December 10th-11th: Dress in Orange

On December 10th and 11th, in honor of International Human Rights Day, take a stand against the legalization of torture. Spend the whole day wearing what Guantanamo detainees have to wear everyday. Dress in the orange jumpsuit, hood, shackles, etc. Wear it to school. Wear it to work. Wear it to church or religious services.

Link to the organizers' website here.

Al-Ghizzawi's Medical Records

Mr. Al-Ghizzawi has been held in Guantánamo since 2002. He is a sick man and the medical staff at Guantánamo have failed to properly address his condition (read details here). Candace had been fighting hard for access to his medical records. Unfortunately, the judge in Mr. Al-Ghizzawi's case denied the motion for access to records on the grounds that Mr. Al-Ghizzawi had failed to demonstrate that he would otherwise suffer "irreperable harm." This puts Al-Ghizzawi in an impossible situation: he cannot demonstrate that he will suffer irreperable harm without having access to his medical records, and yet he cannot access his medical records unless he establishes that he will suffer irreperable harm. The judge's order has been appealed to the D.C. Circuit.

- Adrian Bleifuss Prados

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.