Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a cooperative military prison and detention camp under the leadership of Joint Task Force Guantanamo since 2002.
The prison, established at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, holds people accused by the United States government of being terrorist operatives, as well as those no longer considered suspects who are being held pending relocation elsewhere. The detainment areas consist of three camps in the base: Camp Delta (which includes Camp Echo), Camp Iguana, and the now-closed Camp X-Ray. The facility is often referred to as Guantanamo, or Gitmo (derived from the abbreviation "GTMO"). The detainees held by the United States were classified as enemy combatants.
Since the beginning of the War in Afghanistan, 775 detainees have been brought to Guantanamo, approximately 420 of which have been released. As of August 09, 2007, approximately 355 detainees remain. More than a fifth are cleared for release but may have to wait months or years because U.S. officials are finding it increasingly difficult to line up places to send them, according to Bush administration officials and defense lawyers. Of the roughly 355 still incarcerated, U.S. officials said they intend to eventually put 60 to 80 on trial and free the rest.
Facilities and detainees
From the 1970s onwards, the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base was used to house Cuban and Haitian refugees intercepted on the high seas. In the early 1990s, it held refugees who fled Haiti in Camp Bulkeley until United States District Court Judge Sterling Johnson Jr. declared the camp unconstitutional on June 8, 1993, and the last Haitian migrants departed in late 1995. In June 2005, the United States Department of Defense announced that a unit of defense contractor Halliburton will build a new $30 million detention facility and security perimeter around the base. Camp Delta is a 612-unit detention center built between February 27 and April 2002 which includes detention camps 1 through 6 and Camp Echo. Most of the security force there is U.S. Army military police, and U.S. Navy Master-at Arms. Camp Echo, part of the Camp Delta compound, is a detention center where pre-commissions are held — its detainees may talk privately to lawyers. However, protocols of the conversations have to be submitted to a commission of the Pentagon, which decides whether to release the information or not. Camp Iguana is a smaller, low-security compound, located about a kilometer from the main prison compound. In 2002 and 2003, it housed three detainees who were under age 16, and was closed when they were flown home in January 2004. The compound was reopened in mid-2003 to house some of the 38 detainees who were determined by the Combatant Status Review Tribunals not to be enemy combatants. Those who could not safely be repatriated to their home countries were moved to Camp Iguana. Camp X-Ray was a temporary detention facility which was closed in April 2002, and its prisoners transferred to Camp Delta.
On September 22, 2004, ten prisoners were brought from Afghanistan. In July, 2005, 242 detainees were moved out of Guantánamo, including 173 that were released, and 69 transferred to the governments of other countries, according to the United States Department of Defense. In November 2005, 358 of the 505 detainees then held at Guantánamo Bay have had Administrative Review Board hearings. Of these, 3% were granted and are awaiting release, 20% were to be transferred, 37% were to be further detained at Guantánamo, and no decision had been made in 40% of the cases. Of the 505 detainees, 100 or more are from Saudi Arabia, about 80 from Yemen, about 65 from Pakistan, about 50 from Afghanistan, two from Syria and one from Australia.
From 2002 to 2006 there have been several hunger strikes at Guantánamo Bay, with up to 200 participants according to some reports. Numerous participants were being force-fed through a feeding tube when their health and lives became in danger. The Australian reports that as of May 30, 2006, the number of detainees on hunger strike is 75. The Center for Constitutional Rights has prepared a biography of some of the prisoners currently being held in Guantanamo Prison.
US court rulings
The status of this prison is not clear; US courts have partially accepted the status of the prison as existing outside many of the U.S. laws, with the caveat that additional rights be provided regarding due process. In June 2006, the U.S. Supreme Court further restricted the Bush administration’s use of military tribunals to try the detainees.{Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, 126 S. Ct. 2749 (2006),} The Executive branch of the U.S. government has classified the detainees in Camp X-Ray as "enemy combatants," rather than prisoners of war (POWs).
The Administration cites Article 4 of the Geneva Convention as authority for their position that these enemy combatants are not POWs. Article 4 of the Geneva Conventions defines a Prisoner of War as a "Member of other militias and members of other volunteer corps, including those of organized resistance movements, belonging to a party to the conflict and operating in or outside their own territory, even if this territory is occupied." The Article states that "such militias or volunteer corps, including such organized resistance movements," must be "commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates, wear a "fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance, carry arms openly, and conduct their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war."
The US government justifies this designation by claiming that they have neither the status of regular soldiers nor that of guerrillas, and they are not part of a regular army or militia. In July 2003, about 680 alleged Taliban members and suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists from 42 different countries were incarcerated there. Some prisoners have been allowed to meet with attorneys. In April 2003, the U.S. military moved three juveniles to better conditions at Camp Iguana. There were dozens of detainees who were minors when captured, who were housed in the adult portion of the prison, in violation of International law.
In September 2006, President Bush announced that fourteen suspected terrorists are to be transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp and admitted that these suspects have been held in CIA black sites. None of the 14 top figures transferred to Guantanamo from CIA custody had been charged until September 11, 2006.
Conditions
Prisoners are held in small mesh-sided cells, and lights are kept on day and night. Detainees have rations similar to those of US forces, with consideration for Muslim dietary needs. However, many of the detainees have been denied access to the Koran for daily prayer, a Muslim tradition. Detainees are kept in isolation most of the day, are blindfolded when moving within the camp and forbidden to talk in groups of more than three. United States doctrine in dealing with prisoners of war states that isolation and silence are effective means in breaking down the will to resist interrogation. Red Cross inspectors and released detainees have alleged acts of torture, including sleep deprivation, the use of so-called truth drugs, beatings and locking in confined and cold cells. Human rights groups argue that indefinite detention constitutes torture.
