Welcome

Welcome to The Guantánamo Blog. This weblog will provide updates on developments concerning the U.S. detention facility in Guantánamo Bay, with a focus on H. Candace Gorman and her ongoing work representing two prisoners being held there without charge.

Recently, Candace has written several pieces for Huffington Post. In Why I am Representing a "Detainee" at Guantánamo, Candace describes how she came to represent Mr. Al-Ghizzawi, a Libyan man who is gravely ill and may be suffering from serious liver disease. The legal battle concerning Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's inadequate treatment is one of Candace's chief concerns at the moment.

In The Great Writ, Candace denounces the Bush Administration and the (out-going) Republican Congress' assault on Habeas Corpus, a venerable safeguard of liberty and a cornerstone of the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition.

Last month, Candace traveled to a U.S. Government secret facility to view the classified proceedings of Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT), a tribunal that determines whether or not a prisoner is an "unlawful enemy combatant." Mr. Al-Ghizzawi was subjected to a CSRT and, having no ties to terrorism, was classified as a non enemy-combatant. Mysteriously, this determination was overturned by the powers that be and, five weeks later, Mr. Al-Ghizzawi was designated an unlawful enemy combatant by a new CSRT. He was never informed of the new tribunal and never met his new appointed "personal representative."

Candace was disturbed by what she found (and did not find) in Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's Combatant Status Review. She recounts the Kafkasque experience in Secrets of the War Criminals.