LGC Newsletter – February 2021

 Guantánamo Bay

Former Sudanese prisoner, Ibrahim Othman Ibrahim Idris, who arrived at Guantánamo on the day it was opened on 11 January 2002, has died aged 60 in Sudan. Suspected of having worked as a bodyguard for Osama Bin Laden, he was never charged at Guantánamo and was released in 2013. A lawyer has attributed his death “to medical complications he had from Guantánamo”. The exact cause of death is unknown but he is known to have been in ill-health and another former Sudanese prisoner has said that he was tortured at Guantánamo. His health deteriorated at Guantánamo and he suffered mental health problems while there and after his release.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/11/us/ibrahim-idris-dead.html

 

 

US president Joe Biden has launched a formal review into the current situation at Guantánamo and has said that he intends to close the facility, where 40 prisoners remain, before the end of his term. An executive action to this end may be signed in the coming weeks or months, although it is not a priority of the current administration and there are no details of what the current US government plans to do.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-guantanamo-exclusive-idUSKBN2AC1Q4

In this response to this, a group of UN human rights experts have called on the US government to “address ongoing violations being committed against the 40 or so inmates still incarcerated there” and to investigate allegations of torture and other human rights abuses.

https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/02/1085492

MEDIA RELEASE: 15 Years of Guantánamo is No Laughing Matter: London Guantánamo Campaign to Mark Anniversary with Protest, Trafalgar Square, Wednesday 11 January 2017, 12-2pm

For immediate release: Wednesday 11 January 2017

The London Guantánamo Campaign [1] and human rights activists will mark the fifteenth anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp with a “Sad Clown Protest” [2] on the north side of Trafalgar Square, outside the National Gallery in London at 12-2pm on Wednesday 11 January 2017.

As part of this protest action, at 1pm, activists dressed in clown suits will hold a visual action demanding the closure of Guantánamo Bay.

Aisha Maniar, organiser from the London Guantánamo Campaign, says, "The fact that Guantánamo remains open and operational after fifteen years with 55 prisoners, almost all held without charge, trial or even the prospect of a trial throughout that period, is an unfortunate indictment of the state of global politics today and of the blatant disregard by states for international law and human rights.

“The US military did not capture but bought 86% of the total prisoners held at Guantánamo [3]. Consequently, the never-ending recycling of Bush-era myths concerning the alleged danger posed by prisoners is proof that the extralegal regime remains indefensible and is a perversion of the freedom and justice it claims to protect.

“Guantánamo Bay will certainly still be open after Barack Obama leaves office and his inability and many missed opportunities to close what he once called a “misguided experiment” will be marked as a major failure in his legacy. It is also a failure of the US’s allies who have not spoken out strongly enough in condemnation of practices at Guantánamo and who have in many cases colluded knowingly in the extralegal detention and torture of their own citizens there.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS

1. The London Guantánamo Campaign was set up in 2006 and campaigns for justice for all prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, for the closure of this and other secret prisons, and an end to the practice of extraordinary rendition. http://londonguantanamocampaign.blogspot.com  

Since 2008, the London Guantánamo Campaign has each year been the sole organiser of the UK protest to mark the anniversary of Guantánamo Bay opening on 11 January 2002.

2. For more details of the event, see our website http://londonguantanamocampaign.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/11-january-15-years-of-guantanamo-is-no.html

3. http://law.shu.edu/publications/guantanamoReports/guantanamo_report_final_2_08_06.pdf

MEDIA RELEASE: London Guantánamo Campaign Comment on Barack Obama’s Plan to Close Guantánamo: “Politically expedient, but no viable means to close Guantánamo” For immediate release: Tuesday, 23 February 2016

MEDIA RELEASE: London Guantánamo Campaign Comment on Barack Obama’s Plan to Close Guantánamo: “Politically expedient, but no viable means to close Guantánamo”

For immediate release: Tuesday, 23 February 2016

The administration of US President Barack Obama has today presented to Congress its long-awaited plan for the closure of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility by the end of his term in office in January 2017. The 4-point plan involves the release of cleared prisoners, an acceleration of periodic reviews, the reform of military commissions and the transfer of some prisoners to facilities on the US mainland.

Aisha Maniar, organiser of the London Guantánamo Campaign [1], says: “Without ending arbitrary indefinite detention, there is no end to the “misguided experiment” [2] that is Guantánamo Bay. Instead, Barack Obama has offered Congress a politically expedient plan that will help to protect his historic legacy as a president who tried. Coming at a key point in this year’s presidential campaign, and anticipating “a fair amount of opposition in Congress”, the plan offers politicians on both sides a talking point to appear tough on terrorism and national security issues, while eschewing real threats. The plan offers no viable solution to ending what Guantánamo represents, any more than it offers either freedom or justice for remaining prisoners.

“Barack Obama’s administration has recently taken positive measures by bringing the prisoner population below 100 for the first time since 2002, and accelerating periodic reviews for prisoners who cannot be released or tried. The fact that almost all of those who have had their status reviewed have been cleared for release raises further fears for the future of those prisoners who are unlikely to be released by this summer, but whose innocent or guilt has never been ascertained in over 14 years of detention.    

