Thank you Witness against Torture and World Can't Wait

Thanks to the men and women in DC this week reminding our senators and representatives that Guantanamo must be closed and torture must stop.

http://www.witnesstorture.org/pr-06-23-2011

Witness Against Torture demands:

• Close the prison at Guantánamo Bay;
• Free all prisoners who have been cleared for release, ensuring their safe resettlement and providing asylum in the U.S. for those unable to go elsewhere;
• Produce charges against all other prisoners and prosecute them in U.S. courts;
• Open all detention centers to outside scrutiny. That includes accepting the oversight of the International Committee of the Red Cross of all facilities; and
• Conduct a comprehensive criminal inquiry against all those who designed and carried out torture policies under the Bush administration.

A plea to the Algerian People

A few weeks ago I wrote an op-ed that I hoped to get published in an Agerian newspaper-to explain the horrific plight of my Algerian client at Guantanamo. Although my letter did not get published a very helpful individual living in Algeria was able to get a story published about my client and the op-ed that I wrote. The article appeared yesterday in the Oran Daily, the best and biggest circulation french-language paper inAlgeria.
If you read French you can read the article here:
http://www.lequotidien-oran.com/index.php?news=5154524

If you do not read French- I have posted a translation here. Thanks to Jack B. for the translation.
When my laptop is back in a working state I will post the original letter.

Catching up....

It has been a busy time and I haven't had the time to put up links to some interesting articles out there. First two by retired Col. Moe Davis. You might recall that once upon a time he was the chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantanamo. He eventually retired in disgust and now speaks out openly against the mess we call Guantanamo. The following two articles pretty well sums up his latest positions:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,760142,00.html

http://www.moonhowlings.net/index.php/2011/06/03/torture-finding-our-moral-compass/

My friend Almerindo Ojeda at the the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas released a new study further exposing the number and treatment of children at Guantanamo:

Guantánamo's Chlldren: The Wikileaked Testimonies

I just want to point out that until yesterday I could not blog about Almerindo's study or refer to it because of my security clearance in the Guantanamo cases but new guidelines made available to habeas counsel yesterday makes clear that we have no restrictions on secondary reporting.

Jeff Kaye wrote about the ongoing attack by rightwing nuts to Scott Horton's award winning investigative story on the deaths at Guantanamo five years ago:

http://www.truthout.org/deconstructing-campaign-malign-award-winning-article-guantanamo-suicides/1306933865

And Andy Worthington has been updating his amazing research on the men held at Guantanamo. He has now finished the fourth part of a five part series on the unknown men held at guantanamo. This link will take you to part four and from Andy's webpage you can get to the other three parts of the series.

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2011/06/09/wikileaks-the-unknown-prisoners-of-guantanamo-part-four-of-five/

I will be adding to this list in the coming days as I find other articles I was saving to put up when I had the time.