Guantánamo Art Exhibition in London Humanizes Men Maligned as the “Worst of the Worst”, Shows How Artwork Gave Them Hope

Andy Worthington, standing next to former Guantánamo prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, holds up the poster showing the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo but still held at the launch of the first UK exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork in the UK, at Rich Mix in London on December 5, 2024.

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Last Thursday, a powerful and historically significant event took place in London, when an exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork was launched at Rich Mix, a cultural and community space at 35-47 Bethnal Green Road in Shoreditch, London E1 6LA. The exhibition was supported by the UK Guantánamo Network (an umbrella group of organizations calling for Guantánamo’s closure), in collaboration with Amnesty International UK, and was curated by Lise Rossi and Dominique O’Neil, core team members of the UK Guantánamo Network, and Amnesty International members.

The exhibition, “Don’t Forget Us Here”, named after the compelling 2021 memoir of former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, runs until January 5, and the launch was, genuinely, historically significant because it is the first exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork in the UK, and because Mansoor himself attended, and gave a profoundly moving speech about the significance of art for the men held at Guantánamo.

Mansoor Adayfi addressing the crowd at the launch of the first UK exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork in the UK, at Rich Mix in London on December 5, 2024.
Mansoor Adayfi explaining a painting of his from Guantánamo, and how it expresses hope, at the launch of the first UK exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork in the UK, at Rich Mix in London on December 5, 2024.

If we lived in a world that cared about the continued existence of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, and the power of artwork to break through the sweeping isolation and dehumanization to which the men held there were subjected throughout the seven years that they were held under George W. Bush, until an easing of conditions under President Biden allowed “compliant” prisoners to take classes, including art classes, on a communal basis, Mansoor would have been featured on mainstream news channels, but, shamefully the world doesn’t care.

Since the prison at Guantánamo Bay opened nearly 23 years ago, holding Muslim men (and boys) for the most part indefinitely without charge or trial, most of the western mainstream media — and particular the US media — turned a blind eye to the dehumanization and brutalization of Muslims held there, and also held elsewhere in the US’s global network of “war on terror” prisons.

They also stayed largely silent as the west’s ruinous warmongering policies in Muslim countries created a global wave of refugees in 2015, which, in turn, exacerbated anti-refugee and anti-immigrant sentiment to such an extent that the UK left the EU via Brexit, Donald Trump was elected in the US, and racism and Islamophobia are now so deeply entrenched that western governments, and most of the western media, have failed to recognize Israel’s relentless 14-month long assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as genocide, even though, if it involved anyone but Muslims, they would have fallen over themselves to condemn it.

In this fundamentally racist media landscape, the only news channel that was present at the launch was the Turkish news channel TRT World. They interviewed Mansoor and produced the short feature below, which included footage from the launch. I hope that you have time to watch it, but I also hope that further footage eventually surfaces — perhaps of my introductory speech, providing a summary of the situation at Guantánamo now, of the urgent need for 16 men approved for release (including two artists) to be freed before President Biden leaves office, but especially of Mansoor’s charming, eloquent and heartfelt discussion of the meaning of the art.

For anyone wanting to know more, I urge you, if you haven’t done so already, to read Mansoor’s memoir, which contains a truly inspiring chapter on the liberating effects of creativity on the men deprived of free expression for so long.

One of these men is Moath al-Alwi, the only one of the six artists whose work is featured in the exhibition who is still held, even though he was unanimously approved for release by a high-level US government review process nearly three years ago. Moath’s speciality is making three-dimensional sculptures of sailing ships, which he creates, with extraordinary inventiveness, using recycled materials. As Mansoor explains in his memoir, “Moath could make anything once he set his mind to it.”

On display as part of the exhibition is a beautiful video of Moath’s ship-building techniques, made many years ago for the New York Times, and now available on the video creators’ YouTube channel, and posted below. It features an actor speaking Moath’s own words, and vividly brings to life his inventiveness.

This period in Guantánamo’s long history, when creativity was tolerated, or even encouraged, is referred to by Mansoor, in his memoir, as “the golden age”, and the following passage demonstrates wonderfully how Moath was able to liberate not only himself, but also his fellow prisoners, and even some of the guards, through his three-dimensional creations.

