Asylum in Europe

On Monday, I was delighted to be interviewed for Swiss National Television (SF), for a ten-minute feature, “Geheimakte Guantánamo,” on the main channel, SF1. The program followed an announcement that the Swiss government was entertaining the possibility of rehousing up to four cleared prisoners in Guantánamo, who cannot be repatriated because of fears that they […]

In an exclusive interview with the BBC, Daniel Fried came across as an eminently reasonable man placed in a disturbingly unreasonable position by his bosses. A senior diplomat, who was the Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs for four years, Fried was plucked from his job in March 2009 to become the […]

From Spain, via my journalist friend Carlos Sardiña Galache (who provided invaluable help with my recent article about Judge Baltasar Garzón) comes the breaking news that Cadena SER, the main Spanish radio station, has just announced that the Spanish government has agreed to accept two Guantánamo prisoners, who, it is stated, will arrive in the […]

On August 28, in the first indication that European countries are prepared to help the Obama administration fulfill its promise to close Guantánamo by accepting prisoners who have been cleared for release, but who cannot be repatriated because of fears that they will face torture on their return, the Portuguese interior ministry announced that two […]

In the Obama administration’s campaign to persuade other countries to rehouse prisoners from Guantánamo who have been cleared for release, but who cannot be repatriated because of fears that they will be tortured if returned to their home countries, progress has been slow. Why European nations are reluctant to accept cleared Guantánamo prisoners Despite an […]

Imagine if you were imprisoned for seven years without charge or trial, and then a judge ruled that the government’s case against you consisted solely of unreliable allegations made by other prisoners who were tortured, coerced, bribed or suffering from mental health issues, and a “mosaic” of intelligence, purporting to rise to the level of […]

On Wednesday, the British Muslim support group Help The Prisoners stated that it had “received notification from an inmate at Macomer prison” — an Italian high-security prison on the island of Sardinia — that “three Tunisian inmates from Guantánamo Bay will be transferred there.” This is disturbing news, because, as Help The Prisoners note, “Macomer […]

On Monday, the European Union and the United States made a joint statement in Luxembourg “on the Closure of the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility and Future Counterterrorism Operations, based on Shared Values, International Law, and Respect for the Rule of Law and Human Rights” (PDF), which, as the Guardian put it, “cleared the last hurdles […]

Following a visit to Washington D.C. on 1 and 2 June, Thomas Hammarberg, the Council Of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner, has sent a letter to all 47 Council of Europe member states urging them to follow the example already provided by Albania, France, Sweden and the UK in accepting “cleared” prisoners from Guantánamo who cannot […]

So many of the stories relating to Guantánamo are bleak that I thought it was worth mentioning a recent interview with Lakhdar Boumediene, who was released from Guantánamo two weeks ago after seven years and four months of pointless and brutal imprisonment. I first reported the story of Boumediene and his five compatriots — Algerians […]