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Contents of #3 Jan. 21, 2012
Bush, Congress, Courts, Obama, Public Lawlessness
Kurnaz, Gitmo Survivor After 5 Years
Obama Signs “Battlefield Bill” for Indefinite Detention
January 11 Resistance Coalition
Witess Against Torture and Catholic Worker: January 11, 2012
Witness Against Torture and War Resisters League
In Addition to Gitmo: US Terrorism Prison Complex
Greenwald Book on Bush/Obama
Contents of #4, Jan. 16, 2013
Petition to Pres. Obama from Some
Senior Democrats
Obama: Close Guantanamo
Gitmo/Bagram Legacy
Torture Memos
Romero (ACLU), Why Guantanamo Not Closed
Trotta, Dreams Deferred
Contents #5
Code Pink Pledge
Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel: 11
Years, No Charge, No Trial
Giffey, Witness to Guantanamo (W2G): Oral
History
Hansen, Obama and Guantanamo
Hansen, Humanity of the Prisoners
Rich, Obama’s Failure
Contents #6
The Nation, Obama Walk Your Talk
ACLU, Time to End Despair
Google Search Results May 8, 2013
Sprusansky, Indefinite Detention
Solidarity with Guantanamo Prisoners
Neumann, Forced Feeding in US
Prisons
Google Search June 17, 2013
Obama:
Walk Your Talk on Guantánamo
As the hunger strike approaches its 100th day on May 17, 100
prisoners are refusing food.
·
Protest to demand the release of Yemenis detained at
“I will not eat until they restore my dignity.” That’s what Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel told his lawyer by phone from
Days later, The Guardian published a letter from another hunger
striker, Shaker Aamer, whose words cut
to the heart of the protest. “As of today, I’ve spent more than 11 years in Guantánamo Bay
Moqbel and
Aamer are among the eighty-six prisoners languishing at the prison despite
having long been cleared for release. Moqbel, like most of these men, hails
from Yemen ; after the failed
2009 suicide attack by the so-called “underwear bomber,” who trained in Yemen
Such
cruelty breeds desperation. Last year, Adnan Latif was finally sent home to Yemen Yemen
The
Pentagon, which once called prisoner suicides “asymmetric warfare,” has
dismissed the hunger strike as a publicity stunt. Rather than “reward bad
behavior,” the official response has been to throw the men into solitary
confinement and keep the most weakened alive through torturous means. Moqbel
described how eight members of the prison’s Extreme Reaction Force tied him to
a hospital bed, forced an IV into his hand and left him there for twenty-six
hours. More than twenty men are now slated for force-feeding, which means being
strapped to a chair and having tubes carrying a liquid diet shoved into their
noses. In late April, forty “medical reinforcements” arrived on the island to
assist.
“I don’t
want these individuals to die,” Obama told reporters on April 30, adding that
“the Pentagon is trying to manage the situation as best as they can.” He also
recommitted to closing Guantánamo, calling on Congress to “step up and help.”
It’s true
that lawmakers on both sides have fought hard to make transfers impossible. But
Obama’s words ignored how his own policies set the stage for the crisis. “He
has said the right thing before,” Guantánamo lawyer Pardiss Kebriaei of the
Center for Constitutional Rights told The Nation. “It’s time now for action.”
The CCR is calling on Obama to end his “self-imposed moratorium” on releasing
Yemenis and resume prisoner transfers. It has also called for Obama to appoint
a senior official to “shepherd the process of closure.”
As the
hunger strike approaches its hundredth day on May 17, more than 100 of
Guantánamo’s 166 prisoners are refusing food. The president must start living
up to his rhetoric about closing the prison, the CCR warns, or “the men who are
on hunger strike will die, and he will be ultimately responsible for their
deaths.”
Read more: Obama: Walk Your Talk on Guantánamo |
The Nation http://www.thenation.com/article/174145/obama-walk-your-talk-guantanamo#ixzz2W2hvaKTZ
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04/29/2013
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Time to End the Despair at Guantánamo
By Zachary
Katznelson, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at
5:29pm April 29, 2013
The hunger strike in Guantánamo continues to grow, even by the U.S. military's questionable count.
The military states that 100 of the 166 prisoners
there are on strike, 21 are being force-fed, and five have been hospitalized.
Lawyers for the prisoners put the number of hunger strikers at over 130. So
many prisoners are in need of medical care that the military has now brought
some 40 additional Navy
"corpsmen, nurses, and other specialists" to add to the 100 already on duty.