We were at the peak of the golden age when Moath made his own windows. One opened east to Makkah and the sun rising over a vast blue sea dotted with ships and palm trees swaying gently in the morning light. The other window opened west to the most beautiful sunset, palm trees so close you could touch them, birds flying freely, and the sea a deep and mysterious blue. People came from all over to enjoy those windows and his other work. No one was jealous, except maybe some of the guards. The camp admin didn’t know how to feel about them.

While the other five artists — Sabri Al-Qurashi, Muhammad Ansi, Ahmed Rabbani, Abdualmalik Abud (aka Abd Almalik) and Mansoor himself — have been released from Guantánamo, it would be unwise to conclude that their release has, necessarily, meant freedom. This is because many prisoners released from Guantánamo, and, in particular, many of those resettled in third countries because it was regarded as unsafe for them to be sent home, continue to suffer from the stigma of having been held at Guantánamo — regarded with suspicion, denied travel documents, unable to work, and prevented from being reunited with their families, to name just a few examples of the ways in which they remain marginalized and without fundamental rights — even though they were never charged with a crime.

As I explained when I posted an article about the art exhibition a few weeks ago, “For the men released from Guantánamo, life has not necessarily improved. While Mansoor, released in Serbia in 2016, has, in recent years, finally been allowed to travel freely, and Abd Almalik lives in Montenegro, and has a website making his artwork available to interested parties, Sabri Al-Qurashi, released in Kazakhstan in 2014, lives fundamentally without any basic rights, and Muhammad Ansi, resettled in Oman in 2017, was, recently, forcibly repatriated to his home country of Yemen,  where his status in unknown. Ahmed Rabbani, meanwhile, who was returned to his home country of Pakistan in February 2023, has found no support on his return, and recently suffered the loss of his brother, Abdul Rahim, also held with him in Guantánamo, and, previously, in CIA ‘black sites’, because of this lack of care.”

One other artist, not featured in the exhibition, also deserves mention, as he is also still held at Guantánamo, despite having been unanimously approved for release in July 2022. Khaled Qassim (aka Khalid Qassim, or Khalid Qasim), celebrated by Mansoor as a kind and caring person, a cellblock leader, a singer, a poet and a footballer, made sculptural paintings using the fabric of Guantánamo itself — the gravel on the ground — mixed with glue and then painted, as well as heavily lacquered allegorical paintings, and, along with Moath, the quality of his work is worthy of international attention.

Artwork by Sabri Al-Qurashi. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
“Landscape with trees and palms” by Muhammad Ansi. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
“Crying Eye” by Muhammad Ansi. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
Artwork by Ahmed Rabbani. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
A hallucinatory work by Ahmed Rabbani. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
“Walled City” by Abdualmalik Abud. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
A photo of one of Moath Al-Alwi’s ships. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
Artwork by Mansoor Adayfi. (Photo: Andy Worthington).

As for the exhibition itself, its opening in the UK is in itself something of minor miracle. As Mansoor explains in his memoir, “the golden age” at Guantánamo didn’t last forever. Within just a few years, as the military leadership rotated and changed, another violent clampdown occurred, and by early 2013 the prisoners had embarked on a prison-wide hunger strike, which, after years of global media indifference, suddenly reawakened them to the prison’s ongoing existence, and finally prompted Obama to resume the release of prisoners, which had largely ground to a halt after Republicans had raised repeated obstacles to delay or prevent the ability of the administration to free anyone.

Despite this renewed clampdown, during the period when a certain openness held sway, the prisoners had been allowed to give their art to their lawyers, and, via them, to their families, and, as a result, in October 2017, the very first exhibition of prisoners’ artwork — including some of Moath’s sailing ships — opened at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Versions of it have since taken place in other locations in the US, as well as in Berlin and the European Parliament, and, most recently, with Mansoor’s involvement, in Belgrade, although that first exhibition prompted a horrible backlash from the Pentagon that had a profound impact on the artists still held.

As I explained in my recent article, “the existing arrangements — in which prisoners were allowed to give their art to their lawyers, and, via them, to their families — were abruptly cancelled, and the Pentagon claimed ownership of all the men’s art, the right to destroy it, if they wished, and the right to prevent any prisoner from leaving the prison with any of the work they had created. Prisoners were also — at least in some cases — prevented or restricted from making any new artwork.”

As I proceeded to explain, “These various threats and bans stayed in place until February 2023, when, finally, in response to a submission by two UN Special Mandates holders — the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism — they were lifted.”