The use of Guantánamo Bay as a military prison has drawn fire from human rights organizations and other critics, who cite reports that detainees have been tortured or otherwise poorly treated. Supporters of the detention argue that trial review of detentions has never been afforded to prisoners of war, and that it is reasonable for enemy combatants to be detained until the cessation of hostilities. However, the detainees’ status as potential or active terrorists, and the lack of any ratified treaties regarding treatment of captured terrorists, makes the situation particularly complicated.
The Bush administration pointed out that the Third Geneva Convention does not apply to al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters, since the Geneva convention only applies to uniformed soldiers of a recognized government. Jim Phillips of the Heritage Foundation claimed that "some of these terrorists who are not recognized as soldiers don’t deserve to be treated as soldiers." Critics of U.S. policy say the government has violated the Conventions in attempting to create a distinction between ‘prisoners of war’ and ‘illegal combatants’. A U.S. district court partially agreed with the Bush administration, finding that the Geneva Conventions apply to Taliban fighters, but not to Al Qaeda terrorists. Amnesty International has called the situation "a human rights scandal" in a series of reports.
One of the allegations of abuse at the camp is the abuse of the religion of the detainees. The US government has claimed that they respect all religious and cultural sensitivities. However, prisoners released from the camp have alleged that abuse of religion included flushing the Qur’an down the toilet, defacing the Qur’an, writing comments and remarks on the Qur’an, tearing pages out of the Qur’an and denying detainees a copy of the Qur’an. These allegations were highlighted by Pakistan politician Imran Khan. One of the justifications offered for the continued detention of Mesut Sen, during his Administrative Review Board hearing, was:
"Emerging as a leader, the detainee has been leading the detainees around him in prayer. The detainees listen to him speak and follow his actions during prayer."
Suicide attempts
By 2008 there has now been at least 4 successful suicides and hundreds of suicide attempts in Guantanamo that are public knowledge. No information is available on the number of suicides of prisoners that are classified secret, or their suicide attempts. On June 10, 2006, three detainees were found dead, who, according to the Pentagon, "killed themselves in an apparent suicide pact". Prison commander Rear Admiral Harry Harris claimed this was not an act of desperation, despite prisoners’ pleas to the contrary, but rather "an act of asymmetric warfare committed against us".
Amnesty International said the apparent suicides "are the tragic results of years of arbitrary and indefinite detention" and called the prison "an indictment" of the Bush administration’s human rights record. Saudi Arabia’s state-sponsored Saudi Human Rights group blamed the U.S. for the deaths. "There are no independent monitors at the detention camp so it is easy to pin the crime on the prisoners… it’s possible they were tortured," said Mufleh al-Qahtani, the group’s deputy director, in a statement to the local Al-Riyadh newspaper.
Guantanamo officials have reported 41 unsuccessful suicide attempts by 25 detainees since the U.S. began taking prisoners to the base in January 2002. Defense lawyers contend the number of suicide attempts is higher. A U.N. panel said May 19 that holding detainees indefinitely at Guantanamo violated the world’s ban on torture and the United States should close the detention center. Mark Denbeaux, a law professor at Seton Hall University in New Jersey who represents two Tunisians at Guantanamo, said he believes others are candidates for suicide.
As of August 2003, at least 29 inmates of Camp Delta had attempted suicide in protest. The U.S. officials would not say why they had not previously reported the incident. After this event the Pentagon reclassified suicides as "manipulative self-injurious behaviors" because it is alleged by camp physicians that detainees do not genuinely wish to end their lives.
Public opinion
European Union members and the Organization of American States, as well as non-governmental organizations such as Amnesty International have protested the legal status and physical condition of detainees at Guantánamo. The human rights organization Human Rights Watch has criticized the Bush administration over this designation in its 2003 world report, stating: "Washington has ignored human rights standards in its own treatment of terrorism suspects. It has refused to apply the Geneva Conventions to prisoners of war from Afghanistan, and has misused the designation of ‘illegal combatant’ to apply to criminal suspects on U.S. soil."
On May 25, 2005, Amnesty International released its annual report calling the facility the "gulag of our times" Lord Steyn called it "a monstrous failure of justice," because "… The military will act as interrogators, prosecutors and defense counsel, judges, and when death sentences are imposed, as executioners. The trials will be held in private. None of the guarantees of a fair trial need be observed.
Another senior British Judge, Justice Collins, said of the detention centre: ‘America’s idea of what is torture is not the same as the United Kingdom’s. At the beginning of December 2003, there were media reports that military lawyers appointed to defend alleged terrorists being held by the United States at Guantánamo Bay had expressed concern about the legal process for military commissions. The Guardian newspaper from the United Kingdom reported that a team of lawyers was dismissed after complaining that the rules for the forthcoming military commissions prohibited them from properly representing their clients. New York’s Vanity Fair reported that some of the lawyers felt their ethical obligations were being violated by the process. The Pentagon strongly denied the claims in these media reports. It was reported on May 5, 2007, that many lawyers were sent back and some detainees refuse to see their lawyers, while others decline mail from their lawyers or refuse to provide them information on their cases.
The New York Times and other newspapers are critical of the camp; columnist Thomas Friedman urged George W. Bush to "just shut it down", calling Camp Delta "…worse than an embarrassment" Another New York Times editorial supported Friedman’s proposal, arguing that Guantánamo is part of "…a chain of shadowy detention camps that includes Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the military prison at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and other secret locations run by the intelligence agencies" which are "part of a tightly linked global detention system with no accountability in law."
