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September 11, 2013

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‘The Other Guantanamo’: Report Shows Impact of Indefinite Detention

The U.S. is still holding about 60 detainees at Afghanistan’s Bagram prison, despite growing criticism

Rolling Stone – By John Knefel  September 11, 2013 3:20 PM ET

Bagram prison in Afghanistan

A new report by a Pakistani legal organization that represents detainees at Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan details the effects indefinite detention has on the detainees, as well as their families and loved ones, including emotional and financial hardship. The report, Closing Bagram: The Other Guantanamo, was issued by Justice Project Pakistan (JPP), which represents 11 of the about 60 individuals the U.S. government is holding without charge or trial at Bagram (officially known as the Detention Facility at Parwan). Testimonials from detainees’ family members can also be viewed online.

Sarah Belal, the director of JPP, says the debate about America’s detention policies is almost always focused on legal questions or national security concerns – both of which shift attention away from the identities of the individuals actually being held. “The detention system and U.S. narrative surrounding it is intentionally dehumanizing and seeks to erase the humanity and histories and individualities of the victims of such policies,” says Belal. “By focusing on the accounts of the families of the detainees, we are challenging the U.S. narrative (which is largely based on classified evidence, hearsay, etc.) of these guys being ‘bad men’ and terrorists by tracing out their histories, gathering their family histories and compiling accounts of their lives.”

Read an Impassioned Letter to Congress from One Bagram Detainee’s Father

The United States transferred control of the Bagram facility to the Afghan government in March 2013, after months of delays cause by tensions between the two countries. Despite handing over control, however, the U.S. has continued to hold around 60 individuals under a stated law of war authority – the same legal rationale that applies to the detainees at Guantanamo. All of the U.S.-held detainees at Bagram are non-Afghans, and about two-thirds of them are Pakistani.

Caption: Bagram prison in Afghanistan

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-other-guantanamo-report-shows-impact-of-indefinite-detention-20130911#ixzz2egeKTcJ7

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Guantánamo judge makes secret ruling on secret motion in secret hearing

BY CAROL ROSENBERG

[email protected]

U.S. Army military judge Col. James L. Pohl, file photo July 7, 2005, Fort Hood, TX, Currently, chief of  Guantanamo military commissions judiciary.  LM OTERO / ASSOCIATED PRESS

During a secret hearing at Guantánamo, the military judge in the 9/11 death-penalty case ruled against a secret government request to withhold information from defense lawyers for accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and his four alleged co-conspirators, according to a partially redacted transcript released Tuesday.

The hearing, held Aug. 19 at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, was the first closed pre-trial hearing of the Sept. 11 capital case. The subject matter was so secret that the judge cleared the court of the public and the five men who, if convicted, could be executed for conspiring to carry out the worst attack on U.S. soil, including 2,976 counts of murder.

And, while the 31-page transcript of the 29-minute hearing is so riddled with redactions that it is unclear what the Pentagon prosecution team was trying to shield from the defense attorneys, it shows the judge denying the request.

“I’m ruling it is discoverable,” Army Col. James L. Pohl said in response to a secret prosecution motion that argues something “is not discoverable.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/10/3618700/guantanamo-judge-makes-secret.html#storylink=cpy

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Never seen before Red Cross photos hunted down by Carol Rosenberg

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September 10, 2013

INSIDE A GUANTANAMO BAY PRISON TOUR – MOLLY CRABAPPLE RETURNS TO GUANTANAMO BAY

By Molly Crabapple

 On August 28, prisoner Nabil Hadjarab left Guantanamo Bay.

Miss Holly, the three-time winner of Cupcake Wars, came to visit.

Sold for a bounty during the war in Afghanistan, Nabil had languished for over a decade in the island prison. Six years after he was cleared to leave, guards threw a hood over his head, and shackled him and another detainee, and led him aboard a military plane to Algeria, a country he had not seen since he was a teenager. Despite Obama’s promises to close Guantánamo, the pair were the first detainees transferred in over a year.

The next day, Gitmo guards lined up for Miss Holly’s cupcakes. I had the s’mores.

Read more: http://www.vice.com/read/guantanamo-bay-is-kafka-on-the-caribbean?utm_source=vicefbus

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September 8, 2013

Remember Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, Who Died at Guantánamo A Year Ago, Despite Being Cleared for Release

By Andy Worthington

Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, Yemeni prisoner at Guantánamo, died September 8, 2012, circumstances still disputed

Exactly a year ago, on September 8, 2012, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni prisoner at Guantánamo, died in circumstances that are still disputed. The US authorities claim that he committed suicide by overdosing on psychiatric medication that he had hoarded, but that has always seemed unlikely, given that the prisoners at Guantánamo are closely monitored, and it has become clear that he was moved around the prison on a number of occasions before his death, making the hoarding of medication even more unlikely.

Despite the inconsistencies in the US authorities’ account of Adnan’s death, it is undisputed that, throughout his ten years at Guantánamo, he had attempted to commit suicide on several occasions. A talented poet, and a father, Adnan also had severe mental health problems, the result of a car crash in Yemen many years before his capture. Adnan always claimed that he had traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in search of cheap medical treatment for his head wounds, in contrast to the US authorities’ attempts to portray him as a member of al-Qaeda.

