tagged w/ Guantanamo Bay
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Kent State survivors seek new probe of 1970 shootings
Sept 11 case returns to Guantanamo tribunal
California pension fund sues Wal-Mart, alleges briberyKent State survivors seek new probe of 1970 shootings
Sept 11 case returns to... more
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Ten years on more than 150 detainees remain at Guantánamo Bay. The majority are in indefinite detention without charge or trial. Those who have been charged face unfair trial by military commission and some can face the death penalty if convicted. The government claims that even those found not guilty can be returned to indefinite detention. There has been essentially no accountability or redress for the human rights violations to which they and other detainees have been subjected.
Human rights concerns in Guantánamo Bay remain an unfinished story. How long before the US government closes the book on Guantánamo and meets its human rights obligations?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBmEbvhe5GI&feature=channel_video_titleTen years on more than 150 detainees remain at Guantánamo Bay. The majority are... more
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www.democracynow.org -
On the tenth anniversary of when the United States began detaining terror suspects at its Guantánamo Bay military base in Cuba, we speak with a former prisoner and the ex-chief U.S. prosecutor — who both call for the Obama administration to close the base.
"People are locked up in isolation camps ... People lost their hands, lost their eyes, lost their limbs," says Omar Deghayes, who was arrested in Pakistan as a terror suspect and held in U.S. custody from May 2002 until December 2007, most of that time at Guantánamo. "Some people were subjected to sleep deprivation.
They weren't allowed to sleep ... and they had to live under those conditions for six years... without being convicted of any crime, which is the most unacceptable thing." Asked if prisoners were tortured at Guantánamo, Air Force Colonel Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor at the military prison, answers, "I don't think there is any doubt."
Davis resigned his position in 2007 in protest of what he called political interference in the military commissions of Guantánamo prisoners. "In many cases we had evidence independent of that [torture] that was sufficient to establish guilt.
But to use torture to gain intelligence, and then also to turn around and use that as evidence in an American court, is just not consistent with American principles," Davis says.www.democracynow.org -
On the tenth anniversary of when the United States began... more
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Military given go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial.
Civil rights groups dismayed as Barack Obama abandons commitment to veto new security law contained in defence bill.
Americans can be arrested on home soil and taken to Guantánamo Bay under a provision inserted into the bill that funds the US military.
Barack Obama has abandoned a commitment to veto a new security law that allows the military to indefinitely detain without trial American terrorism suspects arrested on US soil who could then be shipped to Guantánamo Bay.
Human rights groups accused the president of deserting his principles and disregarding the long-established principle that the military is not used in domestic policing. The legislation has also been strongly criticised by libertarians on the right angered at the stripping of individual rights for the duration of "a war that appears to have no end".
The law, contained in the defence authorisation bill that funds the US military, effectively extends the battlefield in the "war on terror" to the US and applies the established principle that combatants in any war are subject to military detention.
The legislation's supporters in Congress say it simply codifies existing practice, such as the indefinite detention of alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. But the law's critics describe it as a draconian piece of legislation that extends the reach of detention without trial to include US citizens arrested in their own country.
"It's something so radical that it would have been considered crazy had it been pushed by the Bush administration," said Tom Malinowski of Human Rights Watch. "It establishes precisely the kind of system that the United States has consistently urged other countries not to adopt. At a time when the United States is urging Egypt, for example, to scrap its emergency law and military courts, this is not consistent."
more at link...
The title is a misnomer b/c they got plenty of FEMA Camps to send you to.
America is dead. Constitution burned. Freedoms gone.Military given go-ahead to detain US terrorist suspects without trial.
Civil rights... more
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In May 2008, in a submission to the 48th Session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (PDF), the Pentagon claimed that it had only held eight juveniles — those under the age of 18 when their alleged crimes took place — during the life of the Guantánamo Bay prison. This, however, was a lie, as its own documents providing the names and dates of birth of prisoners, released in May 2006 (PDF), showed that the true total was much higher.