In November 2005, a group of experts from the Commission on Human Rights at the United Nations called off their visit to Camp Delta, originally scheduled for 6 December, saying that the United States was not allowing them to conduct private interviews with the prisoners. "Since the Americans have not accepted the minimum requirements for such a visit, we must cancel [it]," Manfred Nowak, the UN envoy in charge of investigating torture allegations around the world, told AFP. The group, nevertheless, stated its intention to write a report on conditions at the prison based on eyewitness accounts from released detainees, meetings with lawyers and information from human rights groups.
In February 2006, the UN group released its report, which called on the U.S. either to release all suspected terrorists or to try them. The report, issued by the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, has the subtitle Situation of detainees at Guantánamo Bay. This includes, as an appendix, the U.S. ambassador’s reply to the draft versions of the report in which he restates the U.S. government’s position on the detainees.
European leaders have also voiced their opposition to the detention center. On January 13, 2006, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, herself being raised in GDR, criticized the U.S. detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the "interrogation technique" known as "waterboarding", calling it a form of torture: "An institution like Guantánamo, in its present form, cannot and must not exist in the long term. We must find different ways of dealing with prisoners. As far as I’m concerned, there’s no question about that," she declared in a January 9 interview to Der Spiegel. Meanwhile in the UK, Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary, stated during a live broadcast of Question Time (February 16, 2006) that: "I would prefer that it wasn’t there and I would prefer it was closed." His cabinet colleague and Prime Minister, Tony Blair, declared the following day that the centre was "an anomaly and sooner or later it’s got to be dealt with." On 10 March 2006, a letter in The Lancet is published, signed by more than 250 medical experts urging the United States to stop force-feeding of detainees and close down the prison. Force-feeding is specifically prohibited by the World Medical Association force-feeding declarations of Tokyo and Malta, to which the American Medical Association is a signatory. Dr David Nicholl who had initiated the letter stated that the definition of torture as only actions that cause "death or major organ failure" was "not a definition anyone on the planet is using". Conversely, the UN War Crimes Tribunal at The Hague ruled that force-feeding was not "torture, inhuman or degrading treatment" when they ordered it be implemented in another case.
In May 2006, the UK Attorney General Lord Goldsmith said the camp’s existence was "unacceptable" and tarnished the U.S. traditions of liberty and justice. "The historic tradition of the United States as a beacon of freedom, liberty and of justice deserves the removal of this symbol," he said. Also in May 2006, the UN Committee against Torture condemned treatment at Guantanamo Bay, noted that indefinite detention constitutes per se a violation of the UN Convention Against Torture, and called on the U.S. to shut down the Guantanamo facility. In June 2006, the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion urging the United States to close the camp.
In June 2006, Sen. Arlen Specter claimed that the arrests of most of the roughly 500 prisoners held there were based on "the flimsiest sort of hearsay". In September 2006, the UK’s Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, who heads the UK’s legal system, went further than previous British government statements, condemning the existence of the camp as a "shocking affront to democracy". Lord Falconer, who said he was expressing Government policy, made the comments in a lecture at the Supreme Court of New South Wales. According to former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell: "Essentially, we have shaken the belief the world had in America’s justice system by keeping a place like Guantanamo open and creating things like the military commission. We don’t need it and it is causing us far more damage than any good we get for it,".
In March 2007, a group of British Parliamentarians formed an All-Party Parliamentary Group to campaign against Guantanamo Bay. The group is made up of Members of Parliament and peers from each of the main British political parties, and is chaired by Sarah Teather with Des Turner and Richard Shepherd acting as Vice Chairs. The Group was launched with an Ambassadors’ Reception in the House of Commons, bringing together a large group of lawyers, non-governmental organisations and governments with an interest in seeing the camp closed. On April 26, 2007, there was a debate in the U.S. senate over the detainees at Guantanamo Bay which ended in a draw, with Democrats urging action on the prisoners’ behalf but running into stiff opposition from Republicans.
According to polls conducted by the Program on International Policy (PIP) attitudes, “Large majorities in Germany and Great Britain, and pluralities in Poland and India, believe the United States has committed violations of international law at its prison on Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, including the use of torture in interrogations.” PIP found a marked decrease in the perception of the U.S. as a leader of human rights as a result of the international communities opposition to the Guantánamo prison. A 2006 poll conducted by the BBC World Service together with GlobeScan in 26 countries found that 69% of respondents disapprove of the Guantánamo prison and the U.S. treatment of detainees. American actions in Guantanamo, coupled with the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal, are considered major factors in the decline of the U.S.’s image abroad.
Prisoner complaints
Three British prisoners, now known in the media as the "Tipton Three," were released in 2004 without charge. The three have alleged ongoing torture, sexual degradation, forced drugging and religious persecution being committed by U.S. forces at Guantánamo Bay. The prisoners have released a 115-page dossier detailing these accusations. Former Guantánamo detainee, the Swede Mehdi Ghezali was freed on July 9, 2004, after two and half years internment. Ghezali has claimed that he was the victim of repeated torture. Former Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg, freed in January 2005, after nearly three years in captivity, has accused his American captors of torturing him and other detainees arrested in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Omar Deghayes was blinded by pepper spray during his detention. Former Guantánamo detainee Murat Kurnaz, released on August 24, 2006 alleges mistreatment and torture.
Murat Kurnaz’s statements are:
Shock rooms: "(In Guantanamo) I was subjected to severe torture. For three months, I stayed in these cold-hot shock rooms. When you go into the room they pump very hot air inside. After that, they pump extremely cold air. It is a horrifying kind of torture. There were various sorts of torture methods including electrical shocks, drowning in water tanks, depriving of food and water, chaining and hanging to the ceiling."