“The losers in this plan are the very men whose future it determines: there never was a viable plan to release ‘forever’ prisoners. This plan demonstrates what the Guantánamo prisoners have always been: not dangerous men, but the ultimate pawns in the power games of others.”

ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

1. The London Guantánamo Campaign was set up in 2006 and campaigns for justice for all prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, for the closure of this and other secret prisons, and an end to the practice of extraordinary rendition. http://londonguantanamocampaign.blogspot.com  

2. On 21 May 2009, Barack Obama referred to Guantánamo Bay as a “misguided experiment” https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/remarks-president-national-security-5-21-09

London Marks 12 Years of Guantánamo Bay: Demonstration: Saturday 11 January 2014

 
 london.gtmo@gmail.com  
https://www.facebook.com/events/246710665485484/

LGC Newsletter – March 2013

NEWS:

British Residents:

Names can still be added to the petition calling for Shaker Aamer’s release to Prime Minister David Cameron: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/33133 This petition can be signed until 20 April 2013; 100,000 signatures on the petition will lead to a debate on this issue in Parliament.

Guantánamo Bay:

The main news that has come out of Guantánamo Bay this month, but which continues to be ignored by the mainstream media, is a hunger strike involving almost all the prisoners. On 6 February, prisoners in Camp 6 with the exception of the weak and elderly, which houses the vast majority of prisoners, went on hunger strike in protest at arbitrary cell searches and confiscation of personal items and mishandling of the Qur’an by interpreters, which they said constituted desecration. This is coupled, according to their lawyers, with increasing despair and desperation for most of the men who are cleared for release but remain there perpetually without charge or trial in their twelfth year. The fear is that death is the only reasonable way out. The hunger strike was brought to the public attention in early March when lawyers for some of the prisoners who had visited Guantánamo Bay wrote to the commander there seeking the demands of the hunger strikers be acquiesced: http://ccrjustice.org/files/2013_03_04_Ltr_JTF_Smith_Welsh.pdf  The official response has been denial. All the lawyers representing prisoners then wrote to the Defense Secretary on 14 March. Neither letter has been responded to. Instead of admitting to the hunger strike, the US Defense Department admitted that it had fired rubber bullets, a potentially lethal riot control method, at prisoners, hitting one, on 2 January: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2290036/Navy-confirms-rubber-bullets-fired-Guantanamo-Bay-amid-allegations-widespread-inmate-protests-liken-conditions-darkest-days-Bush.html?ito=feeds-newsxml The lawyers corroborate the increasingly worse conditions reported by their clients.

Initially putting the number of hunger strikers at 6, who have been force fed for over a year, the US military has since retracted and the official number has now gone up to 31 with over 8 being force fed to keep them alive and at least four having collapsed due to exhaustion and dehydration. Lawyers put the number of hunger strikers at closer to 130.

At a hearing of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) on 14 March, a senior lawyer for the US government denied that there was even any “indefinite detention” of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay: http://www.iede.co.uk/news/2013_1275/us-claims-no-indefinite-detention-guant%C3%A1namo

A senior US military official General John Kelly has put the hunger strike down to “frustration” by the prisoners and has instead asked the Pentagon for $195 million to upgrade facilities at the prison, to improve facilities for soldiers serving there and the camp that houses high-value prisoners, such as Khalid Sheikh Mohamed: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2297620/Four-years-Obama-promised-close-Guantanamo-Bay-military-prison-195-million-dollars-renovations-new-construction.html

There has been NO discussion throughout on how to close the camp and release the prisoners, or attempts to address their demands. Plans have also been announced to restrict the access lawyers have to their clients and civilian flights to Guantánamo Bay, meaning that lawyers, journalists and others monitoring trials, etc. will only be able to travel there with the military.

Into its fiftieth day, it is only now that this hunger strike is starting to reach the mainstream media, which has consistently failed to report it, including those that consider themselves more liberal. The Red Cross, the only independent organisation which has access to the prisoners, has also failed to monitor the situation. Having last visited the prison in mid-February, it has now brought forward a visit to the prison scheduled for next month due to the severity of the hunger strike: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21958255 The Red Cross is supposed to provide independent monitoring of the health and weight of prisoners involved in such cases and to track possible abuses.

The countries the prisoners come from, including the UK with respect to Shaker Aamer, have not responded to the hunger strike either.

Solidarity actions have been held in the UK and US.

Russia Today has been following developments closely and has produced the following up-to-date timeline of actions and events: http://rt.com/news/guantanamo-bay-hunger-strike-399/ The LGC spoke to Russia Today on 17 March, the same day as a protest organised by the LGC took place in London.

Other media on this news:

http://dissenter.firedoglake.com/2013/03/04/guantanamo-prisoners-on-hunger-strike-against-new-guard-force-confiscating-personal-items/#

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/14972-guantanamo-hunger-strike-potentially-life-threatening-attorneys-allege-in-letter-to-prison-officials

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/21/us/hunger-strike-cases-surge-at-guantanamo.html?ref=charliesavage&_r=0

http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/hunger-strike-guantanamo-enters-critical-stage/

Release from Guantánamo Bay, however, can result in further imprisonment and abuse elsewhere, often in the home country.