In November 2008, the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas published a report, “Guantánamo’s Children: Military and Diplomatic Testimonies,” presenting evidence that 12 juveniles had been held, and this was then officially acknowledged by the Pentagon.
The next week, however, I produced another report, “The Pentagon Can’t Count: 22 Juveniles Held at Guantánamo,” providing evidence that at least 22 juvenile prisoners had been held, and drawing on the Pentagon’s own documents, or on additional statements made by the Pentagon, to confirm my claims.
Two and a half years later, I stand by that report, and am only prepared to concede that up to three of the prisoners I identified as juveniles may have been 18 at the time of their capture. In the meantime, I have identified three more juvenile prisoners, and possibly three others, bringing the total back to 22, and possibly as many as 28.
My new research coincides with a new report by the UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, “Guantánamo’s Children: The WikiLeaked Testimonies,” drawing on the recent release, by WikiLeaks, of classified military documents shedding new light on the prisoners, identifying 15 juveniles, and suggesting that six others, born in 1984 or 1985, and arriving at Guantánamo in 2002 or 2003, may have been under 18, depending on when exactly they were born (which is unknown, as it is in the cases of numerous Guantánamo prisoners).
However, crucially, the UC Davis report chose to make its assessments based on the prisoners’ dates of arrival in Guantánamo, which was often up to six months after their capture, whereas I have focused on their capture date, thereby demonstrating that at least 22 of the 28 prisoners identified in my research were indeed under 18 at the time of their capture.
Of course, to be strictly correct, this analyses should go further, dealing not with the dates of capture, but with the dates when the prisoners’ alleged crimes took place. However, I simply do not have the time at present to go through every file, and, while such research would undoubtedly yield more juvenile prisoners, I am content for now to have reinforced the claims that I made in November 2008, and to have made a case for there having been at least 22, and as many as 28 juveniles held in Guantánamo.
Just three of these former child prisoners are still held, but the US position has always been a disgrace. Notoriously, in May 2003, when the story first broke that juvenile prisoners were being held at Guantánamo, defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a press conference, “This constant refrain of ‘the juveniles,’ as though there’s a hundred children in there — these are not children,” while Gen. Richard Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said:
I would say, despite their age, these are very, very dangerous people. They are people that have been vetted mainly in Afghanistan and gone through a thorough process to determine what their involvement was. Some have killed. Some have stated they’re going to kill again. So they may be juveniles, but they’re not on a little-league team anywhere, they’re on a major league team, and it’s a terrorist team. And they’re in Guantánamo for a very good reason — for our safety, for your safety.
Moreover, in May 2006, when the Independent reported on “The Children of Guantánamo Bay,” a senior Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said that the DoD “rejected arguments that normal criminal law was relevant to the Guantánamo detainees,” as the Independent put it. In Gordon’s own words, “There is no international standard concerning the age of an individual who engages in combat operations … Age is not a determining factor in detention [of those] engaged in armed conflict against our forces or in support to those fighting against us.”
This was nonsense, because, under the terms of Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, which the US ratified on December 23, 2002, signatory nations are required to promote “the physical and psychosocial rehabilitation and social reintegration of children who are victims of armed conflict,” and not to punish them by imprisoning them alongside adult prisoners in an experimental prison devoted to coercive interrogation and — at its worst — torture.
Despite its obligations, however, only three of the juveniles held at Guantánamo were ever treated differently to the adults — three Afghan boys, Asadullah, Naqibullah and Mohammed Ismail, who were held in a separate camp until their release in January 2004. For the rest, however, there was, or has been no “physical and psychosocial rehabilitation and social reintegration” whatsoever, and, instead, they have been subjected to torture and abuse, as described by many of these prisoners, “extraordinary rendition” to a torture prison in Jordan in the case of one of the juveniles, Hassan bin Attash, and, in the case of Omar Khadr, a war crimes trial, based on charges invented by Congress. In order to secure an eight-year sentence, Khadr was obliged to agree to a disgraceful plea bargain in which he claimed responsibility for his actions aged 15, during the firefight that led to his capture (and the death of a US soldier), when he was not, in fact, responsible for his actions. He was also obliged to admit that he was an “alien unprivileged enemy belligerent” who was not allowed, under any circumstances, to be engaged with US forces in combat.
