Guantanamo

My analysis of the broken Periodic Review Board system at Guantánamo, a parole-type process introduced by President Obama, to assess whether or not prisoners regarded as “too dangerous to transfer but not feasible for prosecution” could be released. The PRBs recommended 38 prisoners for release under Obama, whilst approving the ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial of 26 others. Under Trump, however, the process has become meaningless, because not a single prisoner has been recommended for release, and, as a result, the prisoners are now boycotting the process, with the most recent example being Hassan bin Attash, a Saudi who was just 16 or 17 years old when he was seized in 2002, and who has now, shamefully, spent over half his life imprisoned without charge or trial.

My report about a little-noticed ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Abu Zubaydah, for whom the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program was developed, in which, for the first time, an appellate court has stated that he was tortured, and has also recognized that the Bush administration’s description of him as a member of Al-Qaeda was mistaken. My article also includes a cross-post of an article about the case by Joseph Margulies, who was one of Abu Zubaydah’s lawyers for over ten years.

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?

It’s the start of my latest quarterly fundraiser, in which I ask you, if you can, to make a donation towards my target of $2,500 (£2,000) to support my Guantánamo work, my housing activism and my London photography over the next three months.

In my latest article, I follow up on a recent article about former Guantánamo prisoner Mohamedou Ould Salahi for Middle East Eye by Amandla Thomas-Johnson, who visited him in Mauritania. I focus in particular on Salahi’s belief in the importance of forgiveness, which is always extraordinarily powerful when it comes from people who have been subjected to appalling treatment.

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.”

Following up on an ABC News feature about Guantánamo – a rarity for the US mainstream media, with the exception of Carol Rosenberg at the New York Times – about the case of Abdul Latif Nasser, a Moroccan prisoner who was approved for release from Guantánamo three years ago, but is still held because the necessary procedures weren’t completed by the time President Obama left office, and Donald Trump, of course, has no intention of releasing anyone from Guantánamo under any circumstances.

Marking the 17th anniversary of the “torture memos,” written by John Yoo and approved by Jay S. Bybee, I look at how the US’s decision to embark on a torture program continues to undermine justice, as defense lawyers for the men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks are taking exception to claims that the use of torture on their clients can be sidestepped because “clean teams” of FBI agents later interrogated them non-coercively. The lawyers claim – and have evidence to back it up – that actually the “clean teams” were working quite closely with the CIA throughout the whole process.

My report about the publication of “CIA Torture Unredacted,” a 400-page report by Sam Raphael, Crofton Black and Ruth Blakeley, drawing on their nine years of research into the US’s post-9/11 torture program, and, over the last four years, their efforts to “unredact” key information concealed in the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report about the program, released in December 2014.