"I witnessed people dying": "They brought a tub full of water. They dipped our heads and held them in water. There I witnessed many people die. They stripped us of our clothes, chaining and hanging us to the wall. I was kept hung to the wall for 4-5 days. Then doctor used to come and check if we could stand more or not. We were not given any food for 20 days. They only gave us one piece of toast, one carrot or one apple per day."
"Psychological Torture": "When none of these torture methods worked, they applied psychological torture. They threw the Qur’an to the floor and kicked it around, throwing it in the toilet. They were playing Adhan along with other music and dancing to it. They made religious insults. Once I could not feel my feet or hands due to the cold. Then I felt a gun barrel at my head. The soldier was yelling at me saying that he was going to kill me. I started laughing. All other detainees started laughing, too. Because I felt that I was already dead. If they killed me, they would be doing me a favor.
"Sign this document": "One day, they brought this document to me and told me to sign it. For example, there were sentences saying that I would guarantee that I would not get involved in terrorist activities. I told them I never did anything like that anyway, and I would not sign it. I was told that I would not be able to get out of there if I did not sign it. Then they packed my bags and sent me back to Germany."
"All Guantanamo camp footage is fake": "After I was released I saw a lot of photos and video footage of Guantanamo detainment camp. Those are all fake and full of lies. Americans were selecting 2-3 detainees for the footage. They were giving mattresses, blankets, prayer beads and skullcaps to these detainees and were recording these videos. The documentary The Road to Guantanamo is a good work. But it is only telling 20 percent of what happened there. It is hard to show everything that happened over the years in one movie."
Juma Al Dossary claims he was interrogated hundreds times, beaten, tortured with broken glass, barbed wire, burning cigarettes, and sexual assaults. David Hicks also made allegations of torture and mistreatment in Guantánamo Bay, but as part of a plea bargain Hicks withdrew any allegations of mistreatment.
An Associated Press report claims that some detainees were turned over to the US by Afghan tribesmen in return for cash bounties The first Denbeaux study reproduces copies of several of leaflets, flyers and posters the US Government distributed to advertise the bounty program. Some of the posters were in comic form, to reach the bulk of the Afghan population, who are illiterate.
Forced feeding accusations by hunger-striking detainees began around the beginning of Autumn, 2005: "Detainees said large feeding tubes were forcibly shoved up their noses and down into their stomachs, with guards using the same tubes from one patient to another. The detainees say no sedatives were provided during these procedures, which they allege took place in front of U.S. physicians, including the head of the prison hospital." "A hunger striking detainee at Guantánamo Bay wants a judge to order the removal of his feeding tube so he can be allowed to die, one of his lawyers has said." Within a few weeks, the Department of Defense "extended an invitation to United Nations Special Rapporteurs to visit detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay Naval Station".
This was rejected by the U.N. considering the restrictions "that [the] three human rights officials invited to Guantánamo Bay wouldn’t be allowed to conduct private interviews" with prisoners. Simultaneously, media reports ensued surrounding the question of prisoner treatment. "District Court Judge Gladys Kessler also ordered the U.S. government to give medical records going back a week before such feedings take place." In early November 2005, the U.S. suddenly accelerated, for unknown reasons, the rate of prisoner release, but this was unsustained. Prisoners were force fed with nasal tubes.
In 2005, it was reported that sexual methods were allegedly used by female interrogators to break Muslim prisoners.
Media coverage
According to a June 21, 2005, New York Times opinion article, on July 29, 2004, an FBI agent was quoted as saying, "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." Air Force Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, who headed the probe into FBI accounts of abuse of Guantánamo prisoners by Defense Department personnel, concluded the man (a Saudi, described as the "20th hijacker") was subjected to "abusive and degrading treatment" due to "the cumulative effect of creative, persistent and lengthy interrogations." The techniques used were authorized by the Pentagon, he said. Many of the released prisoners have complained of enduring beatings, sleep deprivation, prolonged constraint in uncomfortable positions, prolonged hooding, sexual and cultural humiliation, forced injections, and other physical and psychological mistreatment during their detention in Camp Delta.
The U.S. government has denied all of the above charges, but on May 9, 2004, The Washington Post publicized classified documents that showed Pentagon approval of using sleep deprivation, exposure to hot and cold, bright lights, and loud music during interrogations at Guantánamo.
Spc. Sean Baker, a soldier posing as a prisoner during training exercises at the camp, was beaten so severely that he suffered a brain injury and seizures. In June 2004, the New York Times reported that of the nearly 600 detainees not more than two dozen were closely linked to al-Qaeda and that only very limited information could have been gotten from questionings. The only top terrorist is reportedly Mohamed al-Kahtani from Saudi Arabia, who is believed to have planned to participate in the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The International Committee of the Red Cross inspected the camp in June 2004. In a confidential report issued in July 2004 and leaked to the New York Times in November 2004, Red Cross inspectors accused the U.S. military of using "humiliating acts, solitary confinement, temperature extremes, use of forced positions" against prisoners. The inspectors concluded that "the construction of such a system, whose stated purpose is the production of intelligence, cannot be considered other than an intentional system of cruel, unusual and degrading treatment and a form of torture." The United States Government has reportedly rejected the Red Cross findings.