Read more: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2013/09/09/remember-adnan-farhan-abdul-latif-who-died-at-guantanamo-a-year-ago-despite-being-cleared-for-release/#sthash.OdKabWyO.dpuf

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September 6, 2013

RT – Breaking the Set – Reported by Manuel Rapalo

Sept. 6, 2013 – Force-feeding depicted at White House CloseGitmo.net Rally

Washington, DC: After Fasting for 61 days in Solidarity with Guantánamo Humger Strikers, Andrés Thomas Conteris illustrates the effects of force-feeding, highlighting US-sponsored Torture

RT’s Abby Martin presents a report by Breaking the Set producer, Manuel Rapalo, on a very unique demonstration by CloseGitmo.net activist Andrés Thomas Conteris in front of the White House. It highlights the twice-daily force-feeding of Guantanamo Bay prisoners as torture, and why every U.S. Citizen should want this controversial prison facility closed. It cost $2.7 million to hold each Gitmo prisoner for one year. More info: OrangeRibbons.net

RT Breaking the Set, September 6, 2013, 10 min excerpt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIwUyCWY2oo

Full 30 min show: http://rt.com/shows/breaking-set-summary/gitmo-torture-mothana-uk-538/

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Guantanamo-Style Force Feeding Comes Right To Obama’s Doorstep

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September 6, 2013

Pelican Bay hunger strike suspended on Sept. 5 after 60 days

To be clear, our Peaceful Protest of Resistance to our continuous subjection to decades of systemic state sanctioned torture via the system’s solitary confinement units is far from over. Our decision to suspend our third hunger strike in two years does not come lightly. This decision is especially difficult considering that most of our demands have not been met (despite nearly universal agreement that they are reasonable). The core group of prisoners has been, and remains 100% committed to seeing this protracted struggle for real reform through to a complete victory, even if it requires us to make the ultimate sacrifice.  With that said, we clarify this point by stating prisoner deaths are not the objective, we recognize such sacrifice is at times the only means to an end of fascist oppression

Read more: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/09/05/statement-suspending-the-third-hunger-strike/

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September 5, 2013

US Hunger Striker to Undergo Forced Feeding at White House

Sept. 5, 2013 Popular Resistance – Daily Movement News and Resources

Force Feeding will Occur at Rally to Close Guantanamo and End Solitary Confinement Solidarity With Gitmo & Pelican Bay Hunger Strikers

WHERE: The White House, 1600 Penn. Ave.
WHEN: Friday, September 6, noon-1pm
WHAT: Force-feeding of US activist at rally to close Guantanamo & end solitary confinement
WHO: CloseGitmo.net, Witness Against Torture, Code Pink, Veterans For Peace, and others

WASHINGTON, D.C. CloseGitmo.net organizer Andrés Thomas Conteris on day 61 of his fast in solidarity with hunger striking prisoners in Guantánamo and Pelican Bay— will undergo a nasogastric feeding in front of the White House on Friday, September 6 at noon.

Conteris will underscore the brutality of force-feeding, to which dozens of men at Guantanamo have been subjected since a new hunger strike began last February, and which California officials have threatened for hunger striking prisoners in Pelican Bay protesting the use of extended solitary confinement in US prisons.  The American Medical Association, the United Nations, and Senators John McCain and Diane Feinstein have all condemned force-feeding.

The tube feeding of Conteris, administered by a medical professional, will be webcast live at http://closegitmo.net .

“Force-feeding is torture,”” says Conteris, a 52-year-old man from California who has lost 50lbs since starting his strike on July 8^th,, when Pelican Bay inmates started their fast. ““I wish to make visible what the U.S. government is perpetrating against prisoners in Guantánamo and what the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is threatening for hunger strikers in Pelican Bay.  The only way to end the hunger strikes and force-feeding is to shutter the Gitmo prison and respond favorably to the demands of the prisoners in California.””

“Indefinite detention, prolonged solitary confinement, and force-feeding,” says CodePink co-founder, Medea Benjamin, “are all ways our government brutalizes people.  They must stop, and Guantanamo must close.”

The rally comes on the second day of the trial of Diane Wilson at the DC District Court (500 Indiana Ave., NW).  On June 26, day 57 of her solidarity hunger strike, Wilson was arrested protesting Guantanamo and Pelican Bay by allegedly scaling the White House fence.  The rally will feature updates on the situations at Guantanamo and at Pelican Bay

CloseGitmo.net is a coalition working to close Guantanamo and oppose torture, including the use of extended solitary confinement.