The prime
motivator for the strike, as reported in a front-page story in The
New York Times last week, is the prisoners' growing despair that they will
never go home. General John F. Kelly, who as head of U.S. Southern Command
ultimately oversees the prison, recently told Congress that the prisoners "had great
optimism that Guantánamo would be closed. They were devastated apparently …
when the president backed off — at least their perception — of closing the
facility." The Director-General of the Red Cross tweeted this
weekend that the "level of desperation amongst detainees is
unprecedented."
The ACLU and a
coalition of leading NGOs have called upon President
Obama to 1)
immediately direct Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to take the steps necessary
to effect transfers from Guantánamo, and 2) to assign a senior official to lead
the effort to close the prison. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, has now made a similar call.
The need for Obama administration action becomes ever more urgent; so far this
year, there have only been steps
backward.
First, in
January, President Obama signed
into law renewed restrictions on transfers from Guantánamo, reneging on a veto threat for the second year in a row. A few
weeks later, the administration shut
down the State Department office working to resettle Guantánamo prisoners.
Responsibility was shifted to the State Department's Office of the Legal
Advisor. However, the State Department's spokesman last week stated that the
staff now assigned to the portfolio is takingno substantive action to
resettle prisoners, because the administration has yet to authorize
any actual transfers. The staff primarily spend their time answering letters.
In last week's New
York Times story, Buck McKeon, Republican chair of the House Armed Services
Committee summed up the situation: "The administration hasn't taken any
steps toward meeting the requirements of having anybody released." Indeed,
Deputy Secretary of Defense Bill Lietzau stated in the same article that
"even if the legislative restrictions were removed, I don't believe the
numbers would change radically."
It is past time for the Obama White House to take charge and
order immediate action that will help end the desperation of the men imprisoned
in Guantánamo for more than 11 years without being charged or tried, men who
are losing hope of ever being transferred out.
Learn more about the Guantánamo hunger strike and other
civil liberty issues: Sign up for breaking news alerts, follow us on Twitter,
and like us on
Facebook.
04/29/2013
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Search Results
1.
Time to End the Despair at Guantánamo |
American Civil Liberties ...
www.aclu.org/blog/national-security.../time-end-despair-guantanamo
Apr 29, 2013 – The hunger strike in Guantánamo continues to grow, even
by the U.S.
2.
Guantánamo Prison
Revolt Driven by Inmates' Despair -
NYTimes.com
www.nytimes.com/.../guantanamo-prison-revolt-driven-by-inmates...
Apr 24, 2013 – Despair Drives Guantánamo Detainees to Revolt ... Editorial: The Guantánamo Stain (April 26, 2013). National Twitter Logo.
3.
United Nations Heads Growing List of Organizations
Calling for ...
www.closeguantanamo.org/.../84-United-Nations-Heads-Growing-List-of...
As the hunger strike at Guantánamo enters its third month,
the UN and the New ...editors proceeded to describe
the hunger strike as "a collective act of despair," ...
4.
Guantanamo hunger
strike reflects growing despair - The Nation
www.nation.com.pk/.../international/.../guantanamo-hunger-strike-reflect...
Mar 24, 2013 – Chantal ValeryA growing
number of Guantanamo
5.
Despair drives Guantánamo detainees to revolt — War in Context
warincontext.org/2013/.../despair-drives-guantanamo-detainees-to-revolt...
Despair drives Guantánamo detainees to revolt. by
News Sources on April 26, 2013. The New York Times reports: In the early
afternoon quiet, guards in ...
6.
Obama: Walk Your Talk on Guantánamo | Common Dreams
https://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/05/03-6
5 days ago – Obama: Walk Your Talk on Guantánamo. by The Nation Editors. Protest to demand the
release of Yemenis detained at Guantanamo Bay
7.
Guantanamo Bay
detention camp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guantanamo_Bay_detention_camp
In 2006 the United Nations called unsuccessfully
for the Guantanamo Bay
8.
Guantánamo Prison
Revolt Driven by Inmates' Despair - Top ...
Apr 24, 2013 – With any decision about
closing down the prison in Guantánamo Bay , Cuba
9.
Results
for similar searches
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Driven By Despair, More Guantánamo Detainees
Join Hunger Strike ...
wunc.org/.../driven-despair-more-guant-namo-detainees-join-hunger...
