Ahmed Belbacha

Since July 2008, when the first Algerian prisoners were repatriated from Guantánamo, the position taken by the US government — first under George W. Bush, and, for the last three years, under Barack Obama — has been that Algeria is a safe country for the repatriation of prisoners cleared for release. Lawyers and NGOs aware [...]

“‘Outside the Law’ is a powerful film that has helped ensure that Guantánamo and the men unlawfully held there have not been forgotten.” Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK “[T]his is a strong movie examining the imprisonment and subsequent torture of those falsely accused of anti-American conspiracy.” Joe Burnham, Time Out “Every American needs to [...]

On Tuesday, as President Obama, on his first state visit to the UK, was welcomed by the Queen at Buckingham Palace, campaigners from the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign and the London Guantánamo Campaign were outside, on the Mall, making a noise about the need to secure the return to the UK of the last British [...]

Ten days ago, when I traveled to Sheffield with my friend, the former Guantánamo prisoner Omar Deghayes, for a screening of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (which I co-directed with Polly Nash), I asked Omar what Guantánamo was like at Christmas, as I knew that he had spent five Christmases imprisoned [...]

In an attempt to bring to an end a nearly four-year deadlock in the case of Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian prisoner in Guantánamo, lawyers at the London-based legal action charity Reprieve have “started high court proceedings to force the British government to disclose information that they say could free him from Guantánamo Bay and save [...]

Congratulations to the Malvern Hills Amnesty International Group for demonstrating, on Tuesday evening, that compassion and empathy are not dead. Less than 24 hours before the coalition government announced its spending review, which demonstrated a notable absence of compassion and empathy for the poor and the disadvantaged, several hundred people turned up at Malvern Theatres [...]

This is the fourth part of a nine-part series telling the stories of all the prisoners currently held in Guantánamo (174 at the time of writing). See the introduction here, and Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Five, Part Six and Part Seven. This fourth article tells the stories of 19 prisoners seized in [...]

On Thursday, two Guantánamo prisoners were released, to start new lives in Germany, bringing the prison’s population to 174. Announcing their arrival, Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière stated that, by taking them in, Germany had “made its humanitarian contribution to closing the detention center.” He also noted that the two men had asked for their [...]

Since the US Supreme Court ruled on July 17 that there was no legal obstacle to the involuntary repatriation of Algerians at Guantánamo, and one man, Abdul Aziz Naji, was promptly flown back to Algiers, opponents of a ruling that saw the Supreme Court playing as fast and loose with the UN Convention Against Torture [...]

Last week, the release from Guantánamo of Abdul Aziz Naji, who was transferred to Algerian custody against his wishes, overshadowed other news from the prison, and with good reason. As I explained in an article at the time, the Obama administration, the Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit Court, which all played prominent roles in [...]