For more information about the event or to interview Conteris or other participating organizationss contact: Andrés Conteris – 202-232-1999; [email protected] and Medea Benjamin - 415-235-6517 – [email protected]

http://www.popularresistance.org/us-hunger-striker-to-undergo-forced-feeding-at-white-house/

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September 2, 2013

Spoken word from our friends at the Peace Poets “Breaking Down Solitary” 

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Obama should return Guantanamo to Cuba, former U.S. envoy says (Reuters) - Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Pravin Char.  GENEVA | Mon Sep 2, 2013

U.S. top diplomat in Havana Michael Parmly (L) addresses foreign diplomats and Cuban dissidents on International Human Rights Day at his residence in Havana in this December 10, 2005 file photo. Picture taken December 10, 2005. Reuters/Claudia Daut

Obama, by negotiating a deal with Cuban leader Raul Castro about the base on the communist island, could build a long-term relationship with its people, said Michael Parmly, head of the U.S. interests section in Havana from 2005-2008. Since 1903, the United States has had treaty rights to Guantanamo Bay, a 45 square-mile territory in southeastern Cuba, originally needed as a fuelling station for U.S. warships. The prison was set up by former U.S. President George W. Bush’s administration for foreign suspected militants after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The U.S. base is a “historic anomaly” even though the two countries have not had diplomatic relations since 1961, Parmly wrote. “The current partisan tensions on the (Capitol) Hill ensure that it would be an uphill climb, but it is the thesis of this paper that a similar bold step, akin to the Panama Canal, is called for regarding Guantanamo,” he said, citing that 1977 U.S. return of the waterway to Panama as a precedent. “Both sides would have an interest.” The 26-page paper by the retired diplomat, obtained by Reuters, is to appear shortly in the Fletcher Forum of World Affairs, published by the Fletcher School in Massachusetts. Obama has pledged to close the prison which has held dozens of suspected militants, most without charge, for more than a decade. But he has faced congressional resistance. Parmly, who now lives in Geneva, said the U.S. and Cuban governments could agree that 46 “problem cases” remain at a U.S.-run jail even after operational control of the base is transferred. The remaining 118 inmates could be sent to U.S. prisons and then face trial or be released. An agreement could also be reached with Cuba allowing the U.S. Navy to use the base for its operations in the Caribbean, he said. The U.S. centre at Guantanamo for processing Cuban and Haitian migrants picked up at sea could be kept or transferred, said. “Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is not U.S. territory. Cuba is the ultimate owner,” Parmly said. (Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay; Editing by Pravin Char) Caption: U.S. top diplomat in Havana Michael Parmly (L) addresses foreign diplomats and Cuban dissidents on International Human Rights Day at his residence in Havana in this December 10, 2005 file photo. Picture taken December 10, 2005.  Reuters/Claudia Daut Read more: http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/09/02/uk-usa-cuba-guantanamo-idUKBRE9810LP20130902

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September 1, 2013 Guantánamo judge: Spiral-bound notebooks are ‘boutique’ items

MiamiHerald.com  BY CAROL ROSENBERG

U.S. Army military judge Col. James L. Pohl, shown in this July 7, 2005 file photo at Ft. Hood, Texas is the chief of the Guantánamo military commissions judiciary. LM OTERO / ASSOCIATED PRESS

The military judge in Guantánamo’s USS Cole bombing case has denied a defense request to continue using spiral-bound notebooks at prison camp legal meetings, bowing to U.S. troop fears that an accused terrorist could wiggle the wire out and use it as a weapon.

In a June 13 hearing, veteran criminal defense lawyer Rick Kammen cast the prison’s sudden ban on the notebooks after years on the case as a frivolous exploitation of power. At one point, the lawyer asked the prison’s warden, Army Col. John Bogdan, to field strip a spiral notebook and turn it into a weapon. Bogdan looked eager to demonstrate. But the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, stopped him. “The Defense is not entitled to boutique choices regarding the tools that they get to use in client meetings,” Pohl wrote Aug. 12 in a four-page ruling that was kept under seal for 17 days.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/09/01/3600638/guantanamo-judge-spiral-bound.html#storylink=cpy

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August 31, 2013

Gitmo warden details fear of attack on base

In response to a legal filing by Al Jazeera, the US government argues for continued secrecy.

Al Jazeera  Jason Leopold Last Modified: 31 Aug 2013 16:20 Los Angeles, United States of America - The warden of the Guantanamo Bay prison continues to claim the detention facility may face threats from enemies foreign and domestic if he is compelled to reveal information in a June 3 sworn declaration he signed about the rationale behind a genital search policyprisoners are subjected to. Colonel John V Bogdan said the declaration must not be revealed in full, that certain information about the prison’s operations must remain secret – otherwise “our enemies” could create a “blueprint” of Guantanamo’s “security operations” and “plan an attack”. This statement was made in an August 2 declaration, which was also filed under government seal. “Unrestricted dissemination of the information protected here, which is designated as sensitive but unclassified, would present risks to operational security and force protection in current detention operations, or if combined with other information, could create risks to national security or endanger US personnel,” states Bogdan’s August declaration – which you can read above this report. Read more: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2013/08/2013831134155518197.html

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August 30, 2013 USA: California prison authorities ‘toying with the lives’ of inmates on hunger strike News – 30 August 2013 Amnesty International The refusal by California’s prison authorities to explore options to resolve the hunger strike crisis in the state’s high security units is a dangerous move that could lead to the deaths of inmates in their custody, Amnesty International said. More than 30,000 prisoners joined a hunger strike last July over inhumane detention conditions in California’s security housing units (SHUs). More than 70 are still refusing food. “It’s nothing short of appalling that instead of dealing with the complaints, California’s prison authorities have chosen to threaten inmates with force-feeding and disciplinary measures, and have moved some to other facilities,” said Tessa Murphy, Campaigner on the USA at Amnesty International. “No one should be punished for exercising the right to peaceful protest. California prison authorities must stop toying with people’s lives and meet with the mediation team to begin a meaningful process of negotiation.” Read More: http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/usa-california-prison-authorities-toying-lives-inmates-hunger-strike-2013-08-30

