© H. Darr Beiser/USA TodayRazor wire tops one of the several fences surrounding Camp One of Camp Delta, part of the detention facility holding enemy combatants from the Afghanistan conflict.
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sent the Obama administration a petition Wednesday, asking it to turn the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center into what it's calling the "Guantanamo Bay Empathy Center."
"As we all know, 'Gitmo' is now associated with torture, violence, and prejudice," wrote PETA president Ingrid Newkirk said in a letter to the State Department special envoy for Guantanamo closure, Lee Wolosky. "We would like to change that impression in the most forward-looking way possible by turning it into an "empathy center" where the values of justice, respect, understanding, and compassion for all beings would be taught."
PETA is a 35-year old animal rights organization claiming 3 million members and known using scantily clad models to oppose the use of fur.
Newkirk said the group would like to create an exhibit at the Naval Base highlighting a number of abuses of people and animals throughout history, including "from the Crusades to the Holocaust, from Roman gladiatorial games to modern animal circuses, and from human slavery and child-exploiting sweatshops to all the ways in which people have belittled others based on race, gender, and species."
But the Obama administration has said it intends to keep Guantanamo as a naval base even if the president is successful in closing it.
"The naval base is not something that we believe should be closed," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said last year.
Comment: Guantanamo Bay, Cuba is a place where some of the most sadistic and cruel acts against human beings have taken place. According to PKA, PETA in Virginia killed 88.3% of the animals it received in 2014. That connection creates an entirely different impression.
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