Uzbeks in Guantanamo

Last week, the enforced repatriation of Abdul Aziz Naji, an Algerian prisoner in Guantánamo, diverted attention from the stories of three other men who were released in less worrying circumstances: a Syrian who was rehoused in Cape Verde, a former Portuguese colony off the west coast of Africa; an Uzbek rehoused in Latvia; and an […]

On December 21, the following article, written by Kevin Cullen, was published by the Boston Globe. It brings up to date the story of Oybek Jabbarov, an innocent man from Uzbekistan, held in Guantánamo for nearly eight years, who was finally freed in September and given a new home in Ireland. As I reported at […]

In a recent article, “75 Guantánamo Prisoners Cleared For Release; 31 Could Leave Today,” I examined the implications of an announcement that 75 of the remaining 223 prisoners in Guantánamo have been cleared for release. This came by way of a list posted in the prison, identifying the prisoners by nationality, and a statement by […]

On Sunday, following the revelation of the identity of one of two Uzbeks released from Guantánamo to take up a new life in the Republic of Ireland, I published a letter from Guantánamo written by this man, Oybek Jabbarov, and also included a statement by his lawyer, Michael J. Mone Jr., to a Committee of […]

Yesterday I reported that the US government had released three prisoners from Guantánamo, repatriating Alla Ali Bin Ali Ahmed, a Yemeni, and sending two unidentified prisoners — presumed to be Uzbeks — to new homes in Ireland. I suspected that one of the men was Oybek Jabbarov, an Uzbek who was cleared for release from […]

Reuters, following up on an announcement by the Justice Department, has just reported that three prisoners have been released from Guantánamo. Two men, who have not been identified, have been sent to Ireland, following successful negotiations between the Irish government and Daniel Fried, the Obama administration’s Special Envoy to Guantánamo. Their identities are being protected […]

As rumors swirl, suggesting that a number of the remaining 13 Uighur prisoners in Guantánamo (Muslims from China’s Xinjiang province) may soon be relocating to the tiny Pacific island state of Palau, a court case relating to nine of these men threatens to hurl a number of other prisoners in Guantánamo, who have also been […]

The continued imprisonment of at least 61 prisoners at Guantánamo, who have been cleared for release after multiple military review boards (or, in recent months, after rulings in a US court), was an affront to notions of justice when the Bush administration was in power, and is even more so now that Barack Obama, who […]

As part of my ongoing project to record the stories of all the prisoners held at Guantánamo, I’ve just posted the eleventh of 12 additional online chapters supplementing my book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, and available from Amazon here and here). This […]

As rumors continue to fly regarding Barack Obama’s plans to close the notorious “War on Terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, one country in the European Union, Portugal, took the opportunity offered last Wednesday by the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — one of whose Articles declares, “Everyone has the right to […]