The Washington Post in a May 8, 2004, article describes a set of interrogation techniques approved for use in interrogating alleged terrorists at Guantánamo Bay which are said by Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, to be cruel and inhumane treatment illegal under the U.S. Constitution. On June 15, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski at the centre of the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse in Iraq said she was told from the top to treat detainees like dogs "as it is done in Guantánamo [Camp Delta]." The former commander of Camp X-Ray, Geoffrey Miller, was the person brought in to deal with the inquiry into the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib in Iraq during the Allied occupation. Ex-detainees of the Camp have made serious allegations, including alleging Geoffrey Miller’s complicity in abuse at Camp X-Ray.
The book, Inside the Wire by Erik Saar and Viveca Novak also claims to reveal the abuse of prisoners. Saar, a former U.S. soldier, repeats allegations that a female interrogator taunted prisoners sexually and in one instance wiped what seemed to be menstrual blood on the detainee. Other instances of beatings by the IRF (initial reaction force) have been reported in this book.
An FBI email from December 2003, six months after Saar had left, said that the Defense Department interrogators at Guantánamo had impersonated FBI agents while using "torture techniques" on a detainee.
In October 2006, Vice President Dick Cheney confirmed in a radio interview that U.S. interrogators subjected captured suspects to the controversial interrogation technique of waterboarding.
The United States government, through the State Department, makes periodic reports to the United Nations Committee Against Torture. In October 2005, the report focused on pretrial detention of suspects in the War on Terrorism, including those held in Guantánamo Bay. This particular Periodic Report is significant as the first official response of the U.S. government to allegations that prisoners are mistreated in Guantánamo Bay. The report denies the allegations, but does describe in detail several instances of misconduct that did not arise to the level of substantial abuse, as well as the training and punishments given to the perpetrators.
In an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in June 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney defended the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo: "There isn’t any other nation in the world that would treat people who were determined to kill Americans the way we’re treating these people. They’re living in the tropics. They’re well fed. They’ve got everything they could possibly want."
Released prisoners
In late January 2004, US officials released three children aged 13 to 15 and returned them to Afghanistan. In March 2004, twenty-three adult prisoners were released to Afghanistan, five were released to the United Kingdom (the final four British detainees were released in January 2005), and three were sent to Pakistan. On July 27, 2004, four French detainees Mourad Benchellali, Nizar Sassi, Imad Kanouni and Brahim Yadel were repatriated and remanded in custody by the French intelligence agency Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire. The remaining three French detainees Mustaq Ali Patel, Ridouane Khalid and Khaled Ben Mustafa were released in March 2005.
On August 4, 2004, the three ex-detainees who were returned to the UK (& were freed by the British authorities within 24 hours of their return), filed a report in the U.S. claiming persistent severe abuse at the camp, of themselves and others. They claimed that false confessions were extracted from them under duress, in conditions which amounted to torture. They alleged that conditions deteriorated when Major General Geoffrey Miller took charge of the camp, including increased periods of solitary confinement for the detainees. They claimed that the abuse took place with the knowledge of the intelligence forces. Their claims are currently being investigated by the British Government.
There are five British residents remaining: Bisher Amin Khalil Al-Rawi, Jamil al Banna, Shaker Abdur-Raheem Aamer, Jamal Abdullah and Omar Deghayes. All these men have close family members who are British citizens and have themselves lived in the UK for many years. In addition there are ‘ghost prisoners’ undeclared by the State, some of whom may be British residents.
Among the approximately two dozen Uyghur detainees in Guantanamo, the Washington Post reported on August 25, 2005, that fifteen had been determined not to have been "enemy combatants" after all. Some of the Uyghurs had lawyers who volunteered to help them pursue a writ of habeas corpus, which would have been the single step in getting them freed from American detention. Five of the Uyghurs were scheduled to have arguments for their writ of habeas corpus argued in U.S. District Court on May 8, 2006. However, just prior to the scheduled court review, on May 5, 2006, these five Uyghurs were abruptly transported to refugee camps in Albania, and the Department of Justice filed an "Emergency Motion to Dismiss as Moot" on the same day. Barbara Olshansky, one of the Uyghurs’ lawyers, characterized the sudden transfer as an attempt "to avoid having to answer in court for keeping innocent men in jail". The remaining Uyghur detainees in Guantanamo appear to be held there, as of July 3, 2006.
In August 2006, a German-born Turkish national was released from Guantánamo. Murat Kurnaz was handed over to German officials after being flown to the Ramstein Air Base in Germany, following lengthy negotiations between the German government and US officials. Airat Vakhitov and Rustam Akhmyarov, two Russian nationals captured in Afghanistan in December 2001 (in a Taliban prison, in Vakhitov’s case) and released from Guantánamo in 2004, were arrested by Russian authorities in Moscow on August 27, 2005, for allegedly preparing a series of attacks in Russia. According to authorities, Vakhitov was using a local human rights group as cover for his activities. They were released on September 2, and no charges were ever pressed.
US officials claimed that some of the released prisoners returned to the battlefield (for more information, see List of released Guantanamo prisoners who allegedly returned to battle). The story, as told by Vice President Dick Cheney, is that these captives tricked their interrogators about their real identity, and made them think they were harmless villagers, and thus were able to "return to the battlefield." However, when the DoD finally complied with a court order that required it to release the identities of all the captives who had been held in Guantanamo, none of the officially acknowledged names matched the names of the captives the DoD had asserted had returned to the battlefield.
Administrative proceedings
Military Commission hearings (Camp Delta)
On November 8, 2004, a federal court halted the proceeding of Salim Ahmed Hamdan, 34, of Yemen. Hamdan was to be the first Guantánamo detainee tried before a military commission. Judge James Robertson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the U.S. military had failed to convene a competent tribunal to determine that Hamdan was not a prisoner of war under the Geneva Conventions — specifically Article 5 of the third Geneva Convention
However, a three judge panel overturned judge Robertson’s ruling on Friday July 15, 2005. The panel’s ruling stated that the trial by military commission could, in and of itself, serve as the necessary "competent tribunal." On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court reversed the ruling of the Court of Appeals and found that President Bush did not have authority to set up the war crimes tribunals and that the commissions were illegal under both military justice law and the Geneva Convention. The Supreme Court reserved the question that Judge Robertson found decisive, namely it did not rule on whether detainees were entitled to an Article 5 determination or not.
