Please Write to the Guantánamo Prisoners, to Let Them Know We Remember Them

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I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with the US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

It’s 13 years since two Muslim activist friends in the UK initiated a project to get people to write to the Guantánamo prisoners still held at that time — 186 in total — and I adopted it, and have been running it ever since; initially, once or twice a year, although more sporadically in recent years.

When I last posted a request for people to write to the men still held, just over a year into the Biden presidency, 39 men were still held at the prison. That number has now fallen to 30, but, after a flurry of releases earlier this year, a kind of dreadful deadly stasis has once more descended on Guantánamo.

Although 16 of the men still held have been unanimously approved for release by high-level government review processes — mostly via the Periodic Review Boards (PRBs), introduced in 2013 — no one can say when they might actually be freed. This is because the majority of them cannot be sent back to their home countries, as a result of bans imposed by Republicans every year in the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), meaning that third countries must be found that are prepared to offer them new homes.

Under President Obama, numerous countries were successfully prevailed upon to resettle men who couldn’t be safely returned home, but in the last decade, as demands on governments have increased regarding refugees, and many governments have shifted to the right politically, the willingness to help has dwindled, leaving these men still facing an uncertain future.

In addition, as Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, recently demonstrated in a report about Guantánamo (which I wrote about here) following the first ever visit by a UN Rapporteur, earlier this year, the men still held remain profoundly isolated.

In her report, the UN Rapporteur pointed out that the ban on receiving visits from family members, and the compromised nature of communications with family members via phone calls or video calls, meant that every prisoner and family member that she spoke to “evidenced unrelenting grief and trauma related to the inadequate and arbitrary access to their family at Guantánamo.”

These problems, along with repressive surveillance and security measures, “structural and entrenched physical and mental healthcare deficiencies,” the failure to “provide any torture rehabilitation to detainees,” and the “ongoing, arbitrary detention characterized by fair trial and due process violations,” led her to conclude that “the totality of these factors, without doubt, amounts to ongoing cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, and may also meet the legal threshold for torture.”

As a result of this ongoing isolation and abuse, supporters of the prison’s closure can be assured that efforts to let the remaining prisoners know that they have not been forgotten may well be appreciated, not just by the 16 men approved for release, but also the 14 others: three still held as “forever prisoners” — those whose ongoing reviews have recommended them for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial — and 11 others charged in the military commissions, the broken trial system at Guantánamo that is fundamentally incapable of delivering justice.

Of these eleven men, nine are in seemingly endless pre-trial hearings, while one other agreed to a plea deal last year, and is supposed to be freed next year, and another man is serving a life sentence after a one-sided trial back in 2008, in which he refused to mount a defense.

In the list below, I have divided the remaining 30 prisoners into those approved for release, the “forever prisoners” whose ongoing imprisonment has been approved by Periodic Review Boards, and those charged or tried in the military commissions system. I have also included some additional information — their nationalities, and links to my reports on their cases.

Please note that I have largely kept the spelling used by the US authorities in the “Final Dispositions” of the Guantánamo Review Task Force, which was released through FOIA legislation in June 2013. Even though these names are often inaccurate, they are the names by which the men are officially known in Guantánamo — although, primarily, it should be noted, those held are not referred to by any name at all, but are instead identified solely by their prisoner numbers (ISNs, which stands for “internment serial numbers”).

Writing to the prisoners

If you are an Arabic speaker, or speak any other languages spoken by the prisoners besides English, feel free to write in those languages. Do please note that any messages that can be construed as political should be avoided, as they may lead to the letters not making it past the Pentagon’s censors, but be aware that your messages may not get through anyway — although please don’t let that put you off.

When writing to the prisoners please ensure you include their full name and ISN (internment serial number) below (these are the numbers before their names).

Please address all letters to:

Detainee name
JTF-GTMO SJA
PSC 210 ISN (detainee number here)
FPO AA 34010

Please also include a return address on the envelope, and, if you’re outside the US, add USA to the address.

Note: When I first posted this article, the address that campaigners had been told was accurate was different to the one above. However, several people reported that they had had letters returned, marked with a sticker saying that it was an invalid or closed address box. We subsequently found a new address, which was confirmed by two separate sources, but that too proved problematical. As of January 2024, we have been told that the address above is accurate, but please do provide us with feedback if you use it and get letters returned.