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CA Senator Hancock and Assemblymember Ammiano Promise Hearings in Response to Prisoner Hunger Strike August 30, 2013 by prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity As prisoners endure their 54th day without food, California state senator Loni Hancock and Assemblymember Tom Ammiano issued a statement today where they vowed to hold hearings in response to the hunger strike. “The issues raised by the hunger strike are real – concerns about the use and conditions of solitary confinement in California’s prisons – are real and can no longer be ignored,” Senator Hancock and Assemblymember Ammiano said in a joint statement. Assemblymember Ammiano said further, “The Courts have made clear that the hunger strikers have legitimate issues of policy and practice that must be reviewed. The Legislature has a critical role in considering and acting on their concerns. We cannot sit by and watch our state pour money into a system that the US. Supreme Court has declared does not provide constitutionally acceptable conditions of confinement and that statistics show has failed to increase public safety.” “We appreciate Senator Hancock and Assemblymember Ammiano’s promises to take action. Ultimately it is up to the hunger strikers’ themselves as to when and how they will end their protest. But as their advocates on the outside, we feel positive about today’s developments,” said Dolores Canales, who is a member of the strikers’ mediation team and whose son is in Pelican Bay. Read More: http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/ca-senator-hancock-and-assemblymember-ammiano-promise-hearings-in-response-to-prisoner-hunger-strike/

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Who has more info: Guantánamo lawyers or Hollywood?

MiamiHerald.com  By CAROL ROSENBERG Friday, 08.30.13

Defense lawyers at the Guantánamo war court are turning the adage that art imitates life on its head with a legal motion that argues the makers of Zero Dark Thirty know more about what the CIA did to an accused Sept. 11 conspirator than the defendant’s lawyers do.

In a 418-page legal filing, lawyers for Ammar al Baluchi seek government documents on how CIA interrogators and other U.S. officials helped director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal prepare the first 20 minutes of the film. In it, interrogators waterboard, strip naked and string up on a rope a man named “Ammar” who is described as the nephew of the 9/11 mastermind who helped finance the Sept. 11 hijackers. Prosecutors oppose the effort as irrelevant to the defense of Baluchi — nephew of alleged 9/11 architect Khalid Sheik Mohammed — who is accused of helping finance the hijackers in a case that seeks his execution. At issue in the latest transparency challenge at the war court is what CIA agents told Bigelow and Boal as they were making the 2012 docudrama on the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Caption: Alleged 9/11 conspirator Ammar al Baluchi, accused of arranging money transfers and travel for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, poses for an International Red Cross photo inside a prison camp at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo. Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/30/3596920/who-has-more-info-guantanamo-lawyers.html#storylink=cpy

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August 29, 2013 U.S. sends two Algerians prisoners home from Guantánamo MIAMIHERALD.COM, CAROL ROSENBERG  Posted 08.29.13

The Pentagon announced Thursday that it repatriated two long-held Algerians from the prison camps at Guantánamo — the first detainee transfer from the U.S. Navy base in nearly a year. The men, Nabil Hadjarab, 34, and Motai Sayab, 37, were held as Detainees 238 and 288, and among the first prisoners brought to Cuba soon after the Bush administration set up the detention center in 2002. An Obama administration official called the transfer, conducted in secret onWednesday, a sign of the White House commitment to close the camps. It was not immediately known if the men were released in their homeland on return. The Associated Press reported from Algiers that the two men “were interrogated by judicial authorities pending an investigation” and were placed in detention until they appear before a prosecutor. Caption: Nabil Hadjarab, now 33, in a photo taken before he got to Guantanamo. Courtesy: The London based Reprieve legal group, which represented the Algerian who was raised in France and, according to his U.S. military, captured in Afghanistan.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/29/3593270/us-sends-two-algerians-prisoners.html#storylink=cpy

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Criminologists and Criminal Justice Reformers Say: Negotiate Now Before There Is Blood on Your Hands Posted on August 29, 2013 by cahungerstrike.net

Democracy Now! Headlines – Aug. 28, 2013

Guantanamo Hunger Strike Continues

Over 90 days have passed since President Obama’s second promise to close Guantanamo. Thirty-six men remain on Hunger Strike in Guantanamo, with thirty-two being force fed twice a day. Sadly, this is who we are. But it is within our collective power to stop it. Our Rolling Fast continues in solidarity with these men – calling for Guantanamo to be closed. A note recently received from Moath al-Alwi – imprisoned in Guantanamo and a participant in the Hunger Strike: “We thank all of those who stand in solidarity with our hunger strike, those who support us, inside and outside America.”

August 27, 2013 Guantanamo Soldiers Get 9/11 History Lessons To Keep Terrorist Attacks Fresh In Minds

ProPublica  |  By Cora CurrierPosted: 08/27/2013 3:58 pm EDT  |  Updated: 08/27/2013 4:36 pm EDT Young soldiers at Guantanamo Bay would have been in grade school when the 9/11 attacks occurred. But the government is making sure the terrorist attacks are fresh in their minds. The presentation includes details about the hijackings, videos of the World Trade Center, and recordings of 9-1-1 calls  from the towers . We received eight pages of the FBI’s 17-slide PowerPoint presentation after filing a Freedom of Information Act request. We filed the request after a Huffington Post report cited the briefings, saying they “left many participants in tears.”