There is a dispute between Bush administration supporters and opponents, over whether (and how) detainees may be incarcerated and tried. David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey claimed that the Supreme Court’s Hamdan ruling affirms that the United States is engaged in a legally cognizable armed conflict to which the laws of war apply. It may hold captured al Qaeda and Taliban operatives throughout that conflict, without granting them a criminal trial, and is also entitled to try them in the military justice system — including by military commission.
The Supreme Court in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld has not required that neither members of al Qaeda nor their allies, including members of the Taliban, must be granted POW status in the Hamdan decision. However, the Supreme Court clearly stated that the Geneva Conventions, most notably the Third Geneva Convention, and also article 3 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (requiring humane treatment) applies to all detainees in the War on Terror. In July 2004, following the Hamdi v. Rumsfeld-ruling the Bush administration began using Combatant Status Review Tribunals to determine whether the detainees could be held as "enemy combatants".
On 31 January, Washington federal judge Joyce Hens Green ruled that the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, or the CSRT, held to confirm the status of the prisoners in Guantánamo as "enemy combatants" were "unconstitutional", and that they were entitled to the rights granted by the Constitution of the United States of America. The Combatant Status Reviews were completed in March 2005. 38 of the detainees were found not to be combatants. On March 29, 2005, the dossier of Murat Kurnaz was accidentally declassified. Kurnaz was one of the 500-plus detainees the reviews had determined was an "enemy combatant". Critics found that his dossier contained over a hundred pages of reports of investigations, which had found no ties to terrorists or terrorism whatsoever. It contained one memo that said Kurnaz had a tie to a suicide bomber. Judge Green said this memo "fails to provide significant details to support its conclusory allegations, does not reveal the sources for its information and is contradicted by other evidence in the record."
Eugene R. Fidell, who the Washington Post called a Washington-based expert in military law, said that "It suggests the procedure is a sham; if a case like that can get through, then the merest scintilla of evidence against someone would carry the day for the government, even if there’s a mountain of evidence on the other side." Another detainee, Fawaz Mahdi, was determined by a CSRT to be an enemy combatant despite the fact that the CSRT itself (and also Fawaz’ lawyer and he himself) observed that he suffers a form of mental illness, and that the only evidence for determining his status was his own statement.
The principal arguments of why these tribunals are inadequate to warrant acceptance as competent tribunals under the U.S. Constitution are: The CSRT conducted rudimentary proceedings; CSRT afforded detainees few basic protections; Many detainees lacked counsel; The CSRT also informed detainees only of general charges against them, while the details on which the CSRT premised enemy combatant status decisions were classified; and detainees had no right to present witnesses or to cross-examine government witnesses.
The flawed nature of the procedure can be seen in the following cases: Mustafa Ait Idir, Moazzam Begg,Murat Kurnaz, Feroz Abbasi, and Martin Mubanga. A comment by legal experts stated that "It appears … that the procedures of the Combatant Status Review Tribunals do not qualify as status determination under the Third Geneva Convention. <……> The fact that no status determination had taken place according to the Third Geneva Convention was sufficient reason for a judge from the District Court of Columbia dealing with a habeas petition, to stay proceedings before a military commission. Judge Robertson in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld held that the Third Geneva Convention, which he considered selfexecuting, had not been complied with since a Combatant Status Review Tribunal could not be considered a ‘competent tribunal’ pursuant to article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention.
In addition to the Combatant Status Review Tribunals the DoD initiated a similar, annual review. Like the CSRT the Board did not have a mandate to review whether detainees qualified for POW status under the Geneva Conventions. The Board’s mandate was to consider the factors for and against the continued detention of captives, and make a recommendation either for their retention, or their release or their transfer to the custody of their country of origin. The first set of annual reviews considered the dossiers of 463 captives. The first board met between December 14, 2004, and December 23, 2005. The Board recommended the release of 14 detainees, and repatriation to the custody of their country of origin of 120 detainees.
Condoleezza Rice appeal for closure
On December 21, 2007, United States Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice urged various countries who have nationals detained in Guantanamo Bay detention camp to help US close the detention camp. Rice reiterated the desire of George W. Bush administration to close the camp. as soon as possible. She indicated that United States would seek guarantees from such nations that once released, their nationals would not be a danger; which she characterized as the "only problem".
Legal proceedings about Guantanamo Bay
Supreme Court of the United States
On November 10, 2003, the United States Supreme Court announced that it would decide on appeals by Afghan war detainees who challenge their continued incarceration at the Camp as being unlawful. On 10 January 2004, 175 members of both houses of Parliament in the UK had filed an amici curiæ brief to support the detainees’ access to U.S. jurisdiction. On June 28, 2004, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld that "illegal combatants" such as those held in Guantánamo can challenge detentions but can also be held without charges or trial.
On June 29, 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a case concerning Osama bin Laden’s chauffeur, that the military commissions established by executive order to try detainees are unlawful and violate the U.S. Uniform Code of Military Justice, 1949 Geneva Conventions and various human rights standards relating to fair trials.
