Guantanamo Bay

Is not just still open, but fifteen men are captive there,
caught in the legal limbo that the US has set for them
one of them have been captive for nearly twenty five years.

The first category: Approved for release

Muieen Abd al-Sattar

Guled Hassan Dourad

Ishmael Ali Bakushmael

The second catgory: Not charged, not cleared

Abu Zubaydah (24 years in prison)

Abu Faraj al-Libi

Mohamed Rahim

The third catgory: Charged or Convicted in Military Commission

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Ramzi bin al-Shibh

Walid bin Attash

Mustapha al-Hawsawi

Amar al-Baluchi

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri

Riduan Isamuddin 

Ali Hamza al-Bahlul

Abd al-hadi al-Iraqi

To comprehend how Guantamo Bay started,
and why it is still open, please left click here
to hear the first part of a three part podcast.   

Guantanamo Bay News

 

Guantanamo Bay High Security Prison
now has fewer occupants than it has ever had before.
Fifteen prisoners remain from the worldwide
haul from 'the war on terror'. Among the latest
to leave Guantanamo is Yemeni prisoner Khaled Qasim,     
 painter of the above picture which toured the USA,
who is one of eleven Yemeni prisoners transferred to Oman
because The Yemen is 'too unstable a country to return them to'.  
  

Who's Art (Or Life) Is It Anyway?

One of the lesser known civilities
offered to the detainees of Guantanamo Bay
was, from 2009, giving them art classes 
and materials with which to be creative.
Under Barak Obama they were permitted
to take their art with them when they left,
as innocent men, scarred by incarceration. 

From 2017 Donald Trump's government
released more prisoners, unannounced.
But changed the rules, the prisoners' art
was declared the property of the state,
The detainees could not take it with them.

'That is a small price to pay for being free'
you might say, and yes their liberty
meant more than than what they left without,
but I have to ask 'What measure of pettiness
should such a wealthy western government
be known for, when it disallows departing detainees
the small freedom of choice that was
once permitted to them when confined.

For the full story, please left click here. 
    

Twenty One Years And Counting....

A shade under ten years ago I blogged
this blog entry, a horrific list of neglect
and American state legal avoidance.
Who realises that Guantanamo Bay
was opened 21 years ago yesterday?

Who knew that in that prison
America imprisoned 780 Muslim men,
and not one person of any other faith or gender?

Who knew that nine prisoners died on the site?

Who knew that by detaining them
as 'unlawful combatants' the Bush
administration gave itself exemptions
from all known conventions
on the treatment of combatants in war?

Who realises that even if the last three
living 'unlawful combatants' there were released today,
and the prison camp was empty apart from the staff
then because the camp was created in a legal vacuum,
where so many laws were avoided in it's creation,
the legal process for closing the site down,
and returning it to the Cuban government,
and ending the stain on the American legal system,
would cost more in lawyers fees than it had
when it held prisoners, and be that protracted
that President Joe Biden would be a centenarian
before the process was complete?

Well you know now.....