Wonderful News as Eleven Men Are Freed from Guantánamo and Resettled in Oman
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In what will forever be remembered as a truly significant day in Guantánamo’s long and sordid history, the Biden administration has freed eleven Yemeni prisoners, flying them from Guantánamo to Oman to resume their lives after more than two decades without charge or trial in US custody; mostly at Guantánamo, but in some cases for several years previously in CIA “black sites.”
All eleven men had been held for between two and four years since they were unanimously approved for release by high-level US government review processes, and, in one outlying case, for 15 years.
A deal to release them in Oman had been arranged in October 2023, but had been cancelled at the last minute, when a plane was already on the runway, because of what was described, when the story broke last May, as the “political optics” of freeing them when the attacks in southern Israel had just taken place — although Carol Rosenberg, writing for the New York Times about the releases yesterday, suggested that “congressional objections led the Biden administration to abort the mission.”
The Bleakness of Guantánamo, as Biden’s End Nears
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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.
In the epidemic of disasters afflicting the world, it’s sometimes hard to even remember that, at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, the US government is still holding 30 men, detained for between 15 and 22 years, who, for the most part, have never been charged with crimes, and are imprisoned, apparently indefinitely, without charge or trial.
With just a fortnight to go until the US Presidential Election, these men’s plight has become politically invisible, even though their treatment — outside of all norms governing the deprivation of liberty of individuals — has, from the beginning, relied on their demonization and dehumanization as Muslims, with a clear line stretching from their fundamentally lawless imprisonment to the way that demonized and dehumanized Muslims are being treated in the Gaza Strip today.
Now suffering under their fourth president, the men at Guantánamo had some hope, when Joe Biden took office, that positive changes were on the horizon. NGOs and lawyers had lobbied his transition team, urging that, at the very least, he address the plight of those specifically imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial, as opposed to those charged in the military commissions, a broken system, first introduced after the 9/11 attacks, before Guantánamo even opened, albeit one with some tangential connection to the law.
Video: Guantánamo at 22 – Mohamedou Ould Slahi, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin and Andy Worthington at New America
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.
On January 11, the 22nd anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, I was delighted to take part in an online panel discussion, “Guantánamo at Twenty-Two: What is the Future of the Prison Camp?”, hosted by New America, the US think-tank located close to the White House in Washington, D.C.
I’ve been taking part in annual panel discussions about Guantánamo at New America since 2011, normally with Tom Wilner, the US attorney with whom I co-founded the Close Guantánamo campaign in 2012, but this year Tom wasn’t available, and I was pleased that my suggestions for two compelling replacements — former prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi, the author of the best-selling Guantánamo Diary, and Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism — were met with enthusiasm.
The moderator was Peter Bergen, New America’s Vice President, and the video, via YouTube, is posted below. It was a powerful event, and I hope that you have time to watch it, and that you’ll share it if you find it useful.
Who's still at Guantánamo?
