January 22

That marks the date eight years ago when Obama signed the executive order to close Guantanamo.

The International Justice Network is asking for organizations to sign on to a joint statement before the United Nations Human Rights Council on Torture. The full request with links to the joint statement is included below. I ask that you ask any and all organizations that you work with or are familiar with to sign on to this joint statement. The Joint Statemetn will be presented to the Council on January 22nd:

Dear Colleagues,

We are writing you because last year we had your support in a joint statement to the UN Human Rights Council on torture and forced disappearances committed by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its so-called fight against terrorism. On occasion were more than 100 organizations around the world by sending a strong message against impunity.

Today we ask for your support again.

This month, back in 2002, the United States government decided to open a detention center at Guantánamo Bay to hold suspects of terrorism. This overseas center designed to exist beyond the rule of law and far away from public scrutiny. January also mark the month when President Obama, back in 2009, issued his Executive Order, promising to close Guantánamo within one year.  As we all know, until today Guantánamo remains open.

Guantánamo is a human rights and humanitarian crisis in the Americas region. An example of unlawful actions, impunity, lack of due process and infringement of the right to truth, justice and redress. For many years now, rights groups in the US have been fighting to close it down.

Considering that 2016 is Obama’s last year in power, we would like to ask for your support to join us in a joint statement(see enclosed) urging President Obama to close Guantánamo and guarantee full accountability to in all cases of torture and other ill-treatment. We also add a specific call to Latin American states, to contribute to resolving this human rights and humanitarian crisis by supporting a regional humanitarian effort to receive Guantánamo’s detainees as refugees, responding inclusive to the recent call made by the InterAmerican Commission on Human Rights in its latest report on closing Guantánamo.

If you would like to add your organization to the list of endorsing groups, please send an email to Laura Waisbich: laura.waisbich@conectas.org by COB next Thursday, January 21^st.

​We are hoping to make it public by January, 22nd, the anniversary of Obama's Executive Order.  ​

Feel free to share among your networks, so we can get a wide support across the region.

Best regards,

Laura Waisbich

musical interlude....

As Studs Terkel was fond of saying..."Hope Does Last."

One of the 10 released yesterday....

Among them was Fahd Ghazy, who has been imprisoned at Guantánamo since he was just 17 years old.

“Almost 14 years ago to the day, Fahd arrived at Guantánamo as a boy, shackled and hooded,” his attorney Omar Farah said in a press statement. “Today — finally — he is free.”

As for Fahd Ghazy, he is now 31.

“There was never much doubt that Fahd’s imprisonment was unnecessary — he was cleared for release nearly a decade ago — yet he grew up at Guantánamo waiting for successive presidents to correct a glaring injustice,” his lawyer, Omar Farah said.  

Ghazy can now reclaim his life.

“I am not ISN 26,” he said. “That is the government’s number. My name is Fahd Ghazy. I am a human being, a man who is loved and who loves.” 

Read the rest here.

This is what I meant when I said that Obama owns this mess.... Half the time that Ghazy was held  was under Obama's regime. And Ghazy was cleared for release that entire time.

Banner Day.... 10 Yemeni's on their way to Oman

The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of Fahed Abdullah Ahmad Ghazi, Samir Naji al-Hasan Muqbil, Adham Mohamed Ali Awad, Mukhtar Yahya Naji al-Warafi, Abu Bakr Ibn Muhammad al-Ahdal, Muhammad Salih Husayn al-Shaykh, Muhammad Said Salim Bin Salman, Said Muhammad Salih Hatim, Umar Said Salim al-Dini, and Fahmi Abdallah Ahmad Ubadi al-Tulaqi from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Government of Oman. 

93 Remain...

And this from London....

Shaker and other former Gitmo prisoners.... protesting the fact that Guantanamo is still open on the 15th anniversary of its opening....





MORE ON THE ANNIVERSARY PROTESTS HERE....

Another detainee released today...

The Department of Defense announced today the repatriation of Muhammed Abd Al Rahman Awn Al-Shamrani from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. 

Today starts the 15th year of my country's war crime called Guantanamo. 103 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay.

Just to keep things in perspective.....

In twenty days Obama will have kept Guantanamo open longer than Bush.
Obama owns this mess and cannot blame others for his inaction.

fifteen years of lawlessness

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the fifteenth year of Guantanamo. It also marks the eleventh year of my representation of Guantanamo detainees- pro bono. I began my representation because I believed in the rule of law. I believed that zealous legal representation would mean something in this country of mine. I was wrong. My remaining client will start his fifteen year in just a few months. Guantanamo has been a failure of leadership, a failure of  the rule of law and a failure of democratic principles.

Carol Rosenberg reports on what my government called "the worst of the worst."  Of those first 20 of the so-called "worst"  14 were long ago released and 4 of the 6 remaining have been "cleared" for release..

Last Kuwaiti is released... Updated with latest statistics

The Department of Defense announced today the repatriation of Faez Mohammed Ahmed Al-Kandari from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the government of the State of Kuwait.