The 16 prisoners approved for release by high-level government review processes under Presidents Obama, Trump and Biden

ISN 027 Uthman Abd al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by a PRB in May 2021

ISN 028 Moath Hamza Ahmed Al-Alwi
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by a PRB in December 2021

ISN 038 Ridah Bin Saleh Al Yazidi
A Tunisian, he was approved for release by the Guantánamo Review Task Force in January 2010

ISN 242 Khalid Ahmed Qasim
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by a PRB in July 2022

ISN 309 Muieen A Deen Jamal A Deen Abd al Fusal Abd al Sattar
Listed as being from the UAE, although of uncertain nationality (a Rohingya from Myanmar, he may have a Pakistani passport), he was approved for release by the Guantánamo Review Task Force in January 2010

ISN 569 Suhayl Abdul Anam al Sharabi
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by a PRB in November 2021

ISN 708 Ismael Ali Faraj Ali Bakush
A Libyan, he was approved for release by a PRB in September 2022

ISN 841 Said Salih Said Nashir
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by a PRB in October 2020

ISN 893 Tawfiq Nasir Awad Al-Bihani
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by the Guantánamo Review Task Force in January 2010

ISN 1017 Omar Mohammed Ali Al-Rammah
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by a PRB in December 2021

ISN 1453 Sanad Al Kazimi
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by a PRB in October 2021

ISN 1456 Hassan Bin Attash
A Yemeni (although listed as a Saudi), and Guantánamo’s youngest prisoner, he was approved for release by a PRB in April 2022

ISN 1457 Sharqawi Abdu Ali Al Hajj
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by a PRB in June 2021

ISN 1463 Abd Al-Salam Al-Hilah
A Yemeni, he was approved for release by a PRB in June 2021

ISN 10023 Guleed Hassan Ahmed
A Somali, he was approved for release by a PRB in November 2021

ISN 10025 Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu
A Kenyan, he was approved for release by a PRB in December 2021

The 3 remaining “forever prisoners” whose ongoing imprisonment has been approved by Periodic Review Boards

ISN 10016 Zayn al-Ibidin Muhammed Husayn
A stateless Palestinian, better known as Abu Zubaydah, the first victim of the US’s post-9/11 torture program, he is still awaiting the decision of his latest PRB in July 2021

ISN 10017 Mustafa Faraj Muhammad Masud al-Jadid al-Usaybi
A Libyan, his ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial was approved by a PRB in August 2022

ISN 10029 Muhammad Rahim
An Afghan, his ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial was approved by a PRB in April 2022

The 9 prisoners facing trials

ISN 10011 Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi
A Saudi, he is one of five men charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks

ISN 10013 Ramzi Bin al-Shibh
A Yemeni, he is one of five men charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks

ISN 10014 Walid Muhammad Salih Bin Attash
A Yemeni, he is one of five men charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks

ISN 10015 Abd al-Rahim Hussein Muhammad Abdah al-Nashiri
A Saudi, he is charged in connection with the attack on the USS Cole in 2000

ISN 10018 Ammar al-Baluchi
A Pakistani, he is one of five men charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks

ISN 10019 Riduan Isomuddin
An Indonesian, better known as Hambali, he is charged in connection with terrorist attacks in south east Asia

ISN 10021 Mohd Farik Bin Amin
A Malaysian, he is charged in connection with terrorist attacks in south east Asia

ISN 10022 Bashir Bin Lap
A Malaysian, he is charged in connection with terrorist attacks in south east Asia

ISN 10024 Khalid Shaykh Muhammad
A Pakistani, he is one of five men charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks

The 1 prisoner sentenced via a plea deal

ISN 10026 Nashwan abd al-Razzaq abd al-Baqi
An Iraqi, he agreed to a plea deal in June 2022, and is supposed to be freed next year

The 1 prisoner serving a life sentence after a trial by military commission

ISN 039 Ali Hamza al-Bahlul
A Yemeni, he was convicted of involvement with Al-Qaeda after a one-sided trial in 2008, in which he refused to mount a defense, and was given a life sentence, most of which has been served in solitary confinement

Note: For further information about the prisoners, see my six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six).

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Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.

Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.