Guantánamo

04/07/2009
Guantánamo

What About the Uighurs?

By Ateqah Khaki at 1:43pm

Remember the Uighurs? They are a group of 17 Chinese Muslims from Northwestern China that have been have been detained at Guantánamo for over seven years without charge. Last fall, the Bush administration conceded that the men are not enemy combatants, but since that time, the group has continued to remain in legal limbo.

Yesterday, lawyers representing the Uighurs asked the U.S. Supreme Court to order their release into the United States.

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01/29/2009
Guantánamo

Judge Finds President Obama's Order to Stay Gitmo Proceedings "Unpersuasive"

By Suzanne Ito, ACLU at 4:04pm

The night of President Obama's inauguration — while he and First Lady Michelle Obama were hitting the inaugural ball circuit — an executive order arrived at Guantanamo ordering government prosecutors to request a 120-day stay on all proceedings there. Nearly all of the judges presiding over these cases granted the stay, but today we learned that one judge, Lt. Col. James Pohl, has denied the continuance, and arraignment is still scheduled for February 9 in the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who's accused of planning the 2000 U.S.S. Cole attack. The BBC reports:

Judge James Pohl said the request to halt the trial to allow a review by the new administration was "unpersuasive".

Judge Pohl said that the trial of Mr Nashiri would go ahead.
Al-Nashiri is being represented by a team of military and civilian lawyers, including Nancy Hollander of the ACLU's John Adams Project and Lt. Cmdr. Steven Reyes.

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01/16/2009
Guantánamo

International Intervention Needed on Behalf of Obama's Child Soldiers

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 3:37pm

President-elect Barack Obama will make history on his inauguration day. And if a scheduled Guantánamo military commission trial goes forward on January 26, President-elect Obama will make a wholly different kind of history, by presiding over a terrible historical event.

On January 26, Guantánamo detainee Omar Khadr, a 22-year-old Canadian national who has been held at Guantánamo for nearly one-third of his life, is slated to be tried by military commission for war crimes allegedly committed when he was 15. If Omar Khadr's trial goes forward as scheduled on January 26, one of the first acts of President-elect Obama's administration will be to preside over the first war crimes prosecution of a child soldier in U.S. history.

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01/11/2009
Guantánamo

A Shameful Anniversary

By Astine Suleimanyan, Washington Legislative Office at 5:09pm

Download a web banner:
Black Version
White Version

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12/16/2008
Guantánamo

A Plea to Obama, from Guantánamo

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 11:35am

(Originally posted on Daily Kos.)

Yesterday marked the final military commission hearing before the eve of President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration. The question of what will become of Guantánamo was a subject of much speculation in the days before yesterday's pre-trial hearing in the case of Saudi national Ahmed Mohammed al Darbi. Al Darbi has been held in U.S. custody for six years and is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism based on alleged connections to al-Qaeda.

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11/26/2008
Guantánamo

The Obama Administration, Guantánamo, and Restoring America’s Standing

By Glenn Greenwald at 3:23pm

Last week, Barack Obama was interviewed by Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes and the following exchange occurred:

Kroft: There are a number of different things that you could do early pertaining to executive orders. One of them is to shutdown Guantanamo Bay. Another is to change interrogation methods that are used by U.S. troops. Are those things that you plan to take early action on?

Obama: Yes. I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantanamo, and I will follow through on that. I have said repeatedly that America doesn’t torture. And I’m gonna make sure that we don’t torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America’s moral stature in the world.
Obama’s statement was widely celebrated as evidence that he intends to act swiftly and decisively to end the Bush administration’s most controversial detention and interrogation policies. But that reaction overstates the meaning and importance of what Obama actually said.

Obama’s response to the question that was asked was perfectly satisfactory as far as it went. He was asked whether he intends to close Guantanamo and “change interrogation methods” and he answered “yes” to both. It would have been rather shocking if he had answered any other way. Could one even imagine Obama proclaiming that he intends to leave Guantanamo open or that he intends to leave unchanged Bush’s interrogation programs?

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11/18/2008
Guantánamo

How Will the Imperial Presidency End?

By Jenny Egan at 1:58pm

In the waning days of the Bush administration, it may seem like a boatload has already been said about the mess George W. created — gallons of newspaper ink, innumerable blog posts, an Oliver Stone biopic, endless books already on the shelves, and more on the way.

close gitmo

Yet with the plethora of information at hand, the biggest thing we know is that we don't know nothin' yet.

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11/17/2008
Guantánamo

Pentagon Admits Number of Guantánamo’s Children is Higher than Originally Disclosed

By Jennifer Turner, Human Rights Researcher, ACLU Human Rights Program at 7:58pm

An AP article today announced the Pentagon has admitted that 12 children under the age of 18 have been held at Guantánamo since it opened in 2002. The news report comes on the heels of a study released last week by the U.C. Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, showing that the U.S. has held at least 12 juveniles at Guantánamo.

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11/17/2008
Guantánamo

We Trust the Courts. Obama Should Too.

By Ateqah Khaki at 6:41pm

Last night, President-elect Barack Obama addressed the nation for the first time since he was elected almost two weeks ago.

close gitmo
During his interview with 60 Minutes, he vowed to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, stating:
I have said repeatedly that I intend to close Guantánamo, and I will follow through on that. I've said repeatedly that America doesn't torture. And I'm going make sure that we don't torture. Those are part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world.
As you may know, the ACLU is calling on Obama to close Guantánamo on Day One of his presidency. There have been reports that his advisors are crafting a new system of preventative detention and National Security Courts — a position that deeply concerns us at the ACLU. There is no reason that Guantánamo detainees cannot be prosecuted in traditional U.S. criminal courts or military courts governed by the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

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08/25/2008
Guantánamo

Online Service Providers and Content Owners Must Protect Political Speech

By Nicole Ozer, Technology & Civil Liberties Policy Director, ACLU of Northern California at 1:03pm

On blogs, personal and political websites, and through user-generated content sites, ordinary citizens in extraordinary numbers are recreating a public sphere and reinvigorating the democratic debate at the core of our political system. Forty-six percent of Americans have already used the Internet in connection with a political campaign — more than during all of 2004. User-generated content is playing a particularly integral role, with 35 percent of Americans watching online videos and 10 percent using social networking sites to engage in political activity.

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