The lifting of the ban allowed Ahmed Rabbani to return with his artwork to Pakistan, where he subsequently held an exhibition. However, although it must also have improved the mental health of Moath and Khaled, for both of whom art has become a part of themselves, it means nothing when they can still see no end to their imprisonment, because, as has been commonplace throughout Guantánamo’s history, despite them having been approved for release, they are still held by a captor — the US government — that has little or no interest in prioritizing the release of men it should never have held in the first place.

The crowd at the launch.
A selfie of the speakers, and some of the main organizers and supporters. Top row, L to R: Andy, Mansoor, Scott and David. Bottom row: Sara, Khandan and Dominique.
Andy’s brief history of Guantánamo.

* * * * *

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.

Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s new Substack account, set up in November 2024, where he’ll be sending out a weekly newsletter, or his RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Guantánamo Art Exhibition Opens at Rich Mix in London on December 5, with Mansoor Adayfi and Andy Worthington

The poster for “Don’t Forget Us Here”, the exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork at Rich Mix, in London, opening on December 5, 2024, and running until January 5, 2025.

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. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.





 

I’m delighted to announce that, on Thursday December 5, an exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork, “Don’t Forget Us Here”, named after the 2021 memoir of former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, will be launching at Rich Mix, a cultural and community space in Shoreditch, at 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA.

The exhibition will be running until January 5, with an opening event, starting at 6pm on December 5, featuring Mansoor and myself as speakers. It was organized by the UK Guantánamo Network (an umbrella group of organizations calling for Guantánamo’s closure), in collaboration with Amnesty International UK, and was put together by Lise Rossi and Dominique O’Neil, core team members of the UK Guantánamo Network, and Amnesty International members.

The exhibition — the first in the UK — is a version of an exhibition of artwork by current and former prisoners that first opened at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City in October 2017, and that has since toured across the US, as well as in Berlin and the European Parliament.

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Ex-Guantánamo Prisoner Abdul Rahim Rabbani Dies After 20 Years of Medical Neglect by the US and Inadequate Care Since His Release

Former Guantánamo prisoner Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani, on the right of the photo, who has died at just 57 years of age, 20 months after he was released from Guantánamo, where he was held for 18 years without charge or trial, after a year and a half in CIA “black sites.” Abdul Rahim’s younger brother Ahmed is on the left of the photo, and in the center is former Pakistani Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan.

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Sad news from Pakistan, where, on Friday November 1, former Guantánamo prisoner Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani (ISN 1460) died at just 57 years of age. Abdul Rahim is on the right in the photo, with former Pakistani Senator Mushtaq Ahmad Khan in the center and Abdul Rahim’s younger brother Ahmed on the left.

Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar, the brothers had lived in Saudi Arabia, where their uncle was the imam of a mosque in Medina, and held Pakistani passports, but they were seized in Karachi during a number of house raids on September 11, 2002, and were then held and tortured in CIA “black sites” for a year and a half before arriving at Guantánamo in September 2004, where they were held without charge or trial for 18 and a half years until their release in February 2023.

The US authorities liked to claim that the brothers were “Al-Qaeda facilitators”, but they clearly had no evidence, as neither man was ever charged in the prison’s court system, the military commissions, and it seemed much more probable that they were, as they attested, a chef and a taxi driver. Nevertheless, they were repeatedly recommended for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial by various high-level government review processes until May 2021, when Abdul Rahim was recommended for release by a Periodic Review Board, with a similar recommendation for Ahmed following in October 2021.

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The Powerful Artwork Still Being Created by Prisoners at Guantánamo, and the Outrageous Ban on its Dissemination That is Still in Place

A painting from 2016 by Guantánamo prisoner Khalid Qasim, created before the ban on any artwork being released from the prison was introduced under Donald Trump in 2017, a ban which, shamefully, still stands.

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I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with the US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

Many thanks to BBC World reporter Joel Gunter for his recent detailed article, “The sudden silencing of Guantánamo’s artists,” about the wonderful artwork produced by some of the men held in the prison at Guantánamo Bay, a lifeline for them since they were first allowed to express themselves during the Obama presidency, but one that has become considerably compromised in recent years, after the Pentagon took exception to an exhibition of some of the prisoners’ artwork at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City from October 2017 to January 2018.

Ode to the Sea: Art from Guantánamo Bay” featured art by eight current and former prisoners, mostly innocuous scenes drawn from nature, all of which had been approved for release by the Pentagon after screening to assure officials that they didn’t contain hidden terrorist messages. Some of the artists showed noticeable talent, although the most striking works were ships and boats made by a Yemeni prisoner, Moath al-Alwi, using recycled materials.

I wrote at the time about the importance of prisoners being allowed to express themselves artistically after their long years of what was, fundamentally, profound isolation under President Bush, and of the importance of their art being allowed to be seen in the US, to show the men as human beings rather than the “super-terrorist” bogeymen that is the default position towards them that has been taken by the US government and the mainstream media, even though the overwhelming majority of the 779 men held at Guantánamo since it first opened in January 2002 have never been charged with a crime, and were almost certainly nothing more than foot soldiers or even civilians seized by mistake.

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Torture Victim Ahmed Rabbani, A Case of Mistaken Identity, Approved for Release from Guantánamo

Guantánamo prisoner and torture victim Ahmed Rabbani, who has just been approved for release from the prison via a Periodic Review Board.

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Via Middle East Eye, and reporter Peter Oborne (formerly the chief political columnist of the Daily Telegraph, until his resignation in 2015), comes the welcome news that Guantánamo prisoner and torture victim Ahmed Rabbani has been approved for release from the prison via a Periodic Review Board, a parole-type process established in 2013 by President Obama.

Oborne was told about Rabbani’s approval for release by his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of Reprieve. “Even if it is nearly two decades late, it is fabulous that Ahmed has been cleared for release,” Stafford Smith said.

A Pakistani national of Rohingya origin, Rabbani, who is now 52 years old, was seized with his brother Abdul Rahim in Karachi in September 2002, and, after two months in Pakistani custody, spent 18 months in CIA “black sites” in Afghanistan, including the notorious prison identified by the CIA as ‘COBALT,’ but also known as the Salt Pit, or, as the prisoners described it, “the dark prison.” There he was hung naked from an iron shackle, with his feet barely touching the ground, and, like the other men held there, subjected to loud music designed to prevent them from sleeping.

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Great News from Guantánamo As Three “Forever Prisoners,” Including 73-Year Old Saifullah Paracha, Are Approved for Release

Guantánamo prisoners Saifullah Paracha, Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani and Uthman Abd al-Rahim Uthman, whose long overdue release from the prison was approved by Periodic Review Boards on Monday, although it is not yet known when they will actually be released.

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In extremely encouraging news from Guantánamo, three men have been approved for release from the prison by Periodic Review Boards, the high-level government review process established under President Obama.

The three men are: 73-year old Pakistani citizen Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner; Abdul Rahim Ghulam Rabbani, another Pakistani citizen who is 54 years old; and Uthman Abd al-Rahim Uthman, a 41-year old Yemeni. All have been held without charge or trial at Guantánamo for between 17 and 19 years.

Between November 2013 and January 2017, when President Obama left office, the Periodic Review Boards — consisting of representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, as well as the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — reviewed the cases of 64 prisoners, to ascertain whether or not they should still be regarded as a threat to the US, and, in 38 cases, recommended the prisoners for release. All but two of these men were released before the end of Obama’s presidency.

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As You Read This, Guantánamo Prisoner Ahmed Rabbani Has Been On A Hunger Strike for 2,846 Days

An image from the website, “Gitmo Hunger Strikes,” set up by Reprieve to highlight the plight of their client, Ahmed Rabbani.

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With the media spotlight hopefully being shone anew on the prison at Guantánamo Bay, now that Joe Biden has been elected as the US president, it is to be hoped that, as I explained in my recent article, President Elect Biden, It’s Time to Close Guantánamo, arrangements will be made to release the five men still held who were unanimously approved for release by high-level government review processes under President Obama, and that there will be an acceptance within the Biden administration that holding 26 other men indefinitely without charge or trial is unacceptable.

These 26 men — accurately described as “forever prisoners” by the media — were recommended either or for prosecution, or for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial, on the basis that they were “too dangerous to release,” even though it was acknowledged that insufficient evidence — or insufficient untainted evidence — existed for them to be charged, by the first of Obama’s two review processes, the Guantánamo Review Task Force, in 2009.

Four years later, the 26 — along with 38 others — were deemed eligible for a second review process, the Periodic Review Boards. Unlike the first process, which involved officials assessing whether prisoners should be freed, charged or held on an ongoing basis without charge or trial, the PRBs were a parole-type process, in which the men were encouraged to express contrition for the activities in which they were alleged to have been involved (whether those allegations were accurate or not), and to present credible proposals for a peaceful and constructive life if released.

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President Elect Biden, It’s Time to Close Guantánamo

Eight of the 40 remaining Guantánamo prisoners, who, along with other men still held, should be released by Joe Biden as soon as possible after he becomes president in January 2021. Top row, from L to R: Abdul Latif Nasser, Sufyian Barhoumi and Tawfiq al-Bihani, all approved for release by high-level government review processes under President Obama, and Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner. Bottom row, from L to R: Khaled Qassim, Asadullah Haroon Gul, Ahmed Rabbani and Omar al-Rammah. Paracha and the four others in the bottom row haven’t been approved for release, but they should be, as none of them pose a threat to the US.

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I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with the US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

Congratulations to President Elect Joe Biden and Vice President Elect Kamala Harris for persuading enough people to vote Democrat to end the dangerous presidency of Donald Trump.

Trump was a nightmare on so many fronts, and had been particularly dangerous on race, with his vile Muslim travel ban at the start of his presidency, nearly four long years ago, his prisons for children on the Mexican border, and, this last year, in his efforts to inflame a race war, after the murder of George Floyd by a policeman sparked huge protests across the country.

At Guantánamo, Trump’s racism manifested itself via indifference to the fate of the 40 Muslim men, mostly imprisoned without charge or trial and held for up to 15 years when he took office. To him they were terrorists, and he had no interest in knowing that very few of the men held at Guantánamo have ever been accused of involvement with terrorism, and that, of the 40 men still held, only nine of them have been charged with crimes, and five of them were unanimously approved for release by high-level government review processes under President Obama.

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International Criminal Court Authorizes Investigation into War Crimes in Afghanistan, Including US Torture Program

The logo of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and an image of a secret prison.

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.





 

Good news from The Hague, as the Appeals Chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) has approved an investigation into war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Afghanistan since May 2003 “by US armed forces and members of the CIA, the Taliban and affiliated armed groups, and Afghan government forces,” as the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) explained in a press release.

The investigation, as CCR also explained, will include “crimes against humanity and war crimes … committed as part of the US torture program,” not only in Afghanistan but also in “the territory of other States Parties to the Rome Statute implicated in the US torture program”; in other words, other sites in the CIA’s global network of “black site” torture prisons, which, notoriously, included facilities in Poland, Romania and Lithuania. As CCR explained, “Although the United States is not a party to the ICC Statute, the Court has jurisdiction over crimes committed by US actors on the territory of a State Party to the ICC,” and this aspect of the investigation will look at crimes committed since July 1, 2002.

AS CCR also explained, “The investigation marks the first time senior US officials may face criminal liability for their involvement in the torture program.”

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Horribly Repressive: The Truth About Donald Trump’s Guantánamo

Khaled Qassim, Abdul Latif Nasser and Saifullah Paracha, three of the Guantánamo prisoners who told their lawyers that, this summer, they were subjected to repressive and culturally inadequate treatment by medical personnel at the prison.

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.





 

In a recent article about Guantánamo — a rarity in the US mainstream media — ABC News picked up on a sad story of medical neglect and culturally inappropriate behavior by medical personnel at the prison, as conveyed to the broadcaster by Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, an attorney who represents some of the 40 men still held.

In “‘Degrading’: Aging detainees describe health care woes at Guantánamo 18 years after 9/11,” ABC News’ Guy Davies described how a “breakdown in trust between detainees and doctors” had “reached breaking point” at the prison.

The ailments of Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner

Davies’ article began by looking at the case of 72-year old Saifullah Paracha, Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner, who suffers from “debilitating chest pains,” an “overactive bladder and enlarged prostate,” as well as “diabetes, coronary artery disease, diverticulosis, gout, psoriasis and arthritis,” as Sullivan-Bennis told ABC News, adding that he “has also suffered two heart attacks, one of which occurred when he was held in Bagram, in Afghanistan, before his transfer to Guantánamo” in September 2004.

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Andy Worthington

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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