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/27/guantanamo-911-history_n_3824896.html?utm_hp_ref=tw

50 Days Without Food: The California Prison Hunger Strike Explained By Maggie Caldwell and Josh Harkinson

BY CAROL ROSENBERG [email protected]

August 24, 2013 200 days of Guantanamo hunger strike

Exclusive: As Judge OKs Force-Feeding, California Prisoner on 47-Day Hunger Strike Speaks Out

Democracy Now! August 23, 2013

Days after a federal judge approved the force-feeding of hunger-striking California prisoners protesting long-term solitary confinement, we air an exclusive audio recording of a prisoner who has not eaten since the protest began on July 8. Todd Ashker, one of the authors of the call to hunger strike, has been held for years in the Secure Housing Unit at Pelican Bay Prison after he received a life sentence for killing an inmate in 1987. We also hear from California Correctional Health Care Services spokesperson Joyce Hayhoe, questioned by Democracy Now!’s Renée Feltz. And we’re joined by Azadeh Zohrabi, a member of both the Prisoners Mediation Team and the Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition, as well as a Soros Justice Fellow at Legal Services for Prisoners with Children. Read more: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/23/exclusive_as_judge_oks_force_feeding

CloseGitmo.net DC Days of Action

Washington, DC – September 4-6, 2013

Three events organized

Busboys & Poets Social (http://bbp.splashthat.com)

Diane Wilson on Trial (dianewilsontrial.splashthat.com)

Nasal Tube-Feeding at White House (http://septactions.splashthat.com)

Below is where you can watch a live stream of the events.

Follow @witnesstorture for live tweets of Diane Wilson’s trial.

EXCLUSIVE AUDIO: CA Prisoner Todd Ashker on His Evolution From Violence to Peaceful Hunger Strike

Democracy Now! Aug. 23, 2013

TODD ASHKER: Greetings. My name is Todd Ashker, and I am from the Pelican Bay State Prison Short Corridor Collective Human Rights Movement. I am a principal representative of all similarly situated prisoners subject to long-term solitary confinement. We greatly appreciate the media’s interest and coverage of our nonviolent peaceful protest efforts towards ending long-term solitary confinement and substantive, meaningful improvement to overall prison conditions. Not limited to the Californian system, rather, we believe our efforts will benefit prison conditions as a whole across the nation.

In response to your question on how it’s come to pass that prisoners of different races and groups have become united in our struggle for prisoners and our outside loved ones to be treated humanely, with dignity and respect, in spite of our prisoner status, well, we’re glad you asked about this because we believe it’s inclusive of a powerful symbol of the wisdom and strength similarly situated people can achieve in the face of seemingly impossible odds when they collectively unite to fight for the common good of all.

It’s important to put our struggle into the proper perspective. Many of us housed in the PBSP SHU short corridor have more than 30 years in prison, most if not all of which has been spent in various isolation units wherein the fascist powers that be have subjected every one of us to progressively more punitive conditions wherein we have experienced and/or witnessed every form of physical, psychological abuse imaginable. This applies to prisoners and our outside loved ones.

As young men full of testosterone, the powers that be would regularly apply psychosocial manipulative tactics to provoke us and pit us against each other for riots and gladiator fights, while employing a no-warning-shot policy in response to any form of physical altercation. Between 1987 and 1995, the above factors were responsible for guards murdering 39 prisoners and severe permanent damage to hundreds more. We all lived this; we all had close friends maimed and murdered. Some of us were set up and shot, resulting in permanent disabilities. Support for this is included in a documentary by Abby Ginzberg titled Soul of Justice and also a video documentary of the Corcoran SHU set-ups and murders by guards created by private investigator Tom Quinn of Fresno.

Over the last three decades, we recognize the manner of which we were being pitted against each other for the purpose of statistical violence to be used in support of the agenda of the fascist prison-industrial complex—e.g. expansion in high-security cells, numbers of staff and money. Notably, in the early 1980s the California prison system received an annual budget of $40 million. Today that annual budget is $10 billion.

August 23, 2013

http://www.popularresistance.org/white-houses-secret-plan-to-close-guantanamo/

Guantánamo Officials Accused of Inventing ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ Rumor

New York Times (blog) – Aug 23, 2013  By RAVI SOMAIYA and ROBERT MACKEY

“They’ve read the entire series in English, but we were willing to translate it,” he said of the erotic novels. “I guess there’s not much going on, these guys are going nowhere, so what the hell.” A spokeswoman for Representative Moran, who advocates closing Guantánamo, confirmed the account to Reuters, though the prison itself declined to comment.

August 22, 2013

American Tells of Odyssey as Prisoner of Syrian Rebels

New York Times  By C. J. CHIVERS  Published: August 22, 2013

Matthew Schrier, a photojournalist covering the war in Syria, was captured by al-Qaeda-linked rebels and held for seven months. He finallyescaped and has now told his story to various media outlets.