Omar Khadr: who returned to Canada in September last year is now being represented once more by intrepid lawyer Dennis Edney. Having only resumed representation of Omar Khadr a few weeks ago, Mr Edney has already been on television and has spoken to the print media in Canada to oppose the official and closed narrative concerning Omar Khadr being a “convicted terrorist”. Mr Edney will soon appeal Omar Khadr’s conviction at Guantánamo. Funds are needed to ensure that Dennis Edney can do this work – take on court cases and visit Omar Khadr at the Milhaven Institution. The international Free Omar Khadr campaign has set up a facility for individuals to donate to these costs via Paypal: http://freeomarakhadr.wordpress.com/2013/03/02/omar-khadrs-lawyer-dennis-edney-tireless-advocate-who-has-made-many-personal-sacrifices-to-defend-him-please-donate-dennis-edney-is-a-tireless-advocate-who-has-made-many-personal-sacrifices-to-defe/

Rasul Kudaev: a 35-year old Russian national who was returned to Russia from Guantánamo Bay in 2004. Arrested while travelling through Afghanistan en route to Pakistan by the Taleban who accused him of being a Russian spy, he was held at Guantánamo Bay for two years after the US accused him of fighting for the Taleban and when returned to Russia, he was arrested following militant attacks on military installations in his regional capital and accused of involvement in an armed group and spying for the US and UK. After almost 8 years of pre-trial detention, and having suffered much physical abuse there, as well as health complications from poor medical care and injuries from his time in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo Bay, Rasul Kudaev’s case finally came to trial this week. He should have been given an opportunity to provide his own defence on Monday 25 or Tuesday 26 March but he has instead been banned from the court and denied all rights to a fair trial in Russia’s longest-running court case, involving a staggering 59 defendants. To read more about Rasul Kudaev’s harrowing story and this case in which judgment is finally expected later this year, please read:

http://onesmallwindow.wordpress.com/2013/03/26/rasul-kudaev-hostage-to-21st-century-justice/

Extraordinary rendition:

Following the controversial handover of Bagram prison in Afghanistan to the Afghan authorities last year which was blighted by questions over detention without trial and the fate of over 50 foreign prisoners who have been held without charge or trial for over a decade and are largely victims of extraordinary rendition, the US and Afghanistan signed a new memorandum of understanding which took force to officially hand over Bagram to Afghan control on 25 March. The Afghan authorities had already released a large number of Afghans held there without charge last year. Of the over 3000 prisoners held there when the prison was transferred last year, more than half have been released. Afghanistan has also negotiated the handover of Afghan Taleban prisoners; however, the US will maintain control over the 50 non-Afghan nationals who were held at Bagram. With the exclusion of these prisoners, prisoners under British control remain the only prisoners in Afghanistan held by a foreign country. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-21922047

Abu Zubaydah, who was held at a secret prison in Poland from December 2002 to September 2003, before being rendered elsewhere and then taken to Guantánamo Bay has filed a case against Poland at the European Court of Human Rights for its delay in investigating his claims of torture and extraordinary rendition. The claim has been brought due to Poland’s slow progress in its own investigation, which has taken over two years so far and has stalled considerably in recent months. http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/03/27/3309535/waterboarded-zubaydah-sues-poland.html

LGC Activities:

The March LGC “Shut Down Guantánamo!” demonstration was attended by 3 people. The next demonstration will be on Thursday 4 April at 12-1pm outside the US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, W1A and then 1.15-2.15pm outside Speaker’s Corner, Marble Arch (Hyde Park): http://www.facebook.com/events/225963950882304/ This demonstration will be in solidarity with the Guantánamo hunger strikers.

On 17 March, Aisha Maniar from the LGC spoke to Russia Today about the hunger strike, stating that “awareness about the hunger strike, […] has more or less – at least in Britain – been ignored by the mainstream media.”

On the same day, the LGC held a demonstration outside the US Embassy in London in solidarity with the hunger strikers. On a cold and wet day, around 30 people joined to show their solidarity. Speakers from the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, the Stop The War Coalition, Muna Othman, a Yemeni journalist, and spoken word artist Ibrahim Sincere spoke at the event.

Videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhcFo5vPJ2A Muna Othman

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQtp_IrFvRo David Harrold (LGC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L-fKypdPq4 (STWC)

Activists from the LGC also helped out and spoke at a conference organised by Birkbeck College and SOAS Stop The War Societies on 20 March. During the day, activists helped to collect signatures on the e-petition for Shaker Aamer and raised awareness about the plight of the prisoners with video showings and speeches. In the evening, the LGC contributed to a panel discussion on “Guantanamo and the Secret War on Terror”: http://www.santinopani.com/guantanamo-and-the-secret-war-on-terror/#jp-carousel-8411 (pictures) and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6rsavWoiu4&list=PLyKfbki85FBdjG-TpJ78LlRCpgp5Q2Zg3 (videos)

Please watch out for details of more hunger strike solidarity actions and get in touch with us to get involved!

 Pictures of LGC actions copyrighted. May be reused and reproduced free of charge WITH permission.