The ruling also disagreed with the administration’s view that the laws and customs of war did not apply to the U.S. armed conflict with Al Qaeda fighters during the 2001 U.S. invasion of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, stating that Article 3 common to all the Geneva Conventions applied in such a situation, which–among other things–requires fair trials for prisoners. Common Article 3 applies in "wars not of an international character" (i.e., civil wars) in a signatory to the Geneva Conventions–in this case the civil war in signatory Afghanistan. It is likely that the Bush administration may now be forced to try detainees held as part of the "war on terror" either by court martial (as U.S. troops and prisoners of war are) or by civilian federal court. However, Bush has indicated that he may seek an Act of Congress authorizing military commissions.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on the case of Al Odah v. United States on December 5, 2007. Plaintiffs in the case argue that Guantanamo detainees deserve the right to habeas corpus and that the U.S. court system, not the military CSRT system, should have jurisdiction in such cases.
Other court rulings
On February 23, 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff in New York ordered the Defense Department to release uncensored transcripts of detainee hearings which contained identifying information for detainees in custody as well as the names of those who have been held and later released. The U.S. military has never officially released even the names of any detainees except the ten who have been charged. The U.S. Defense Department immediately said it would obey the judge’s order. The names of only 317 of the about 500 alleged enemy combatants being held in Guantánamo Bay were released by the United States Department of Defense on March 3, 2006, after a court order to reveal them. Pentagon spokesmen Bryan Whitman justified withholding the names out of a concern for the detainees’ privacy, although justice Jed Rakoff had already dismissed this argument.
On January 31, 2005, U.S. District Judge Joyce Hens Green in the District of Columbia ruled that: detainees had the fundamental Fifth Amendment right not to be deprived of liberty without due process of law that there was a violation of due process (because classified information was used to determine “enemy combatant” status, which detainees could not review, discuss with counsel, or challenge). He stated that due process required that CSRT sufficiently consider whether the evidence had been obtained through torture, and whethere there was an overly broad definition of “enemy combatant”. He stated that Geneva Conventions applied to the Taliban detainees, but not to members of al Qaeda terrorist organization.
French judge Jean-Claude Kross September 27, 2006, postponed a verdict in the trial of six former Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of attending combat training at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan, saying the court needs more information on French intelligence missions to Guantanamo. Defense lawyers for the six men, all French nationals, accuse the French government of colluding with U.S. authorities over the detentions and seeking to use inadmissible evidence obtained through secret service interviews with the detainees without their lawyers present. Kross scheduled new hearings for May 2, 2007, calling the former head of counterterrorism at the French Direction de la surveillance du territoire intelligence agency [official backgrounder] to testify.
Legal status
In May 2007, Martin Scheinin, a United Nations rapporteur on rights in countering terrorism, released a preliminary report for the United Nations Human Rights Council. The report stated the United States violated international law, particularly the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, that the Bush Administration could not try such prisoners as enemy combatants in a military tribunal and could not deny them access to the evidence used against them. However, on 15 July 2005, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals in overturning Robertson ruled that al-Qaeda members could not be classified as prisoners of war and upheld military tribunals in U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay for al-Qaeda members. This ruling does not necessarily authorize all military tribunals as the case only dealt with the POW status of al-Qaeda members.
Prisoners held at Camp Delta and Camp Echo have been labeled "illegal" or "unlawful enemy combatants," but a number of observers such as the Center for Constitutional Rights and Human Rights Watch maintain that the United States has not held the Article 5 tribunals required by the Geneva Conventions. The International Committee of the Red Cross has stated that, "Every person in enemy hands must have some status under international law: he is either a prisoner of war and, as such, covered by the Third Convention, a civilian covered by the Fourth Convention, [or] a member of the medical personnel of the armed forces who is covered by the First Convention. There is no intermediate status; nobody in enemy hands can fall outside the law." Thus, if the detainees are not classified as prisoners of war, this would still grant them the rights of the Fourth Geneva Convention (GCIV), as opposed to the more common Third Geneva Convention (GCIII) which deals exclusively with prisoners of war. A U.S. court has rejected this argument, as it applies to detainees from al Qaeda.
Many supporters of the Bush administration have argued for the summary execution of all unlawful combatants, using Ex parte Quirin as the precedent, a case during World War II which upheld the use of military tribunals for eight German soldiers caught on U.S. soil. The Germans were deemed to be saboteurs and unlawful combatants, and thus not entitled to POW protections, and six were eventually executed for war crimes on request of the President of the United States, Franklin D. Roosevelt. The validity of this case, as basis for denying prisoners in the War on Terrorism protection by the Geneva Conventions, has been disputed.
A report by the American Bar Association commenting on this case, states that the Quirin case "…does not stand for the proposition that detainees may be held incommunicado and denied access to counsel." The report notes that the Quirin defendants could seek review and were represented by counsel.
NGO reports
On November 30, 2004, The New York Times published excerpts from an internal memo leaked from the U.S. administration, referring to a report from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). The ICRC reports of several activities which, it said, were "tantamount to torture": exposure to loud noise or music, prolonged extreme temperatures, or beatings. It also reported that a behavior science team (BSCT), also called ‘Biscuit,’ and military physicians communicated confidential medical information to the interrogation teams (weaknesses, phobias, etc.), resulting in the prisoners losing confidence in their medical care.
Access of the ICRC to the base was conditional, as is normal for ICRC humanitarian operations, on the confidentiality of their report; sources have reported heated debates had taken place at the ICRC headquarters, as some of those involved wanted to make the report public, or confront the U.S. administration. The newspaper said the administration and the Pentagon had seen the ICRC report in July 2004 but rejected its findings. The story was originally reported in several newspapers, including The Guardian, and the ICRC reacted to the article when the report was leaked in May.