Carol Rosenberg has more here.

Reflecting the repatration of Faiz al Kandari to Kuwait today.

The prison population now stands at 104: 45 are cleared, 49 are awaiting clearance, and 10 are in the military commission system (of those, 7 are in “active” “trial” proceedings while 3 have been “convicted”).

Of the 45 cleared, 37 (82.2%) are Yemenis and 9 are non-Yemenis.

Of the 49 awaiting clearance, 23 are Yemenis and 26 are non-Yemenis.

The PRB has approved for transfer 15 of the 18 detainees for whom it has issued decisions.  Eight detainees are officially in the PRB process and awaiting their first hearing or decision.  38 detainees are PRB-eligible but have not yet officially begun the process.  (For these purposes, a detainee is “officially in the PRB process” when he shows up on the PRB web page tracking individual detainees’ proceedings.)

as alwayts-- h/o to Brian Foster for the numbers

Two detainees released today....

The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of Mahmud Umar Muhammad Bin Atef and Khalid Muhammad Salih Al-Dhuby from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the Government of Ghana.

As directed by the president's Jan. 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of these cases. As a result of those reviews, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Atef and Al-Dhuby were unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force.

105 remain....

fifteen years and counting....

Rolling Stone did a nice piece on Guantanamo last week- looking over the absurd and senseless history of the place over the fifteen years...
yes, fifteen years. The place is as much Obama's legacy now as it is Bush's....
Read the article here.

I will believe it when I see it!

Rumor is that 17 will be released in January and three men are slated for the periodic review board during that same month.
Read more here.

As if he needed any help......

This article explains the obstacles that the Pentagon has put in front of Obama in closing Guantanamo. I would just add that Obama has done enough on his own to foreclose closing the place.
Read more here.

From Our Friends Down under at Justinian....

US Supreme Court's dreadful legacy ... Fifteenth anniversary of Bush v Gore - the decision that "changed everything" ... The environmental hazards of international "trade" agreements ... Guantánamo prisoner held for 13 years in a case of mistaken identity ... Roger Fitch, Our Man in Washington 

The Pentagon has admitted wrongly holding a Guantánamo prisoner for 13 years in a case of mistaken identity. 

It seems Mustafa al-Shamiri was not "al-Qaida" after all. Even so, he was deemed one of those hapless "low-level fighters" or "foot soldiers", as the Pentagon and its faithful media stenographers categorise men who, in previous wars, were classified as combatants entitled to consideration as prisoners of war.

No journalists ever ask why men are being "cleared" for release who were never properly classified for detention in the first place, i.e. at the time of their apprehension, by following the requirements of the Third Geneva Convention and the US Uniform Code of Military Justice.

After the adoption of the Geneva Conventions in 1949, and until the war in Afghanistan, the US never failed to extend prisoner of war status hearings to opposing soldiers, even the Viet Cong.  

Before Afghanistan, the US never claimed that a country it was fighting had no government; indeed, in the years before 9/11, Taliban officials were welcomed and entertained in George Bush's home state, discussing pipelines and oil wells.

When the war broke out in Afghanistan, commanding General Tommy Franks began preparations for the treatment of prisoners of war and the conduct of the independent "Article 5" hearings required under GCIII and the UCMJ.  He was stopped by the Bush Pentagon.

The first Guantánamo commandant, Brig. Gen. Rick Baccus, had signs put-up around the camp explaining the prisoners' rights under the Geneva Conventions and was planning for the provision of the amenities allowed to prisoners of war by GCIII. He was summarily replaced by a commander who accorded no Geneva Conventions rights - not even the basic rights of Common Article Three. 

Still, no media proprietors inquired - in 2002 or afterwards - why prisoners from the Afghanistan war were different, why they were never recognised as soldiers of Afghanistan, why they were denied en masse their Article 5 hearings without which they were presumedto be prisoners of war.

In fact, the trial judge in the Hamidullin case (see previous post) did ruminate on the matter before deciding he could try the Taliban soldier Irek Hamidullin for opposing US soldiers in Afghanistan.  

Hamidullin has now been sentenced to life in prison plus 30 years for essentially nothing. No Americans were harmed.

According to one news report, the judge found Hamidullin "wasn't a lawful combatant because the Taliban and its affiliated groups lack a clearly defined command structure and don't adhere to the laws and customs of war".   

There is no such requirement, however, for government forces. Article 4 of GIII states: 

A. Prisoners of war, in the sense of the present Convention, are persons belonging to one of the following categories, who have fallen into the power of the enemy:

(1) Members of the armed forces of a Party to the conflict as well as members of militias or volunteer corps forming part of such armed forces.

--- 

More here on a man who was held in irregular detention in Afghanistan for five years before being brought to the US for prosecution for the "crime" of opposing US invading forces.

READ THE ENTIRE POST HERE.

Shaker Aamer gives his first full interview

You can watch the full interview here. It is more than an hour long.

If you want a shorter version go here.