Once, when he was caught trying to escape, his captors tortured him as punishment.

They “forced a car tire over his knees” and “slid a wooden rod behind his legs,” proceeding to beat the bottom of his feet with a metal cable more than 100 times. At the end of it, he couldn’t walk.

The rebels dragged him back to his cell and their parting words, according to Schrier, were “Have you heard of Guantanamo Bay?”

Caption: “They were so nonchalant. They didn’t point a gun at me, and moved me very gently.” Matthew Schrier described his abduction in Aleppo on Dec. 31 by fighters with the Nusra Front, which is aligned with Al Qaeda.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/23/world/middleeast/american-tells-of-odyssey-as-prisoner-of-syrian-rebels.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Force-feeding prisoners in California and Guantánamo solves nothing

A far better option than force-feeding is to actually address some of the concerns the prisoners are striking about

Sadhbh Walshe   theguardian.com, Thursday 22 August 2013 

The California Prison hunger strike that began on 8 July reached a critical stage this week when authorities were given the go ahead to force-feed inmates as they near death. At the time the order was issued, approximately 129 men were still participating in the strike and 69 of those had been starving themselves since the beginning meaning that organ failure may be imminent. While no one wants to see the prisoners die, the decision to allow force-feeding has angered lawyers and advocacy groups who say state officials have chosen to dig in their heels at this crucial juncture rather than make a good faith effort to negotiate an end to what they call the hunger strike “disturbance”.

The force-feeding ruling is particularly controversial as it allows prison officials to override do-not-resuscitate (DNR) directives previously signed by many of the hunger strikers. Lawyers for the state argued that some inmates may have been coerced into signing these directives, but prisoner advocates claim there is little evidence that this is the case.

As Carol Strickman, a staff attorney for Legal Services for Prisoners with Children, who has acted as mediator on behalf of the hunger strikers, says: “At the very least, the men who voluntarily signed the directives should have been represented in court.” Jules Lobel, the president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, who represents some of the hunger strikers in a lawsuit over prison conditions, also expressed regret about the ruling:

Force-feeding should only ever be used as a last resort, after all other alternatives have been exhausted.

One of those alternatives is to provide the inmates with juice or other liquid nutrients, which Lobel says the state has been deliberately withholding, the other is to negotiate, at least around the demands the state finds reasonable.

Caption: Main gate of Guantanamo Bay prison. Photograph: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/22/california-prison-hunger-strike-force-feed

Guantánamo Bay guards ‘gave Fifty Shades of Grey to prisoner’

theguardian.com, Thursday 22 August 2013 in Guantánamo Bay

A lawyer for a Guantánamo Bay prisoner charged in the September 11 terror attacks has said guards gave his client a contraband copy of Fifty Shades of Grey apparently as a joke or an attempt to discredit him.

Caption: Defence lawyers for prisoners in Guantanamo Bay said it would be out of character for their clients to read Fifty Shades of Grey. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/22/guantanamo-bay-fifty-shades-grey

August 22, 2013  “I visit my husband every weekend but I have not touched him for twenty-two years.”

My Friend Todd Ashker, Hunger Striker at Pelican Bay

Read more: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/08/22/my-friend-todd-ashker-inmate-at-pelican-bay/

August 20, 2013

US agents defend interrogation of 9/11 terror suspect at Guantánamo Bay

theguardian.com, Monday 19 August 2013      Associated Press at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base Two US federal agents on Monday defended their interrogation of a Guantánamo Bay prisoner accused of providing assistance to the 9/11 hijackers as a pre-trial hearing resumed in the slowly unfolding war crimes proceedings for the five men charged in the attacks.

Caption: The challenge to the interrogations over the language is one of about 30 motions scheduled to be heard this week at Guantánamo. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/us-agents-9-11-terror-suspect-guantanamo

August 19, 2013

US judge approves force-feeding California inmates

Published: August 19, 2013

SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — A federal judge approved a request from California and federal officials on Monday to force-feed inmates if necessary as a statewide prison hunger strike entered its seventh week.

EMERGENCY CALL! JOIN US IN STOPPING TORTURE IN U.S. PRISONS!

As pre-trial hearing resumes at Guantánamo, FBI and Defense Department pair say questioning of Mustafa al-Hawsawi was civil

 Guantanamo Bay Naval Base  theguardian.com, Monday 19 August 2013 15.24 EDT

Two US federal agents on Monday defended their interrogation of a Guantánamo Bay prisoner accused of providing assistance to the 9/11

hijackers as a pre-trial hearing resumed in the slowly unfolding war crimes proceedings for the five men charged in the attacks.

The agents – one from the FBI, the other from a Department of Defense task force – portrayed their questioning of Mustafa al-Hawsawi in 2007 as civil. They said the prisoner could understand them, even though the sessions were in English and the Saudi prisoner’s first language is Arabic, and that he was aware that he didn’t have to speak to them.

“He could stop the conversation at any time,” Stephen McClain, an agent with the Criminal Investigative Task Force, said under defense questioning. Later, he added: “He could leave the room at any time.”

