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In the long and sordid history of Guantánamo — open for 15 years and seven months, and still holding men indefinitely without charge or trial, in defiance of domestic and international norms regarding imprisonment — it’s sometimes easy for people to forget the role played by lawyers in resisting the injustice of the prison, and in publicizing the men’s stories.

For over 12 years now, lawyers have generally been the only people outside of the various branches of the US government — and foreign intelligence services — who have had contact with the prisoners. Lest we forget, the men held at Guantánamo have never been allowed to have family visits, unlike prisoners held on the US mainland — even those convicted of horrendous crimes — and so often the lawyers have been the only people capable of filling the gap left by relatives, and, of course, bringing messages from the men’s families, which has happened time and again as lawyers have visited their clients’ families, and have subsequently been the bearers of their relatives’ communications.

Recently, a new lawyer brought some fresh insight and indignation to a role that many of those involved in must be struggling to keep fresh, after so many years, after the exhaustion of eight years of Obama that, in the end, left the prison open, and with Trump so uninterested in doing anything to bring justice to the remaining 41 prisoners, either by releasing them or putting them on trial in a valid, internationally recognized system, or working towards shutting the prison once and for all. Read the rest of this entry »