A viral video claiming to show former President Barack Obama in a cell at Guantanamo Bay when he was arrested in 2019 is false. The video actually shows Obama visiting Nelson Mandela’s prison cell in Robben Island, South Africa in 2013, along with his family. Michelle Obama wrote about the experience of seeing Mandela’s tiny cell where he spent 18 years of his 27-year imprisonment. Obama was never arrested or held at Guantanamo Bay, but he did visit Cuba in 2016, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to do so since 1928.
During his presidency, Obama had intended to close the detention center at Guantanamo Bay but faced challenges from Congress. As of August 2021, there were only 30 detainees left at the facility out of the 780 prisoners who have been held there since 2002. The claim in the viral video was debunked by fact-checkers from Reuters and Lead Stories.
The post on Facebook falsely claimed that Obama was arrested at Guantanamo Bay, receiving over 150 shares within four weeks. The user who shared the post was contacted for comment but did not respond. The video circulating as evidence of Obama’s arrest in the cell was actually part of a visit to South Africa, not a detainment at the Guantanamo Bay detention center.
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