Caption: The challenge to the interrogations over the language is one of about 30 motions scheduled to be heard this week at Guantánamo. Photograph: John Moore/Getty Images

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/us-agents-9-11-terror-suspect-guantanamo

Former V.P. Al Gore, Gov. Jerry Brown, Sen. Reid To Meet Monday: Deafening Silence on California Prison Torture

Who:  Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. , former Vice President Al Gore, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval

What: 17th Annual Lake Tahoe Summit
When: Monday August 19, starting at 9:00 a.m.
Where: Sand Harbor State Park, 2005 Nevada 28, Incline Village, NV.

Press contacts: Keith James (SMIN LA) 213-840-5348, D’Andre Teeter (SMIN Bay Area) 510-926-5207, Reiko Redmonde 510-384-1816

Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. will join former Vice President Al Gore, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval at the 17th Annual Lake Tahoe Summit at Sand Harbor State Park on Monday.As these national current and former office holders convene a summit in Tahoe, Monday, August 19, marks day 43 of the California Prisoners’ Hunger strike.  This is a life-and-death struggle California prisoners are waging for their humanity and basic rights – especially an end to long-term, indefinite solitary confinement, which is a form of torture – and widely labeled as such by international legal and human rights groups.

Caption: In this 1997 file photograph, Nevada Sen. Harry Reid walks with Vice President Al Gore at the Forest Service Lake Tahoe Visitor Center. / Mark Studyvin/RGJ

Read more: http://www.stopmassincarceration.net/content/stopprisontorture-gore-brown-reid-meet-monday-deafening-silence-ca-prison-torture

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9/11 trial lawyer criticizes conditions at secret prison

BY CAROL ROSENBERG

The flag over a war crimes courtroom in Camp Justice in this photo reviewed by the U.S. Department of Defense on Oct. 17, 2012, during earlier pre-trial hearings for the five Guantanamo prisoners accused of orchestrating the 9/11. Pool photo by MICHELLE SHEPHARD/Toronto Star MICHELLE SHEPHARD / TORONTO STAR
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/18/3571492/911-trial-lawyer-criticizes-conditions.html#storylink=cpy

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba – The defense attorney for the nephew of the alleged Sept. 11 attack mastermind got a first look at a mysterious prison where former CIA captives are kept here, and Sunday declared conditions at odds with the Geneva Convention governing how prisoners are treated.

Pentagon defense lawyer James Connell said he spent 12 hours on Thursday with his client Ammar al Baluchi inside the compound called Camp 7, a secret camp where captives who were waterboarded overseas and others are kept incommunicado.

 

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/08/18/3571492/911-trial-lawyer-criticizes-conditions.html#storylink=cpy

August 17, 2013

A Hunger for Justice

The hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay prison passed the six-month mark in early August, with more than 50 prisoners still participating. Meanwhile, a hunger strike at Pelican Bay Prison in California for improved conditions, including an end to long-term solitary confinement, reached one month on August 8.

Read more: https://www.indypendent.org/2013/08/17/hunger-justice

August 18, 2013

The harsh reality of life inside Guantanamo Bay

For the hunger strikers, breakfast at Guantanamo begins with a visit from the emergency reaction force: five military police officers in riot gear, trained in the “forced cell extraction” of prisoners.

Caption: Clockwise, from main: a Guantanamo detainee peers through a chain-link fence; a guard carries the leg shackles that are used to restrain prisoners; a guard tower overlooking the US facilityPhotographs: Paul J Richards/John Moore/Getty Images

More: http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/world-news/the-harsh-reality-of-life-inside-guantanamo-bay.21890888

August 16, 2013

Los Angeles Times — Opinion Page — OP-ED

Tom Hayden on how to end California’s prison hunger strike

FRIDAY, AUGUST 16, 2013 AT 7:00AM

This op-ed originally appeared at the Los Angeles Times on August 16, 2013.

Both sides must set aside their profound differences and look at steps to relieve the worst elements of solitary confinement.

At least 300 inmates are now several weeks into a fast that could soon lead to organ failure and death for many of them. Events are moving rapidly, but as I write, nothing has been resolved. And, as California corrections chief Jeffrey Beard made clear recently in an Op-Ed for this newspaper, the sides are far apart.

Caption: Speaking in front of a life-sized replica of a Secure Housing Unit cell, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) speaks at a rally calling for the end of solitary confinement in California prisons at the Capitol in Sacramento. (Photo: Rich Pedroncelli)

Read more: http://tomhayden.com/home/how-to-end-californias-prison-hunger-strike.html

OP-ED: Why are celebrities aiding prison gang leaders?

August 16, 2013 05:00 Sacramento Bee

Civil libertarians and Hollywood celebrities recently signed a letter voicing support for prisoners engaged in a hunger strike over conditions in the security housing unit at Pelican Bay State Prison.

They ought to save their outrage.

Inmates fomenting the hunger strike claim human rights are being violated. But they include killers and leaders of the most brutal gangs in the prison system. They are from the Aryan Brotherhood, Black Guerrilla Family, Mexican Mafia and Nuestra Familia. One shot-caller was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in federal indictments returned last week in Los Angeles seeking to disrupt Mexican Mafia operations.

