First Published Book by Current Gitmo Inmate is out....

You can actually read the handwritten manuscript here.  Here is where you can get more information about the book and information about the purchase of the book-- it is a website dedicated to the book and the man-Mohamedou Ould Slahi.

Some commentary on the book is here.

His story is not that unusual for a Guantanamo inmate. What is unusual is that it is being told while he is still being held.

Al-Marri is returned to Qatar

The saga of Al-Marri is now over. Al-Marri was in the U.S. legally- on a student visa here in Illinois. He was first held by the military as an enemy combatant and detained in the U.S. and then turned over to the Feds for prosecution. He served 13 years in prison. Over the weekend he was returned to Qatar after completing his sentence. Read more about the Al-Marri saga here.

Did Gitmo "Suicides" Cover Up Murder?

This is a question many of have been asking since the three men died in 2006- just before my first trip to the base to visit my clients. Everything about their deaths was and is suspicious and I have written about this many times over the years. Now Joseph Hickman,  a former U.S. Army staff sergeant who was stationed in Guantánamo Bay from March 2006 to March 2007 has written a book about this--Murder at Camp Delta--which has just been published. You can also hear him on Democracy Now here.

H/O to W.A. again....

Guantanamo Diary

The guardian has an amazing series from the diary of Ould Slahi a current detainee at Guantanamo. Part of the story has to be how Ould was able to tell his story from inside Guantanamo. The diary is due to be published next week. Here is the description by the Guardian:

"The groundbreaking memoir of a current Guantánamo inmate that lays bare the harrowing details of the US rendition and torture programme from the perspective of one of its victims is to be published next week after a six-year battle for the manuscript to be declassified."

Guantánamo Diary, the first book written by a still imprisoned detainee, is being published in 20 countries and has been serialised by the Guardian amid renewed calls by civil liberty campaigners for its author’s release.

H/O to W.A. for alerting me to this.....

AND FOR THOSE IN THE CHICAGO AREA....

 I will be speaking with Andy Worthington on thursday evening- come and join us and share ideas for ending this atrocity called Guantanamo.

Thursday January 15, 7pm: Close Guantánamo – End Torture, with Andy Worthington, Candace Gorman and Debra Sweet Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn, Chicago, Illinois 60605. For this event in Chicago, Andy is joined by Guantánamo lawyer Candace Gorman and Debra Sweet, the national director of the World Can’t Wait. See the Facebook page here. This event is organized by Chicago World Can’t Wait. If you can, please also join the Rally to protest a 14th year of Guantanamo, torture and indefinite detention at 4.30pm at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60603. -

Big Surprise....well not really.

In other news-- the CIA did an investigation of itself and determined that it did nothing wrong when it broke into Senate computers to spy on the Senates investigation of torture of detainees at Guantanamo (and elsewhere)... Read about the conclusion of the CIA investigation here.

5 men transferred today. Updated

Four to Oman. One to Estonia.
122 still at Guantanamo.
Hopefully I will have more information on these men who were released tomorrow.
Some information on the men here.

Of the 122 men still in the prison, 54 are cleared, 58 are awaiting clearance, and 10 are in the military commission system.

Of the 54 cleared, 47 (87%) are Yemenis and 7 are non-Yemenis.  The awaiting-clearance category remains at 26 Yemenis and 32 non-Yemenis.

(Thanks to fellow Gitmo attorney Brian Foster for keeping track of the men held for all of us--he also has great charts showing the demographics but I haven't figure out a way to paste it into this blog)

TWO RATHER DISTURBING PIECES OF NEWS

First, the ACLU describes a section of the torture summary where it is admitted that U.S. prison officials rubber stamped "the salt pit"-- a CIA dungeon prison in Afghanistan where individuals were kept in completely dark solitary cells chained to the wall or floor with a bucket for their waste.

And this depressing news about guantanamo child detainee Omar Khadr who is going blind in his only eye.

January 11th- the start of the 14th year

I didn't have a chance to remark about the anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo yesterday. Let me remark about it now.
Not only are the men at guantanamo now starting their 14th year but for many of the men- including my client Razak Ali- there is no end in sight. It has been six years since Obama made the promise to close the place within one year and it was apparent to many of us- based on the protocol Obama set in place to close Guantanamo- that it would take a lot longer than one year. It shouldn't have taken a whole year-- nevertheless more than six years-- but immediately Obama squandered the good will of the world and the only real chance he had to close the place by setting up an unwinable approach.
But even in our worst nightmares none of us thought it would take more than six years and none of us thought that Obama would continue with the illegal policy of indefinitely holding men without charge.
Yes, this has been a learning experience for many of us...

So, if you are in the Chicago area I will be speaking with Andy Worthington on thursday evening- come and join us and share ideas for ending this atrocity called Guantanamo.

Thursday January 15, 7pm: Close Guantánamo – End Torture, with Andy Worthington, Candace Gorman and Debra Sweet Grace Place, 637 S. Dearborn, Chicago, Illinois 60605. For this event in Chicago, Andy is joined by Guantánamo lawyer Candace Gorman and Debra Sweet, the national director of the World Can’t Wait. See the Facebook page here. This event is organized by Chicago World Can’t Wait. If you can, please also join the Rally to protest a 14th year of Guantanamo, torture and indefinite detention at 4.30pm at the Art Institute of Chicago, 111 S. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, Illinois 60603. -

The forever prisoners at Guantanamo.

One of whom is my client Razak Ali....Al Jazeera takes a look at this illegal policy.

The difference between the French People and the American People

The French will not let fear paralyze them.

Now that Cliff Sloan is gone.....

The special envoy that was in charge of closing Guantanamo over the last 18 months (Cliff Sloan) has now publicly blasted many of the reasons put forth by the nuts that want to keep it open. Too bad he waited til he was gone to speak publicly on these issues.
Read More Here.

Five transferred to Kazakhstan...

Three Yemeni and two Tunisians. Read the story here. Thank you to the people of Kazakhstan!

By any other name....its still the same old war.

Yesterday I received this announcement by the military:

"At the end of this year, as our Afghan partners assume responsibility for the security of their country, the United States officially concludes Operation Enduring Freedom. Our combat mission in Afghanistan, which began in the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, will come to an end. "

But just because we have ended "operation enduring freedom" does not mean that we have ended our invasion of Afghanistan.... the next paragraph of the military announcement stated this:

"In 2015, we begin our follow-on mission, Operation Freedom's Sentinel, to help secure and build upon the hard-fought gains of the last 13 years."

And just as a rose is a rose -  this war by any other name is still this war.

Happy New Year.

SIGH....

So now that we have finally had some movement with detainees being released we have this news-- the man Obama appointed 18 months ago to oversee the release of the cleared men is stepping down.
Read more here.