Algerians in Guantanamo

In a world exclusive, originally posted on the Close Guantánamo website, I tell the story of Saeed Bakhouch, an Algerian prisoner seized in Pakistan in March 2002, who has finally been approved for release by a Periodic Review Board, after being held for 20 years without charge or trial.

Celebrating the release from Guantánamo of Sufyian Barhoumi, an Algerian who was approved for release nearly five and a half years ago. 37 men now remain at the prison, but over half of them — 19 men — have also been approved for release, and President Biden also needs to arrange for these men to be given their freedom.

A detailed examination of the current Guantánamo cases before the US courts, some involving a long-running struggle for due process rights, others involving the imminent end to the war in Afghanistan, and another involving severe mental health issues. There are glimmers of hope in the litigation, but it already seems clear that the Biden administration is intent on resisting judicial interference when it comes to Guantánamo, and is more interested in making decisions about whether or not to release prisoners through the purely administrative Periodic Review Board process, which, just last month, approved three long-standing “forever prisoners” for release.

84 days into Joe Biden’s presidency, I look at how his lack of prompt action regarding Guantánamo — in the first instance, by not reviving the Office of the Special Envoy for Guantánamo Closure in the State Department — has left six men approved for release between 2009 and 2020 still languishing at the prison. It is also impacting on the lives of men already released, who, as under Donald Trump, have no one within the administration to communicate with when they face life-threatening problems, which, in the case of Lutfi bin Ali, a Tunisian, recently led to his death.

Some rare good news on the Guantánamo front, as the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), whose mission is “to promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere,” and whose resolutions are supposed to be binding on the US, which is a member state, has determined that the US was responsible for the “torture, abuse, and decade-long confinement without charge” of Djamel Ameziane, held for nearly 12 years at Guantánamo, from 2002-13, and has recommended that the US should provide “adequate material and moral reparations” for the human rights violations that he suffered.

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.

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.   I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary […]

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.   Just before Christmas, in an article entitled, “Men due to leave Gitmo under Obama seem stuck under Trump,” the […]

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.   There was some very welcome news from Canada last week, when three Canadian citizens — Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El […]

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.   It’s nearly a month since Guantánamo thrust its way back into the public consciousness with news from the human […]