It remains disgraceful that so many juveniles were held at Guantánamo — and that three former child prisoners are still held — but it is just as disgusting that, under President Obama, one of these former child prisoners was obliged to accept that, in modern-day America, lawmakers and the executive branch, without a murmur of dissent from the judiciary, have arranged for opponents of the US military in wartime to be criminalized, their actions regarded incorrectly as war crimes, and their very existence declared illegal. This is effectively no different than it was under President Bush, when the twisted ideologues who surrounded the President, under the aegis of his dark assistant Dick Cheney, created the concept of “illegal enemy combatants,” people without any rights whatsoever, who could be held forever and tortured with impunity.
Continue Reading
http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2011/06/11/wikileaks-and-the-22-children-of-guantanamo/In May 2008, in a submission to the 48th Session of the UN Committee on the Rights of... more
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On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves and had been left there for 18, 24 hours or more.On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand... more
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The US government said it was ‘unfortunate’ that news organisations had decided to publish classified information on detaineesThe US government said it was ‘unfortunate’ that news organisations had... more
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The cache of more than 700 leaked files on Guantánamo Bay detainees lift the lid on the realities of the camp and pile more pressure on Obama's failure to close it. Follow live coverage here
Read more:
http://bit.ly/dURovs
Read more:http://bit.ly/dURovsThe cache of more than 700 leaked files on Guantánamo Bay detainees lift the... more
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A massive leak of more than 700 military documents, attributed to infamous transparency group WikiLeaks, was released Sunday night. Much of the new information deals with detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, records that begin immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks and range to 2009, including documents relating to 172 prisoners still held at the controversial detention facility.
Here are seven shocking revelations about Guantanamo Bay and the practices there.
One hundred twenty-seven "high risk" prisoners remain at Guantanamo Bay, but almost as many "high risk" prisoners have been released to other countries or freed, despite being described as "likely to pose a threat." Of the 600 detainees known to have been transferred out of the prison since 2002, 160 fell under the "high risk" categorization, according to NPR. At least two dozen transferred "high risk" prisoners have been linked to terrorist activity since their Gitmo exit, including two Saudis who became leaders of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.
"There's a group there that we all agree never gets let out, and then there's the rest," Rep. Mike Conaway (R-TX) said of Guantanamo detainees at a recent congressional hearing. "As you close on that number of folks who should not ever be let go, then you run the risk of letting somebody go who shouldn't be."
Officials aren't sure what they're doing. In 704 leaked documents assessing detainees, the word "possibly" appears 387 times, “unknown” 188 times and “deceptive” 85 times. Two conflicting committees from the Department of Defense worked at the facility and clashed frequently over how to classify prisoners' threat levels and the quality of information they shared.
While some "high risk" prisoners have returned to terrorism, still others have become U.S. allies. A former Gitmo detainee whose files identify him as "a probable member of al-Qaeda," Abu Sufian Ibrahim Ahmed Hamuda bin Qumu, is now a key figure on the rebel side of the Libyan revolution, a leader of a rebel brigade in the northern part of the country. When Qumu was captured in Pakistan shortly after 9/11, he was considered an enemy of the United States. Now, he and the U.S. have a goal in common: unseat Gaddafi.
Instead of getting closer to catching Osama bin Laden, the documents show that the focus has broadened from catching key al-Qaeda operatives, noting information about other foreign operations. One captive was sent to Gitmo so officials could glean any information he had on the Bahraini court, and another was interrogated about any knowledge he had of Uzbekistan's secret service.
