Guantánamo

04/17/2013
Guantánamo Hunger Strike

"Look to Guantánamo Before It Is Too Late"

By Zachary Katznelson, Senior Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 12:05pm

The ongoing crisis in the prison at Guantánamo Bay is escalating, and new details are emerging as media have been allowed to visit this week. A few days ago, as part of an operation to shift hunger-striking prisoners from communal living to individual cells, Guantánamo guards shot at prisoners using what the military calls "less-than-lethal" ammunition, hitting at least one person. The AP reports that five prisoners were injured, as prisoners apparently resisted.

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03/22/2013
Guantánamo

Censorship at Guántanamo: Thoughts and Memories Don't Belong to the Government

By Noa Yachot, Communications Strategist, ACLU at 4:16pm

In the Guantánamo Bay military commissions, the ACLU is persisting in its fight against the government's legally and morally untenable claim that it can censor from the public the 9/11 defendants' personal experiences and memories of torture, rendition, and detention by the CIA. This week, we filed a reply brief responding to the government's arguments in support of censorship.

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08/10/2010
Guantánamo

What We Stand For

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:43am

Yesterday was a stark reminder that instead of closing the book on the Bush-era military commissions, President Obama is adding another sad chapter to that history. Although President Obama promised transparency and sharp limits on the use of tortured and coerced statements against the accused, at Guantánamo today one military judge ordered that a sentence be kept secret from the public and another military judge allowed statements obtained by abuse and coercion of a 15-year-old to be used at trial.

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03/12/2013
U.S. Torture

American Torture and the 'Heroic Imagination'

By Jameel Jaffer, Deputy Legal Director, ACLU & Larry Siems, The Torture Report at 11:55am

This was originally posted on The Huffington Post.

Click here to read an original op-ed from the TED speaker who inspired this post and watch the TEDTalk below.

Trained in the Geneva Conventions and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, the military interrogators and guards who tortured and dehumanized prisoners in U.S. custody after 9/11 were hardly without ethical bearings. But as Alberto Mora, former chief counsel of the Navy, predicted when he discovered Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had authorized previously banned interrogation techniques,

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07/25/2012
Children's Rights

U.S. Military Treatment of Juvenile Detainees Undergoes International Scrutiny

By Allison Frankel, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:37am

When the U.S. ratified the international treaty on the rights of children in armed conflict in 2002, it committed to protecting children under 18 from military recruitment and deployment to war and guaranteeing basic protections to former child soldiers, including those in U.S. military custody. Formally known as the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC), the treaty requires ratifying nations to submit periodic reports on the progress they have made to implement their treaty obligations to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a body of independent human rights experts charged with monitoring countries’ compliance with the treaty.  The U.S. government’s latest report will be reviewed by the Committee in January 2013. The list of issues to be discussed during this review, which was adopted by the Committee on July 3, raises serious concerns regarding U.S. compliance with the Protocol and provides an opportunity for the United States to provide transparency and accountability for its treatment of juveniles in military custody. 

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01/09/2012
Indefinite Detention

INFOGRAPHIC: Guantánamo by the Numbers

By Ateqah Khaki at 4:48pm

Our new infographic illustrates how, over the past decade, the prison camp has become a symbol of injustice, abuse and disregard for the rule of law.

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08/11/2010
Guantánamo

Making History

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:02am

Yesterday, I witnessed history being made here in Guantánamo, as jury selection began today in the first war crimes prosecution of a child soldier since World War II, and the first ever in U.S. history.

Accused of throwing a grenade that killed Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Speer and participating in a terrorist conspiracy beginning when he was only 10 years old, Khadr literally has grown up at Guantánamo. Now 23, the full beard Khadr has grown since his imprisonment in 2002 obscures the fact that he was only 15 at the time he was shot and captured by U.S. forces.

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01/14/2009
Guantánamo

Obama's Child Soldiers

By Joel Engardio, ACLU at 5:42pm

Six days after the inauguration of President Obama, the U.S. is scheduled to begin the first trial of a child soldier accused of war crimes since World War II. This video shows why President Obama must take swift action to end the unconstitutional military commissions, and why he must bring the United States back in line with the rule of law and treaties it has signed regarding the treatment of juveniles who have been recruited or used in armed conflict.

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04/11/2013
Guantánamo Hunger Strike

Urgent White House Action Needed to Avert Guantánamo Human Rights Crisis

By Hina Shamsi, Director, ACLU National Security Project & Jamil Dakwar, Director, ACLU Human Rights Program at 10:37am

There is a serious human rights crisis brewing at the prison at Guantánamo Bay. A hunger strike that began in early February has spread...

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07/23/2012
Military Commissions

Reporting from Guantánamo: The five uns

By Alex Abdo, Staff Attorney, ACLU National Security Project at 4:10pm

In Guantánamo Bay last week, I had an enlightening opportunity to talk with Brigadier General Mark Martins—the Chief Prosecutor of the military commissions—along with a handful of other NGO observers of the commissions. There was no agenda for our meeting, but we quickly launched into a vibrant discussion of the wisdom and legality of the military commissions. 

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