Conditions at Guantanamo

My discussion of a recent ABC News article highlighting, via attorney Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, repressive and culturally inadequate treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo by medical personnel this summer, which led to all of the “low-value detainees” — 24 men in total —refusing to engage with medical staff. The situation now appears to have been partly resolved, but prisoners continue, as ever, to be shackled when meeting with military personnel, even though they offer no threat to them whatsoever.

Following up on an article in the Independent, I look at the cases of five men abandoned in Guantánamo by Donald Trump — men who were approved for release by high-level review processes under President Obama, but who weren’t freed before he left office, and who, to my mind, can now legitimately be considered the personal prisoners of Donald Trump.

My analysis, cross-posted from the Close Guantánamo website, of the significance – regarding Guantánamo – of Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives last November. Led by Rep. Adam Smith, Democrats, via the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), are trying to prevent Donald Trump from being able to bring new prisoners to Guantánamo, and are also trying to ease restrictions on the release of prisoners, and work towards the eventual closure of Guantánamo. The House and Senate versions of the NDAA are currently being consolidated.

Following up on a report about the outrageous cost of running the prison at Guantánamo Bay by Carol Rosenberg in the New York Times, in which I suggest that her figure of $13m per prisoner per year, based on figures for last year, is actually understated, and is, instead, $14m per prisoner per year. Such a waste of money, as well as being a legal, moral and ethical abomination.

On the 18th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, one of the bitterest legacies of the “war on terror” that the Bush administration declared in response is Guantánamo, where the men held are sinking into despair under Donald Trump, including one man, Sharqawi Al Hajj, who, just last month, attempted suicide, cutting his wrists with a piece of glass while on a phone call with his lawyer. How long can this injustice continue?

I report on disturbing news from the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), who explain that one of their Guantánamo clients, Sharqawi al-Hajj, a torture victim, “forever prisoner” and long-term hunger striker, “stated on a recent call with his attorney that he wanted to take his own life.”

Analyzing a 2010 DoD report into the use of medical records in interrogations at Guantánamo, as secured by “FOIA terrorist” Jason Leopold, seven years after he first requested it. Plus a history of what preceded this report, and some accounts by prisoners themselves, as compiled by former prisoner Omar Deghayes after his release in 2007.

Publicizing a powerful new report, ‘Deprivation and Despair: The Crisis of Medical Care at Guantánamo,’ by the Center for Victims of Torture (CVT) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), thoroughly refuting claims by the US authorities that Guantánamo prisoners receive care equivalent to that of US service members.

A cross-post, with my introduction, of a detailed and important article by investigative journalist Jeffrey Kaye about the death at Guantánamo, in 2011, of Haji Naseem, a mentally troubled Afghan national, who was one of the last prisoners to arrive at Guantánamo, in 2007.

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   The following article was published on the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary […]