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So there was great news from Guantánamo on Monday, when ten men — eight Yemenis and two Afghans — were released and sent to Oman, which has previously taken in 20 Yemenis. The Yemenis have been the most difficult category of prisoners to be freed from Guantánamo, because the entire US establishment is unwilling to repatriate them, fearing the security situation in their home country, meaning that third countries must be found that are prepared to offer them a new home — and are prepared to overlook the fact that the US itself is unwilling to do that, and, in fact, that Congress has, for many years, passed laws specifically preventing any Guantánamo prisoner from being brought to the US mainland for any reason.

The ten releases leave 45 men still held at Guantánamo, with three or four more releases expected before President Obama leaves office on Friday, according to the latest reports. At present, however, nine men approved for release are still held, and the release of those left behind when Obama leaves the White House must be a priority for campaigners as soon as Donald Trump takes office.

Of the ten men released, two were approved for release in 2009 by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established shortly after first taking office, while the other eight were approved for release between May 2014 and December 2016 by Periodic Review Boards, another high-level, inter-agency review process, and one that campaigners must also press Donald Trump to keep. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, two more Periodic Review Boards took place at Guantánamo, bringing to 51 the number of prisoners whose ongoing imprisonment has been reviewed by the US government since the PRBs were set up in 2013 (the 52nd took place today, and I’ll be writing about that soon). To date, 24 of those men have been recommended for release, 12 have had their ongoing imprisonment recommended, and 16 others are awaiting decisions. 12 other men are still awaiting reviews. For further information, see the definitive Periodic Review Board list that I wrote for the Close Guantánamo website.

Last week’s reviews were for the last two of six men seized in Karachi, Pakistan on the first anniversary of the 9/11 attacks — the same day as alleged 9/11 conspirator Ramzi bin al-Shibh. They were then sent to be tortured in a “black site” in Afghanistan, and were subsequently identified by the US authorities as members of an Al-Qaeda cell in Karachi. In the first of the PRBs for the six, in February, for Ayoub Ali Saleh, it was revealed that the authorities have since walked back from their claims, conceding that “it is more likely the six Yemenis were among a large pool of Yemeni fighters that senior al-Qa’ida planners considered potentially available to support future operations.”

Saleh was recommended for release in March, and a second man, Bashir al-Marwalah, was approved for release in May, after a review in April. Decisions have not yet been taken in the cases of the other two — Said Salih Said Nashir, reviewed in April, and Shawqi Awad Balzuhair, reviewed in May, but it is reasonable to expect that, unless the men in question are unwilling or unable to demonstrate contrition, and a desire to resume peaceful lives, they will all be recommended for release. Read the rest of this entry »

After seven and a half years of researching and writing about the prisoners held in the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, it’s always refreshing to hear from former prisoners — and, in many cases, to see their faces and hear their voices for the very first time.

The highlights of “Life After Guantánamo,” Al-Jazeera America’s newly released documentary about Guantánamo (available below, via YouTube) are interviews with two released Yemeni prisoners, Mohammed Hassan Odaini (freed in July 2010), and Farouq Ali Ahmed (freed in December 2009). I told the story of Ahmed, the victim of two notoriously false allegations made by other prisoners, in an article following his release, and I told the story of Odaini, an innocent student seized in a house raid in Pakistan in March 2002, in a series of articles between May 2010, when he had his habeas corpus petition granted, and his release 48 days later (see here, here and here).

At the time, it was clear to me that both men were palpably innocent, and seeing and hearing them now only confirms it. Both are charming and articulate, working, married, and expecting their first children, and, importantly, neither man even remotely fulfils American fears that released Yemenis will “return to the battlefield.” Read the rest of this entry »

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As the prison-wide hunger strike at Guantánamo reaches its 128th day, we are still awaiting action from President Obama, who promised three weeks ago to resume the release of cleared prisoners (who make up 86 out of the remaining 166 prisoners), and to appoint new envoys in the State Department and the Pentagon to deal with the resettlement of prisoners.

In the meantime, conditions in Guantánamo are harsher than they have been at any time since President Obama took office, nearly four and a half years ago. Two months ago, the authorities staged a violent dawn raid on Camp 6, where the majority of the prisoners are held, and where they had been allowed to spend much of their time communally, and locked everyone up in solitary confinement.

Militarily, this may have restored order, but it has not broken the hunger strike, and morally and ethically it is a disgrace. The reason the men are on a hunger strike is not to inconvenience the guard force, but to protest about their ongoing imprisonment — in almost all cases without charge or trial, and literally with no end in sight, after their abandonment by all three branches of the US government. As a result, a lockdown, which involves isolating these men from one another while they starve themselves, and while many of them are force-fed, is the cruellest way to proceed. Read the rest of this entry »