Guantanamo and habeas corpus

Today is the 20th anniversary of the release, by the Pentagon, on April 20, 2006, of the first ever publicly-released prisoner list revealing the names and nationalities of 558 of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo at that point in time, after the prison had been almost entirely shrouded in a deliberate veil of secrecy for the first four years and three months of its existence, enabling torture and other abuse to take place, inflicted on men and boys held as “unlawful enemy combatants” without any fundamental rights whatsoever as human beings. A second list, revealing information about all 759 prisoners, was released in May 2006, and 20 more prisoners — mostly alleged “high-value detainees” — arrived at Guantánamo from CIA “black sites” in September 2006, and also in 2007 and 2008, when transfers to the prison came to an end. The list was unwillingly released by the Pentagon through Freedom of Information legislation, via a lawsuit submitted by the Associated Press, and it provided the first significant key to enable me, as an independent researcher, to begin to build up a coherent picture of who was held at Guantánamo, by cross-referencing the list with other documentation, and to understand how and why the Bush administration had fundamentally misled the world by claiming that the prisoners were “the worst of the worst.” As I have always maintained, there was never any evidence that any more than a few percent of prisoners held at Guantánamo had any meaningful connection to Al-Qaeda or other groups allegedly involved in terrorism. My work led to the publication, after a year of incessant research and writing, of my book “The Guantánamo Files”, published in September 2007, and my subsequent work as an independent journalist and human rights activist, writing and publishing thousands of articles on my website, telling more of the prisoners’ stories, and campaigning to get the prison closed.

The fifth article in my ongoing series about the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo, noting how long they have been held since those decisions were taken, telling their stories, and tying publication of these articles into significant dates in their long ordeal. The articles are published alternately here and on the Close Guantánamo website, and this particular article highlights three men approved for release in December 2021 — the talented artist Moath al-Alwi, and two victims of extraordinary rendition and torture: Zakaria al-Baidany and Mohammed Abdul Malik Bajabu.

The third article in my ongoing series about the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo, noting how long they have been held since those decisions were taken, telling their stories, and tying publication of these articles into significant dates in their long ordeal. This particular article highlights the three especially unfortunate men who were approved for release over 14 years ago.

The first of a series of articles focusing on the 16 men still held at Guantánamo who have long been approved for release by high-level US government review processes. Published to coincide with significant dates in these men’s long wait for freedom, this first article focuses on Uthman Abd Al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman, a Yemeni who was approved for release 1,000 days ago.

The first of two articles about the devastating report about Guantánamo that was issued on June 26 by Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, following her visit to Guantánamo in February, which was the first ever visit to the prison by a Special Rapporteur. Despite improvements in conditions under President Obama and President Biden, she concluded that the detention regime at the prison continues to represent “ongoing cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment”, and “may also meet the legal threshold for torture.”

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 release from Guantánamo of Said Bakush, the last Algerian in the prison, who was held for nearly 21 years without charge or trial. Bakush, as I have reported previously, was misidentified by the US military, who used a photo that purported to be of him, but was not him at all, and he was also analyzed as suffering from PTSD by a psychologist contacted by his attorney, Candace Gorman, who continued to work on his behalf, even though he has not seen her since 2016, because he became so depressed about his predicament.

An exclusive article about the latest court hearing in the case of Khalid Qassim, a Yemeni prisoner in Guantánamo whose lawyers are seeking to persuade a judge to order his release on the basis that, as someone seized after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan as a soldier, with no connection to terrorism, he must be released now that the war in Afghanistan is definitively over. The case was heard in December, in the District Court in Washington, D.C., before Senior Judge Thomas Hogan, and was argued by Tom Wilner, who was Counsel of Record to the Guantánamo prisoners in their Supreme Court cases establishing their right to habeas corpus in 2004 and 2008.

The video – with my introduction – of ‘Guantánamo: 21 Years On’, the very first episode of a new English language show, ‘The London Circle’, broadcast by the Arabic news channel Al Hiwar TV, featuring Moazzam Begg and I in discussion with Anas Altikriti.

My report about Guled Hassan Duran, a Somali prisoner in Guantánamo who has worrying health problems, and whose lawyers have just asked a US court to revisit his long-stalled habeas corpus petition, and to order his release, a year since he was approved for release by a Periodic Review Board.