Officials took note of every possible piece of evidence, in hopes of building mosaics of information — even evidence as trivial as origami art. McClatchy reports:
Guards plucked off ships at sea to walk the cellblocks note who has hoarded food as contraband, who makes noise during the Star Spangled Banner, who sings creepy songs like "La, La, La, La Taliban" and who is re-enacting the 9/11 attacks with origami art.
Officials noted that information from some unstable prisoners may be faulty or untrue, but used it anyway. Yasim Mohammed Basardah, a detainee who gave information about 60 other prisoners, was noted as being unreliable, and his file stressed that information he shared should be independently verified. However, he was also given a "high" intelligence value, and his threat level was lowered from high to medium in exchange for his cooperation. He was resettled in Europe in 2010. According to the documents, eight prisoners have revealed information about 235 others.
Suspects were nabbed and shipped to Gitmo because they wore cheap watches. A specific model of watch — a Casio style released in the 1980s — was suspected to be used as a timer by al-Qaeda operatives. People in Afghanistan were seized and sent to the detention facility because they were wearing the watches, but most have been quietly released because of a lack of evidence.A massive leak of more than 700 military documents, attributed to infamous... more
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Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will, after all, be tried in Guantánamo by a military tribunal generated largely negative media coverage for the Administration. The decision is being portrayed as a capitulation on the President's part – one that upset some of his liberal supporters. The Washington Post reports, "The White House, which has played a central role in formulating Guantanamo Bay policy, did not issue a statement on the reversal and referred all questions to the Justice Department."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/khalid-sheik-mohammed-to-be-tried-by-military-commission-officials-say/2011/04/04/AFhlS8cC_story.html?hpid=z2Attorney General Eric Holder's announcement that alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid... more
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Bush administration officials have long asserted that the torture techniques used on "war on terror" detainees were utilized as a last resort in an effort to gain actionable intelligence to thwart pending terrorist attacks against the United States and its interests abroad.
But the handwritten notes obtained exclusively by Truthout drafted two decades ago by Dr. John Bruce Jessen, the psychologist who was under contract to the CIA and credited as being one of the architects of the government's top-secret torture program, tell a dramatically different story about the reasons detainees were brutalized and it was not just about obtaining intelligence. Rather, as Jessen's notes explain, torture was used to "exploit" detainees, that is, to break them down physically and mentally, in order to get them to "collaborate" with government authorities. Jessen's notes emphasize how a "detainer" uses the stresses of detention to produce the appearance of compliance in a prisoner.
Indeed, a report released in 2009 by the Senate Armed Services Committee about the treatment of detainees in US custody noted that torture techniques approved by the Bush administration were based on survival training exercises US military personnel were taught by individuals like Jessen if they were captured by an enemy regime and subjected to "illegal exploitation" by their captors. The committee's report said Jessen wrote a "Draft Exploitation Plan" in April 2002 the US military used at Guantanamo and at prison facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan. Jessen also co-authored a memo in February 2002 on "Prisoner Handling Recommendations" at Guantanamo. Both of those documents remain classified.
Jessen's notes, prepared for an Air Force survival training course that he later "reverse engineered" when he helped design the Bush administration's torture program, however, go into far greater detail than the Armed Services Committee's report in explaining how prisoners would be broken down physically and psychologically by their captors. The notes say survival training students could "combat interrogation and torture" if they are captured by an enemy regime by undergoing intense training exercises, using "cognitive" and "exposure techniques" to develop "stress inoculation."
~ continued here:
http://www.truth-out.org/cia-psychologists-notes-reveal-bushs-torture-program68542Bush administration officials have long asserted that the torture techniques used on... more
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On January 22, 2009, two days after his inauguration, Barack Obama promised to close the sinister Guantanamo Bay Prison as it was considered a 'stain' on the reputation of the United States. Through a new presidential decree signed Monday, March 7, he endorsed its existence and the resumption of military tribunals.