6 days ago – Top Raleigh Chef Takes
The National Stage As A James Beard
Award Finalist · Matthew McConaughey, Getting Serious ... Managing Editor, "The Story" ...Driven By Despair, More Guantánamo Detainees Join Hunger
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More results for editors of the nation despair at guantanamo
DALE SPRUSANSKY, “CONGRESSIONAL BRIEFING ON
INDEFINITE DETENTION AT GUANTANAMO ,” THE WASHINGTON
Two Guantánamo
Prisoners Released in Mauritania
In news that has so far only
been available in Arabic, and which I was informed about by a Mauritanian
friend on Facebook, I can confirm that two prisoners from Guantánamo have been
released, and returned to their home country of Mauritania
The two men are Ahmed Ould
Abdul Aziz and Mohamedou Ould Slahi, and they were accompanied by a third man,
Hajj Ould Cheikh Hussein, who was apparently captured in Pakistan
and held at Bagram in Afghanistan
According to one of the Arabic news sources, US officials
handed the men to the Mauritanian security services who took them to an unknown
destination. They have also reportedly met with their families.
I have no further information
for now, but this appears to be
confirmation that President Obama’s promise to resume the release of prisoners from Guantánamo was not as hollow as
many of his promises have turned out to be. It also follows hints, in the Wall Street Journal (which I wrote about here), indicating that he would begin not with any of
the 56 Yemeni prisoners out of the 86 prisoners cleared for release by the inter-agency task force that he
established in 2009, but with some of the 30 others.
One of these 30 is Ahmed Ould Abdul Aziz, a teacher, and an
educated and cultured man, who was seized in what appeared to be a random house
raid in Pakistan
Although he had his habeas corpus petition granted in March 2010, this was then vacated by the court of appeals, after an outcry from
numerous Republicans, who believed, as had been alleged, that he had been some
sort of mentor to the 9/11 hijackers, while he was living in Germany, even
though it seems clear that, although he had met them, he had not done anything
to assist them in their plans, and nor did he have any knowledge of the 9/11
attacks.
I wrote extensively about the injustice of Slahi’s case —
including the self-defeating absurdity of indefinitely detaining someone who
had allegedly become an important informant — following the publication of a
revelatory article in the Washington Post in March 2010, and his case recently
came to light again when Slate published excerpts from an astonishing
autobiography that he wrote in Guantánamo.
I will write about further developments
when I have them, but for now this appears to be very good news indeed, not
just for Ahmed Ould Abdul Aziz and Mohamedou Ould Slahi, but also for the other
cleared prisoners in Guantánamo. Login or register to post
comments
SOLIDARITY WITH GUANTANAMO
The Nuclear Resister (June 5, 2013).
Indefinite detention, hunger
strikes, forced feeding have inspired protests around the US and
world. This article describes several of
the actions—Witness Against Torture April 22(witnesstorture.org), CodePink May
1, vigil at White House May 17.
Ann Neumann, Waging Nonviolence, Truthout, May
11, 2013: The fact that force feedings are
being discussed in the context of Guantanamo
1.
News for Guantanamo
Aljazeera.com - 3 hours ago
Suspects charged with terrorism and
nearly 3000 counts of murder could face death penalty if convicted.
RollingStone.com - 2 hours ago
2.
Guantanamo Bay
detention camp - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a detainment
and interrogation facility of the United States
military located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base , Cuba
3.
Guantánamo -
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Guantánamo is a municipality and
city in southeast Cuba
4.
Guantánamo Bay
- Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Guantánamo Bay (Spanish: Bahía de Guantánamo) is a bay located in GuantánamoProvince at the
southeastern end of Cuba (19°54′N 75°9′W / 19.900°N ...
5.
A
look at who is still held at Guantanamo -
Yahoo! News
news.yahoo.com/look-still-held-guantanamo-155539862.html
4 hours ago – From Yahoo! News: GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba
(AP) — President Barack Obama has appointed a new envoy to lead a renewed ...'Bridge-Builder' Lawyer Picked to
Spearhead Guantanamo Closing ...
59 mins ago – (Jim Watson/AFP/Getty
Images) Cliff Sloan, a top Washington
6.
Images
for Guantanamo
7.
Guantanamo Bay
Naval Base - Gitmo - News - The New York Times
Local news and multimedia about Guantanamo Bay Naval Base (Cuba
8.
Obama
chooses lawyer to oversee Guantanamo closure
- U.S. News
23 hours ago – Clifford Sloan is the
pick to reopen the State Department's Office ofGuantanamo Closure, shuttered since
January and folded into the ...
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Guantánamo Bay
| World news | The Guardian
Latest news and comment on Guantánamo Bay
10.
Guantanamo News
and Video - FOX News Topics - FOXNews.com
Watch breaking news videos and read
news updates about Guantanamo
Searches related to Guantanamo
END GUANTANAMO
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