continues to exist and individuals remain arbitrarily detained – indefinitely – in clear breach of  international law," she said in a statement.
 Two days after his inauguration, President Barack Obama had signed executive orders that directed closing of the detention camp within a year and setting up a high-level review of the best way to hold and question terrorist suspects in the future.
 In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, prisoners suspected of being al Qaeda members or supporters were transported to Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.
 In 2002, President George Bush made it the central prison for suspects considered unlawful enemy combatants in the "war on terror."
 Pillay said to "make matters worse" the new National Defense Authorization Act, signed into law in December 2011, effectively codifies indefinite military detention, as that takes place in Guantanamo, without charge or trial.

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