Guantanamo and habeas corpus

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.

My report on the news that the Afghan government has submitted an amicus brief to a US court in the case of Asadullah Haroon Gul, one of the last two Afghans in Guantánamo, arguing for his long-overdue release. Of the 40 men still held, Gul is one of 22 identified as “forever prisoners,” because of their ongoing and thoroughly unjustifiable imprisonment without charge or trial.

My report on the death, at the age of 60, of former Guantánamo prisoner Ibrahim Idris, who is the only prisoner to have been freed because his attorney managed to persuade the Justice Department that he was so mentally and physically ill that he could not pose a threat to the US.

A cross-post, with my own detailed introduction, of an important New York Times article by longtime Guantánamo watcher Linda Greenhouse, examining the shameful recent ruling by a panel of appeals court judges in Washington, D.C., denying that due process rights extend to the Guantánamo prisoners.

I report on disturbing news from the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), who explain that one of their Guantánamo clients, Sharqawi al-Hajj, a torture victim, “forever prisoner” and long-term hunger striker, “stated on a recent call with his attorney that he wanted to take his own life.”

I report on an important case, argued by Tom Wilner, with whom I co-founded the ‘Close Guantánamo’ campaign in 2012, in which appeals court judges “reversed an eight-year rule that has prevented Guantánamo detainees from seeing and rebutting the evidence purportedly justifying their detention.” As Tom says, “This decision tears down the major barrier that has prevented the Guantánamo detainees from receiving a fair hearing.”

A cross-post, with my own detailed introduction, of an article for the Atlantic by Richard Bernstein about the Uighurs, an oppressed minority in China, and how the Bush administration sided with the Chinese government to falsely assess 22 Uighurs who ended up at Guantánamo as terrorists.

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. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.   I wrote the following article for […]

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. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.   Anyone paying close attention to […]

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 […]