According to government officials, Obama still wants to close down the prison, but that was not mentioned during the signing of the decree on March 7th. The President had hoped to be able to have foreign nationals repatriated, and those that needed trials could be temporarily housed in jails on US soil. That suggestion was met with adamant congressional opposition from both sides of the aisle.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Obama's about-face on Guantanamo - National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/obama-s-about-face-on-guantanamo#ixzz1G8ocqIiVOn January 22, 2009, two days after his inauguration, Barack Obama promised to close... more
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http://www.presidentialufo.com/old_site/Nixon_Rumsfeld_ESP.gif
Rumsfeld Confesses to Joint Chiefs of Staff that Guantanamo is Filled with “Low Level” Detainees in Recently Declassified Memo; Finding Calls into Further Question “Recidivism” Representations
Read the Seton Hall Report Here. - http://law.shu.edu/ProgramsCenters/PublicIntGovServ/policyresearch/Guantanamo-Reports.cfm
Read Washington Post Report. - http://voices.washingtonpost.com/spy-talk/2011/03/rumsfeld_complained_of_low_lev.html
Seton Hall University School of Law’s Center for Policy & Research has issued a report: Rumsfeld Knew: DoD’s “Worst of the Worst” and Recidivism Claims Refuted by Recently Declassified Memo. The Seton Hall Center for Policy and Research has discovered a recently declassified memo written by Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Rumsfeld’s explicitly contradicts his continued public statements that Guantanamo Bay was reserved for the “worst of the worst.”
Rumsfeld Knew suggests that the misrepresentations of the dangerousness of those sent to Guantanamo is of a piece with the government’s continuing public characterization of those who had been detained at Guantanamo as having “returned to the battlefield” or “reengaged” against the United States. It demonstrates that the Department of Defense’s recent Summary, the latest in a series of statements on this subject, is no better based in fact than earlier efforts to mislead the American people on the dangerousness of those detained in Guantanamo.
Throughout, the U.S. Government has maintained publicly that detainees incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay are dangerous, “high-value detainees,” the “worst of the worst.” The Government has also claimed that upon release from GTMO, many of these detainees have “reengaged” in their dangerous activities. Seton Hall Law discovered a recently declassified Memorandum from Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff from April 2003. The Memorandum undermines both of these claims, revealing that no later than that date, Secretary Rumsfeld knew that GTMO was “populated. . . with low-level enemy combatants.” Not only does this contradict Government assertions that the prison at GTMO holds the worst of the worst, but it also calls into question the Government’s assertions that the released detainees are dangerous men who have and likely will reengage.
Sean Camoni, a Fellow at the Seton Hall Law School Center for Policy and Research and a co-author of the report said: “Bob Woodward has said that Donald Rumsfeld’s memoir is ‘a book filled with evasion and deception.’ It now appears that the same thing is true of Guantanamo and this time the proof is in Secretary Rumsfeld’s own words.”
Sparked by the revelation that the Government knew at least as early as spring of 2003 that GTMO was populated with low-level detainees, the Center for Policy & Research reexamined all government claims of detainee recidivism. This Report is consistent with the Center’s past findings on alleged recidivism –that the Government has not supported its claims, claims that rest on even weaker ground now that it is clear that the men released from GTMO were never the worst of the worst in the first place.http://www.presidentialufo.com/old_site/Nixon_Rumsfeld_ESP.gif
Rumsfeld Confesses... more
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Jason Leopold from Truth out published a story titled "My
Tortured Journey With Former Guantanamo Detainee David Hicks" there is
also a Q an A session with David Hicks as well. This was the first
interview David Hicks has ever granted to the media. In this story
David tells of abuse and just down right torture that took place to
him at Guantanamo. Also, in the story a guard by the name of Albert
Melise who has never spoken publicly about Guantanamo until now talks
about what he witnessed and took part in while he was at Guantanamo.
