Activists protest against Guantanamo Bay prison outside of the White House on May 17, 2013. Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

Leading human-rights groups accused President Barack Obama on Monday of not following through on a commitment to shut down the prison at Guantanamo Bay, the controversial U.S.-run military detention center in Cuba that has seen a mass hunger strike among its detainees in recent months.



In a letter to the president, 16 human-rights and civil-liberties organizations expressed deep concern that he has failed to fulfill commitments he made during a major counterterrorism speech earlier this year to tackle the issue of the prison, where the vast majority of inmates are being held without charge or prospects of release even though many have been cleared to be transferred or set free.



“More than four months have passed since you delivered your May 23, 2013, speech at the National Defense University, in which you recommitted the United States to the goal of closing the Guantanamo prison,” read the four-page letter, which was signed by such groups as the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Watch.



“However, despite your personal commitment and engagement, the population at Guantanamo over the past four months has been reduced by only two detainees, moving only from 166 to 164. Of the detainees who remain, 84 were cleared for transfer by national security officials more than four years ago,” the letter added.



Obama said during the May speech that he would lift a moratorium on the transfer of prisoners to Yemen and ask the Department of Defense to designate a site on U.S. soil where military commissions could be held in an effort to begin the process of permanently closing the prison.



The hunger strike at the Guantanamo facility had been going on for more than three months when Obama weighed in. The timing was not coincidental. During a background-briefing call with reporters before the president’s speech, a senior administration official said it was news reports that highlighted the barbaric nature of force-feeding the prisoners that compelled the administration to revisit the issue.



“Is this who we are?” Obama said during his speech, referring to the force-feedings.



Minor progress

Some human-rights groups fear that the administration will again sideline its Guantanamo closure plans as the number of hunger-striking prisoners dwindles and no longer attracts global headlines. Zeke Johnson, a spokesman for Amnesty International, told Al Jazeera it was “deeply disappointing” that Obama had not made more progress on transferring prisoners out of Guantanamo since his national-security speech.



“Cleared detainees can be transferred under current law ... The president should direct his administration to move Guantanamo to the front burner, stand up to Congress’ fearmongering and get the job done,” Johnson said.



There has been minor progress. In late August the administration announced that two prisoners — Nabil Said Hadjarab, 34, and Mutia Sadiq Ahmad Sayyab, 37, who had been cleared for transfer for several years — were repatriated to Algeria after spending more than a decade locked up at Guantanamo. Those were the first transfers out of Guantanamo in a year.



And last week the Department of Justice took the unusual step of notifying a federal court that it would not fight the release of a mentally ill Sudanese prisoner, Ibrahim Idris, who also suffers from diabetes. Idris had been cleared for release since 2009, but could not be transferred home without a court order because he is from Sudan, which is a state sponsor of terrorism, his attorney, Jennifer Cowan, told Al Jazeera.



White House officials have insisted that they intend to move forward with repatriating other detainees, and the administration has pointed to progress on other fronts, signaling that it was serious about closing Guantanamo. Defense officials have begun to notify Guantanamo attorneys that the Periodic Review Board, which Obama established two years ago to review the cases of the prison’s indefinite detainees and determine whether they may be released, was finally getting to work. Those hearings are expected to begin later this year.



But the human-rights groups say gaps remain that are slowing the progress of transfers.



‘Shameful delay’