Medical abuse at Guantanamo

The story of Abu Zubaydah has fascinated me for many years — since I was writing my book The Guantánamo Files, specifically, and, in my journalism, since I first wrote extensively about him in my April 2008 article, The Insignificance and Insanity of Abu Zubaydah: Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Confirms FBI’s Doubts. Since then, I have returned [...]

Just as WikiLeaks is revealing details of the regime of torture, coercion and bribery that was required to create what purported to be evidence at Guantánamo, the peer-reviewed journal journal PloS Medicine published a research article, “Neglect of Medical Evidence of Torture in Guantánamo Bay: A Case Series,” written by Vincent Iacopino, a senior medical [...]

Back in October, I traveled to the Bay Area for a fascinating week-long series of events, “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week (covered in detail here), and I’m pleased to report that videos of one of the panel discussions that week, “Torture, Human Experimentation and the Department of Defense,” have just been made available via [...]

In an investigative report for Truthout, my colleagues Jason Leopold and the psychologist and blogger Jeffrey Kaye have followed up on an important story they published three weeks ago, “Controversial Drug Given to All Guantánamo Detainees Akin to ‘Pharmacologic Waterboarding’” (which I cross-posted here, with commentary). In that article, they revealed how, in the months [...]

In one narrative of the “War on Terror,” President Bush scrapped the protections of the Geneva Conventions — including Common Article 3, which prohibits “cruel treatment and torture” and “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment.” — for prisoners at Guantánamo, and established the prison as an offshore interrogation center to protect [...]

On September 18, I was delighted to be asked to attend “Eid Without Aafia,” and to conduct a live interview with former Guantánamo prisoners Shafiq Rasul and Ruhal Ahmed. The event, in east London, was organized by the Justice for Aafia Coalition to raise awareness about the case of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani neuroscientist [...]

Over the last 18 months, as part of the slow-moving process of closing Guantánamo, the Obama administration — having refused to offer new homes on the US mainland to cleared prisoners who cannot be repatriated because they face the risk of torture — has prevailed on other countries to help out. To date, 37 former [...]

Last week, Truthout published an important article by Jason Leopold, Truthout’s Deputy Managing Editor, and psychologist and blogger Jeffrey Kaye, revealing, for the first time, a secret memorandum dated March 25, 2002, approved by deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz, which authorized human experimentation on detainees in the “War on Terror.” The release of the memo [...]

This is the first part of a nine-part series telling the stories of all the prisoners currently held in Guantánamo (176 at the time of writing). See the introduction here, and Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six and Part Seven. The 20 prisoners listed below were the first group of prisoners [...]

As of today, the results of the Guantánamo prisoners’ habeas corpus petitions stand at 38 victories for the prisoners against 15 victories for the government, after two recent rulings. On July 21, Judge Henry H. Kennedy Jr. granted the habeas petition of Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a 34-year old Yemeni, while, in another courtroom, Judge [...]