When President Obama took office in Jan. 2009, one executive order on his agenda was the closing of Guantanamo Bay.

Guantanamo Bay is a US detainment facility in Cuba. It was established by the Bush administration in 2002 to hold detainees from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars.

The detention facility received a lot of criticism due to the questionable treatment of the prisoners. Former detainees upon their release claimed to have experienced vicious beatings, gang-rape and electro-shock therapy.

With the release of this information, human rights activists started protesting against the legal status and physical conditions at the detention facility.

The criticism that followed this executive order was the absence of a location to transfer the detainees.

Many political figures claimed Obama’s one-year goal to be unrealistic.

Obama ordered all detainees to go through a review but due to the complexities in some detainees’ legal status, the facility remains open.

On Jan. 7, Obama ordered the resumption of military tribunals at Guantanamo. High-profile detainees such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, a co-conspirator of the Sept 11 attack, still await prosecution at Guantanamo Bay.