Conditions at Guantanamo

Remembering Yasser al-Zahrani, Mani al-Utaybi and Ali al-Salami, the three men who died on this day at Guantánamo 17 years ago. The official narrative — that they committed suicide — is no more plausible than it was then, and other deaths at Guantánamo, also described as suicides, also remain suspicious.

A major article examining the cases of the 14 men still held at Guantánamo — “high-value detainees” and torture victims — who have not been approved for release, and what the US authorities can and should do with them, given that many have significant physical and/or mental health problems relating to their torture, or to the inadequacy of medical care at the prison. Following recent, highly critical reports by the UN and the ICRC, I look at the possibility of plea deals to resolve the deadlock in the trials of those who have been charged, and who may end up remaining at Guantánamo, but in a new facility providing “rehabilitation from torture, and adequate medical care”, and also suggest that other men not charged may also have to be provided with a similar, but non-penal facility providing the same level of care.

My report about what I describe as “the single most devastating condemnation by an international body that has ever been issued with regard to the US’s detention policies in the ‘war on terror’, both in CIA ‘black sites’ and at Guantánamo” — an opinion issued by the the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention about Abu Zubaydah, the first victim of the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program. The condemnation is not only of the US government, but also the governments of Pakistan, Thailand, Poland, Morocco, Lithuania, Afghanistan and the UK, although the most severe criticisms are directed at the US government, which is ordered to release him and to pay him compensation. The Working Group also expresses “grave concern” that the very basis of the detention system at Guantánamo — involving “widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law” — “may constitute crimes against humanity.”

My report about the significance of the first ever visit to Guantánamo by a UN Rapporteur, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, and the additional news that, after a letter from Fionnuala Ní Aoláin and another Rapporteur, a Trump-era ban on prisoners leaving Guantánamo with their artwork has just been dropped.

Promoting a new infographic I’ve created showing how long the 20 men approved for release from Guantánamo have been held since they were approved for release. In contrast to the 377 days that recently released prisoner Majid Khan had to wait to be freed after the end of his terrorism-related sentence last year, most of these 20 men have been waiting for far longer, and still have no idea when, if ever they will be freed, because their approval for release came through purely administrative processes, which have no legal weight.

Linking to and discussing my two recent interviews about Guantánamo and Julian Assange, with Jason Olbourne on TNT Radio in Australia, and with J. G. Michael for his ‘Parallax Views’ podcast, in which we also discussed recent claims by former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi that Republican presidential hopeful Ron DeSantis was present when he and other hunger strikers were being force-fed, and that he revelled in their suffering.

An update on the story of Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, who was given a life sentence after a one-sided military commission trial at Guantánamo in 2008, when he refused to mount a defence, and who, disgracefully, has been held ever since in solitary confinement. As his lawyers appeal to the court of appeals in Washington, D.C., I look at their submission, and review the history of his legal challenges against his conviction, which has, over the years, involved most of the charges on which he was convicted being overturned.

My report about the latest medical scandal at Guantánamo, as a medical team was flown in to conduct emergency surgery on Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, who has a degenerative spinal condition. Al-Iraqi previously had five surgical operations at Guantánamo, in 2017-18, after his condition was ignored for ten years. It is clear that his needs cannot be met at the prison, but he cannot receive urgent and more appropriate medical care on the US mainland because of an ongoing ban, imposed by Congress in the annual National Defense Authorization Act, which prevents prisoners from being transferred to the US mainland for any reason. I also look at the case of Ammar al-Baluchi, who suffered brain damage as a result of torture in a CIA “black site,” but whose calls for independent medical experts to assess him are being resisted by the Biden administration.

Promoting a letter to President Biden from eight former Guantánamo prisoners, urging him to drop a ban on released prisoners leaving with their artwork, or even giving it as gifts to their lawyers (and, via them, to their family members), which was imposed under Donald Trump in November 2017, in response to Pentagon hysteria about an exhibition of prisoners’ artwork in New York.

Looking at the problems faced by the US government in finding a third country prepared to offer a new home to Guantánamo prisoner Majid Khan, whose sentence for involvement in terrorism ended on March 1 this year. Khan is thoroughly repentant about his actions, and has cooperated with the authorities on other terrorism-related cases, but it remains uncertain whether another country can be found that will take him in. As a cooperating witness, he should, it seems to me, be resettled with his family under a new identity in the US, but that is currently illegal under provisions in the annual National Defense Authorization Act introduced by Republicans during the Obama presidency, and maintained ever since.