Benedict Cumberbatch Says He’s ‘Going to Plead’ with Biden to Shut Down Guantanamo Bay
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Benedict Cumberbatch’s new movie has inspired him to call on President Joe Biden to shut down Guantanamo Bay.
The actor produced and co-stars in the new drama The Mauritanian, which tells the true story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, an electrical engineer who was imprisoned and tortured in Guantanamo Bay for 14 years without charge following the 9/11 attacks. He was ultimately released in 2016.
In an interview with The Independent, Cumberbatch acknowledged that the U.S. government was “under a great deal of strain to try and stop a second attack” when Guantanamo Bay was established nearly two decades ago, but he believes the country is “far enough away now from that reaction, that understandable emotional reaction, to question its ongoing validity. And I feel quite strongly that Guantanamo doesn’t have a place in our world.”
Asked if he hopes that Biden will make good on his promise in February to close the prison, Cumberbatch said, “Hoping? I’m going to plead with the guy.”
He continued, “It is a huge spend. It’s the most expensive prison on earth. And what are the results? Where are the prosecutions? That’s just being really brutally economic about it, it just doesn’t work.”
Cumberbatch went on to point out “the human rights issue,” adding, “It’s an atrocious own goal, I think for the free world to be incarcerating people through extraordinary rendition, torturing them and extracting confessions they think are then usable in prosecution… it is a really dangerous, unnecessary and ineffectual place, I think, and enough people have suffered there.”
One scene in The Mauritanian sees Cumberbatch’s character, a U.S. military prosecutor, meet a character played by Jodie Foster at a Guantanamo Bay gift shop.
“It’s so fucking weird,” he said of the real-life souvenir store that sells themed T-shirts, mugs, stuffed animals, and more.
Still, Cumberbatch believes that Guantanamo Bay will follow the path of Alcatraz in becoming a tourist attraction.
“It will become a source of walkthrough experience with people, slopping their daiquiris all over the floors where blood was spilt,” he said. “Hopefully, it won’t be for long.”
