Life after Guantanamo

My report on the good news that three Afghan nationals and former Guantánamo prisoners, who were sent to the UAE in 2016-17, have been repatriated following a peace agreement negotiated between the Afghan government and former warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hesb-e Islami movement in 2016.

In my latest article, I follow up on a recent article about former Guantánamo prisoner Mohamedou Ould Salahi for Middle East Eye by Amandla Thomas-Johnson, who visited him in Mauritania. I focus in particular on Salahi’s belief in the importance of forgiveness, which is always extraordinarily powerful when it comes from people who have been subjected to appalling treatment.

Following up on a recent Canadian news report about three former Guantánamo prisoners — Uighurs (from China’s oppressed Xinjiang province), who were resettled in Albania and Bermuda. They are seeking permission from the Canadian government to join their wives and children, who are all Canadian nationals, but are finding that discredited allegations from Guantánamo continue to haunt them.

A cross-post, with my own introduction, of a compelling and very detailed New Yorker article by Ben Taub about former Guantánamo prisoner, torture victim and best-selling author Mohamedou Ould Salahi and his guard Steve Wood.

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.

Some rare good news regarding Guantánamo, as a senior Canadian judge has ruled that former child prisoner Omar Khadr’s Guantánamo-related sentence is finally over, five months after it was supposed to have come to an end. Unfortunately, as I also note, former prisoners who never went through any sort of legal process still remain fundamentally without any rights whatsoever.

As Mohamedou Ould Slahi, former Guantánamo prisoner, torture victim and best-selling author, is denied a passport by his home government in Mauritania, I look at how all former prisoners — “enemy combatants” — are fundamentally deprived of rights as “un-people” by the US, and call for this situation to change.

Promoting the launch of ‘Guantánamo Kid’, the English translation of the powerful graphic novel by Jérôme Tubiana and Alexandre Franc about the experiences of Mohammed El-Gharani, a former child prisoner in Guantánamo.

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.   It’s now over two weeks […]

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.   Canada, contrasting itself with its […]