Meanwhile.....

I reported several times on this blog about the nurse at Guantanamo who refused to force feed hunger strikers. The nurse was recently awarded an "ethics" award by the American Nurses Association but not to be outdone the Pentagon is now considering revoking the nurse's security clearance.

Read more here.

From Roger Fitch and our Friends Down Under.... at Justinian.

A DC Circuit panel recently ruled that conspiracy and other US-invented offences are not, in fact, war crimes, after the Al Bahlul military commission case was remanded by the circuiten banc. 

FindLaw aptly headlined "Military Tribunals Can't Try Terrorists for Civil Crimes", butWashington Legal Foundation's director wrote, "Appeals Court Confounds Military Justice by Importing Foreign Law into the US Constitution", ignoring the constitution's specific reference to the "law of nations" when setting out Congress's power in Art I, sec. 8. 

Steve Vladeck comments here and here.

The NY Times praised the decision.

READ THE REST HERE.

RIP William Kuebler

William Kuebler was one of the attorneys representing men at Guantanamo- he was military counsel for child detainee Khadr and also for al-Sharbi. He was a lieutenant in the Navy who was assigned to represent these men and there was no attorney more dedicated to his clients than Kuebler. Read more about him here. I am glad he lived to see Khadr released-- even though Khadr is still out on bond and not really free....
I will post his obit when it becomes available.

No one wants to be the commander at Gitmo!

Last week the Navy named the 15th commander for Guantanamo. This week they have named the 16th. Maybe it is like that old saying "no one wants to be the last to die for a mistake...."
read more here.

Could it be that the torture doctors will be prosecuted?

I doubt it but that is the current rumor. Read more here.

And here.

Eight years of hunger striking...

This article in RollingStone should make everyone stand up and demand that the place be closed. But alas very few in this country even care.....

"Today at Guantanamo, Ba Odah is what is known as a "long-term" hunger striker. Ba Odah has not eaten – not voluntarily, at least – since February of 2007. As a result, he is force-fed, usually in the morning and again in the evening. Guards remove Ba Odah from his cell, several at a time in protective gear, strap him to a restraint chair, and medical staff force a liquid supplement through his nose and into his stomach. "Waterboarding," Ba Odah calls it, both for the obvious torture analogy and because, at times, it has caused him to urinate and vomit."

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/tariq-ba-odahs-eight-year-hunger-strike-at-guantanamo-bay-20150706#ixzz3fJEnu6h6

Thank you Greece for saying YES to humanity

And NO to the banksters.

Imagine.... there's no country....

Ma Liberte

I don't hear freedom ring anymore

Abdul Rahman Shalabi cleared for release....

Last week I reported on this detainee- who has been on a hunger strike for 9 years. He now weighs 75 pounds. On friday the period review board has cleared Mr. Shalabi for release.

Read more here.

I will just note that the article mentions that Mr. Shalabi was accused of being a body guard for Osama Bin Laden.... many of the men at the base faced that same accusation and almost all of those men were accused of being a body guard by the same handful of men who were also prisoners and who were tortured into making the accusations.

Meanwhile back at the military commission....

More delays as the military tries to figure out how to stack the court in a way that will pass constitutional questions.... while also trying to keep the defendants from gaining information that will help with their defense.....

Read more here.

More on Majid Kahn's torture....

Jeff Kaye has a new article on Firedoglake about the torture of Kahn...

Quite recently, U.S. authorities allowed the declassification of notes from Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) attorney Wells Dixon that described what his client, high-value detainee Majid Khan, told him about his torture at the hands of the CIA. Khan, a Pakistan citizen, is currently at Guantanamo, and awaits trial by military commission.

Dixon has described the hideous torture of his client, which comes on the heels of revelations in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence executive summary of their report on the CIA’s torture program.

According to a June 2 Reuters report, Dixon described from interview notes with Khan, CIA use of solitary confinement; sexual abuse, including frequent touching of “private parts”; threats of physical harm; being hung naked from a pole for days; so-called “rectal feeding” (a form of anal rape); denial of food; water immersion and waterboarding, among other atrocities.

According to a CCR press release on Khan’s torture, CIA doctors onsite were among the “worst torturers.” Both Reuters and CCR have noted how doctors would check Khan’s condition, ignore his appeals for help, and send him back into extreme forms of torture.

In a June 10 phone interview with Wells Dixon, Khan’s attorney revealed there was more unreported material left out of the Reuters and CCR reports. In particular, Dixon revealed that Khan told him he was “also injected with a needle to the bone, and screamed in pain, then lost consciousness.”

READ THE REST HERE.

Brazil Please Say YES- to men from Guantanamo....

Reprieve and other advocates for men at Guantanamo have asked President Obama to officially request the resettlement of detainees in Brazil when he meets with President Rousseff tomorrow. Those of you from Brazil that check in on this blog--- can you please encourage your government to help resettle some of these men?

Read Reprieve's letter here:

www.reprieve.org.uk/press/obama-must-ask-brazil-for-guantanamo-help-say-rights-groups/

There is also an op-ed in Folha de Sao Paulo by Eric Lewis and Larua Waisbich of Conectas (in Portuguese):

http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/mundo/2015/06/1648736-por-que-o-brasil-deve-ajudar-a-fechar-guantanamo.shtml

Thank you.....

Speaking of International Torture Survivors Day.....

There is one particular detainee at Guantanamo who might not be a survivor for very much longer:

Yesterday, the Center for Constitutional Rights (led by Omar Farah) filed a motion for release on behalf of it's client Tariq Ba Odah, a long-term hunger striker whose weight has dropped to an alarming and precarious 75 pounds, signifying a crisis medical situation.   Per prior cases, the motion argues that the law of war principles embedded in the humanitarian provisions of Army Reg 190-8 (which authorize release of severely ill prisoners) constrain the government’s detention authority under the AUMF.  Along with their Motion they presented three expert opinions which paints a very worrying picture about Tariq’s physical and mental health.  Can a human being endure being forcibly fed commercial nutritional supplement for 8+ years?  As Omar Farah remarked "Only Gtmo knows, because no ethical doctor has attempted it before."

Read more about this humanitarian disaster and about the continuing torture of this man- here.

  The filings are linked below.

• Memo in Support of Motion for Judgment on the Record
• Farah Declaration in Support of Motion
• Ghannam Declaration in Support of Motion
• Bailony Declaration in Support of Motion
• Crosby Declaration in Support of Motion