In a foreword to Amnesty International’s International Report 2005, the Secretary General, Irene Khan, made a passing reference to the Guantánamo Bay prison as "the gulag of our times," breaking an internal AI policy on not comparing different human rights abuses. The report reflected ongoing claims of prisoner abuse at Guantánamo and other military prisons.
Government and military inquiries
Senior law enforcement agents with the Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF) told MSNBC.com in 2006 that they began to complain inside the Defense Department in 2002 that the interrogation tactics used by a separate team of intelligence investigators were unproductive, not likely to produce reliable information, and probably illegal. Unable to get satisfaction from the Army commanders running the detainee camp, they took their concerns to David Brant, director of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS), who alerted Navy General Counsel Alberto J. Mora.
General Counsel Mora and Navy Judge Advocate General Michael Lohr believed the detainee treatment to be unlawful, and campaigned among other top lawyers and officials in the Defense Department to investigate, and to provide clear standards prohibiting coercive interrogation tactics. In response, on January 15, 2003, Donald Rumsfeld suspended the approved interrogation tactics at Guantánamo until a new set of guidelines could be produced by a working group headed by General Counsel of the Air Force Mary Walker. The working group based its new guidelines on a legal memo from the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel written by John Yoo and signed by Jay S. Bybee, which would later become widely known as the "Torture Memo". General Counsel Mora led a faction of the Working Group in arguing against these standards, and argued the issues with Yoo in person. The working group’s final report, was signed and delivered to Guantánamo without the knowledge of Mora and the others who had opposed its content. Nonetheless, Mora has maintained that detainee treatment has been consistent with the law since the January 15, 2003 suspension of previously approved interrogation tactics.
After reports of detainee abuse became public, U.S. Navy Secretary Gordon England ordered a review of detainee incarceration practices at Guantánamo, conducted by Navy inspector general, Vice Admiral Albert Church, which concluded the facility was "being operated at very high standards."
On May 1, 2005, The New York Times reported on an ongoing high-level military investigation into accusations of detainee abuse at Guantánamo, conducted by Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt of the Air Force, and dealing with: "accounts by agents for the Federal Bureau of Investigation who complained after witnessing detainees subjected to several forms of harsh treatment. The F.B.I. agents wrote in memorandums that were never meant to be disclosed publicly that they had seen female interrogators forcibly squeeze male prisoners’ genitals, and that they had witnessed other detainees stripped and shackled low to the floor for many hours."
On June 3, 2005, a U.S. military report supported allegations that U.S. soldiers had abused the Qur’an. The report found that a soldier deliberately kicked a Qur’an; an interrogator stepped on a Qur’an; a guard’s urine came through an air vent, splashing a detainee and his Qur’an; water balloons thrown by prison guards caused a number of Qur’ans to get wet; and a two-word obscenity was written in English on the inside cover of a Qur’an. It concluded that many other allegations of desecration were unfounded (see Qur’an desecration controversy of 2005).In June 2005, the United States House Committee on Armed Services visited the camp and described it as a "resort" and complimented the quality of the food. However Democratic members of the committee complained that Republicans had blocked the testimony of attorneys representing the prisoners. Democratic Senators have visited Guantánamo and they reported that they could not find evidence of abuse or mistreatment.
On July 12, 2005, members of a military panel told the committee that they proposed disciplining prison commander Army Major General Geoffrey Miller over the interrogation of Mohamed al-Kahtani who was forced to wear a bra, dance with another man and threatened with dogs. The recommendation was overruled by General Bantz J. Craddock, commander of U.S. Southern Command, who referred the matter to the Army’s inspector general.
Media representations
"None of the deleted text is true so americans dont have to read it" – Gitmo Prison Guard
Camp Delta, Guantanamo 2006, France culture.com – April 30, 2006 — a radio feature by Frank Smith.
Gitmo, a Swedish documentary, attempted to clarify some of the issues concerning the nature of the interrogation processes, through interviews with previous Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib personnel. ‘
Habeas Schmabeas, an episode of the radio program This American Life produced by Chicago Public Radio, discussed the conditions at the facility, the legal justifications and arguments surrounding the detention of prisoners there, and the history of the principle of Habeas Corpus. It also features interviews with two former detainees. The episode won a 2006 Peabody Award
Prisoner 345 (2006) details the case of Al Jazeera cameraman Sami Al Hajj, detained at the camp since 2002.
Fictional representations
The animated series American Dad! depicts a real-estate agent being sent to Guantánamo Bay by the government. Ultimate Marvel comics make reference to Camp X-Factor, a detention camp in Guantánamo Bay designed to hold renegade mutants.
An episode of "Boston Legal" featured a British ex-detainee who is trying a case against the US government for his treatment whilst being held at Guantanamo Bay.
The book Seven Ancient Wonders features an assault on Guantánamo Bay by several of the main characters to break a prisoner out of a detention block. The play Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom is being staged in 2006 by TimeLine Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois. The play is based upon interviews with the families of men detained in Guantanamo Bay. V for Vendetta, the novelization of the Alan Moore Graphic novel by Steve Moore, makes reference to Guantanamo along with Auschwitz, Gulag, and Larkhill (the fictional concentration camp from the movie/graphic novel).The camp was referenced in a comedy sketch featured in The Secret Policeman’s Ball.
The band State Radio opens up its new album Year of the Crow with a track, "Guantanamo," passionately protesting the ethical principles of the Guantanamo Bay facilities.
Capital G, a song by Nine Inch Nails on their newest album, Yearo Zero, depicts Guantanamo Bay and the entire war in Iraq. It is named Capital G after president George W. Bush.