I have provided the links below to the story and the Q and A session
just wanted to send them to you. If for any reason want to speak to
the reporter who wrote the story his email is jason@truthout.orgJason Leopold from Truth out published a story titled "My
Tortured Journey With... more
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For some it may come as a shock that Bradley Manning, the soldier being held in a maximum security military prison in Virginia on suspicion of having passed a massive amount of US state secrets to WikiLeaks, is in fact British. Although born in the US which automatically makes him a US citizen as well, Manning is also a UK citizen by descent from his Welsh mother, Susan.The British government is now under pressure to take up his case with the US authorities just like they did with British inmates at Guantánamo Bay. The issue of Manning's nationality has been furiously covered on Twitter in recent days and has been taken up by the UK branch of the Bradley Manning supporters network.But so far Manning's British status has not become part of the UK authorities's agenda. The British embassy in Washington said it had not received any requests to visit Manning in jail. Usually the UK government would not intervene in cases of dual nationality where the person is held in the other country, but there are exceptions on humanitarian grounds, including claims of inhumane treatment.Amnesty International has today called on the UK government to intervene on Manning's behalf and demand that the conditions of his detention, which the organisation calls "harsh and punitive", are in line with international standards.Amnesty's UK director, Kate Allen, said: "His Welsh parentage means the UK government should demand his 'maximum custody' status does not impair his ability to defend himself, and we would also like to see Foreign Office officials visiting him just as they would any other British person detained overseas and potentially facing trial on very serious charges."Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve, which provides legal assistance to those facing capital punishment and secret imprisonment, likened the conditions under which Manning is held to those in Guantánamo Bay."The government took a principled stance on Guantánamo cases even for British residents, let alone citizens, so you would expect it to take the same stance with Manning," he told The Guardian.
How exactly is Manning a UK citizen?
Manning is a UK citizen by descent from his Welsh mother, Susan, born Susan Fox in Haverfordwest in 1953.She married a US serviceman, Brian Manning, stationed at a US base near the Haverfordwest, and they had a daughter, Casey, in the same year. Bradley was born in Oklahoma in 1987.Born in the US, Manning is automatically a US citizen. But under the British Nationality Act of 1981, anyone born outside the UK after 1 January 1983 who has a mother who is a UK citizen by birth is British by descent.
Background
Manning has been held at the Quantico marine base in Virginia since last July, having been arrested in Iraq, where he was stationed as a US army intelligence analyst two months previously.Campaigners say the conditions in which he is being held are wholly disproportionate.Manning was recently put on suicide watch for two days, in which he was stripped to his underpants, against the advice of prison psychiatrists. He remains on a regulation that keeps him alone in his cell 23 hours a day and requires him to be checked every five minutes, and he is shackled hand and foot when he has visitors.In December the UN began an investigation into his treatment to see if it amounted to torture.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/01/bradley-manning-uk-citizenFor some it may come as a shock that Bradley Manning, the soldier being held in a... more
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His name is Saad Iqbal Madni and he is 33 years old. As an Islamic scholar, he was employed to read the Koran during prayer times and religious holidays for the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation. He was one of the countless Pakistani and/or Afghan people at the wrong place at the wrong time. He was picked up by Indonesian authorities in 2002 acting on behalf of the USA on rumors that he had told someone he knew how to make a bomb.
Despite lack of evidence against Madni, the CIA had him transferred to Egypt for further questioning. This is what is called extraordinary rendition, with the understanding that the detainee is going to be tortured in order to extract a confession from him. Madni is a linguist and was able to detect the Egyptian Arabic with which he was being interrogated. His three months there left with a perforated ear drum, and scars from the electric shocks he received.
From Egypt, he was flown to Diego Garcia in a wooden box, a British territory in the Pacific used by the United States. His body was folded in half so he could fit into the box, and he was diapered as they didn't allow him to go to the bathroom. From there, he continued on to Bagram airbase prison in Afghanistan where the Americans took him over.
Continue reading on Examiner.com: After 2 years in Guantanamo, released Pakistani scholar still has nightmares - National Foreign Policy | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/foreign-policy-in-national/after-2-years-guantanamo-released-pakistani-scholar-still-has-nightmares#ixzz1BXTUJZDxHis name is Saad Iqbal Madni and he is 33 years old. As an Islamic scholar, he was... more
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