Saifullah Paracha

Linking to and discussing my recent radio interview with Bob Connors and Tom Walker of WSLR 96.5, a progressive community radio station in Sarasota, Florida, about the release from Guantánamo of 75-year old Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner, and the plight of the 20 other men approved for release, for whom no legal mechanism exists to actually compel the US government to free them, because the review processes that approved them for release are purely administrative.

Celebrating the release of Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner, but also explaining in detail how unreliable information obtained through the coercive interrogation of his son, Uzair, was used to justify Saifullah’s imprisonment, even after Uzair had his sentence quashed by a federal court judge on the US mainland.

My detailed report about some extremely encouraging news from Guantánamo: that three men, including the prison’s oldest inmate, Saifullah Paracha, have been approved for release from the prison by Periodic Review Boards, the high-level government review process established under President Obama.

Following up on a recent Associated Press article, in which Ben Fox spoke to attorneys for some of the 40 men still held at Guantánamo, with their messages for Joe Biden about why he must close the prison, finishing the job that Barack Obama started but failed to complete, a policy that was shamefully discarded over the last four years by Donald Trump.

As the coronavirus spreads around the globe with alarming speed, there are fears for the prisoners held at Guantánamo, especially after a US sailor tested positive for the virus last week. Along with my own thoughts, I cross-post an article published on Just Security by Scott Roehm, the Washington Director of the Center for Victims of Torture, pointing out that a number of the prisoners have serious underlying health problems, and calling for a number of appropriate responses from the Trump administration, beginning with letting the prisoners and their lawyers know what policies are in place to deal with the virus, and also including a call for Congress to allow prisoners to be transferred to the US mainland if they need urgent medical care.

Good news for a change, as Uzair Paracha, convicted of terrorism-related charges in 2005, and given a 30-year sentence, has been freed and repatriated to Pakistan. In 2018, the judge who presided over his initial trial ordered a new trial after concluding that allowing the existing conviction to stand would be a “manifest injustice,” a decision based on serious doubts about the veracity of testimony against him that had been provided by prisoners at Guantánamo, previously held in CIA “black sites,” including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Sadly, although Uzair has been freed, his father, Saifullah, held on the basis of similar discredited testimony, is still held at Guantánamo, with no sign of when, if ever, he too will be freed.

My discussion of a recent ABC News article highlighting, via attorney Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, repressive and culturally inadequate treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo by medical personnel this summer, which led to all of the “low-value detainees” — 24 men in total —refusing to engage with medical staff. The situation now appears to have been partly resolved, but prisoners continue, as ever, to be shackled when meeting with military personnel, even though they offer no threat to them whatsoever.

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 […]

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.   The following article was published on the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th […]