Read more: http://www.smdailyjournal.com/articles/opinions/2013-08-16/op-ed-why-are-celebrities-aiding-prison-gang-leaders/1773653.html

Strike: Life – Sized SHU Cell Installed on State Capitol Steps – 100 people rally to protest Prison Torture and Support Prisoners 5 Demands

On Wednesday, August 14, an extraordinarily urgent press conference, SHU replica installation and protest was held on the steps of the State Capitol in Sacramento, California, to expose the lies of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) and the silence of Governor Jerry Brown, and to demand that the authorities meet the prisoners’ 5 demands – including an end to the torture of indefinite, long-term solitary confinement.

Read more: http://stopmassincarcerationbayarea.tumblr.com/post/58373225584/day-38-of-the-california-prisoners-hunger-strike-life

August 15, 2013

Guantanamo Bay Through The Eyes Of Artist Molly Crabapple

Molly Crabapple is a New York illustrator and artist who has aptly been called “equal parts Hieronymus Bosch, William S. Burroughs and Cirque du Soleil.” She recently visited the detention facility at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as only the third person allowed to draw the prison and court proceedings at what has become one of the most iconic and controversial plots of land in the world in the last decade. Her visit coincided with the pre-trial hearings of admitted 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his co-conspirators. And she wrote about it in an illustrated essay for VICE. TPM’s Catherine Thompson spoke to Crabapple last week about what she hoped to accomplish with her sketch pad in the face of 24/7 military escorts and in the midst of what she wrote was “a concentration camp on the Caribbean.” She returns to Gitmo later this month.

Read more: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2013/08/gitmo_through_the_eyes_of_molly_crabapple.php

August 14, 2013

Abu Ghraib Torture Victims Sued by Their Torturers

- Sarah Lazare, staff writer

‘Defense’ contractor CACI International has taken the shocking step of suing four former Abu Ghraib detainees who are seeking redress in U.S. courts for the company’s role in torturing, humiliating and dehumanizing them, with the U.S. corporation recently requesting that the judge order the plaintiffs—all of whom are Iraqi—to pay CACI for legal costs.

Read more: https://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/14-3#.UgxGQZCmr9t.twitter

Omar Khadr being illegally held as an adult, lawyer argues

By: Michelle Shephard National Security Reporter, Published on Tue Aug 13 2013

Omar Khadr should be released from detention because the Canadian government is illegally imprisoning him as an adult for actions he committed as a youth, his lawyer says.

Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/08/13/omar_khadr_being_illegally_held_as_an_adult_lawyer_argues.html

Feinstein and Durbin: How to close Gitmo

By Dianne Feinstein and Dick Durbin

August 14, 2013

The detention facility on our military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is holding 166 individuals. Most of them have been there a decade or more.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-feinstein-durbin-close-gitmo-20130814,0,432429.story

August 12, 2013

Guantánamo Bay: the US was dead wrong, but no one can admit it

The Guardian Monday 12 August 2013 14.10 ED, John Grisham

About two months ago I learned that some of my books had been banned at Guantánamo Bay. Apparently detainees were requesting them, and their lawyers were delivering them to the prison, but they were not being allowed in because of “impermissible content”.

I became curious and tracked down a detainee who enjoys my books. His name is Nabil Hadjarab, and he is a 34-year-old Algerian who grew up in France. He learned to speak French before he learned to speak Arabic. He has close family and friends in France, but not in Algeria. As a kid growing up near Lyon, he was a gifted soccer player and dreamed of playing for Paris Saint-Germain, or another top French club.

Caption: Guantánamo Bay: ‘Hundreds of Arabs have been sent to Gitmo, chewed up by the system, never charged and transferred back to their home countries.’ Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/12/john-grisham-guantanamo-bay-us-wrong

Prison hunger strike enters month two

08.12.13 – 9:52 am | Parker Yesko

As a hunger strike staged across California prisons enters its second month, inmates and their advocates are mourning the loss of Billy “Guero” Sells, a Corcoran State Prison inmate who committed suicide on July 22 after 14 days of fasting.

Advocates with the Prison Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition counts Sells as the first casualty of the mass protest. Donna Willmott, a member of the coalition’s media committee, told the Bay Guardian that “people who knew him  believe that [suicide] was very uncharacteristic of him. As a coalition, we’re not saying, ‘no he didn’t commit suicide,’” Willmott added, “but we still think that the CDCR is responsible for what happened to him.”

Read more: http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/08/12/prison-hunger-strike-enters-month-two

Prison Population in California Grew More Than 750 percent

Washington, Aug 12 (Prensa Latina) The number of inmates in California grew since 1970 up to 750 percent today, warned an editorial of The New York Times newspaper.

During the last quarter of this century many lawsuits have been brought against State prisons in California which are dangerously overcrowded, remarked the article.

In 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court determined that the overcrowding was such in the prisons that there were almost twice its design capacity, committing in that way the health and security of the prisoners. The court ordered the state to reduce its prison population by tens of thousands of prisoners.

Read more: http://www.plenglish.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1756871&Itemid=1

August 11, 2013

EDITORIAL: Don’t mistake expedients for real corrections reform

by Johann Koehler

Gov. Jerry Brown has known for some time that California’s Prison Realignment was unlikely to bring overcrowding within the CDCR’s facilities in line with the SCOTUS ruling in Brown v. Plata. When Justice Kennedy’s majority opinion upheld the three-court decision requiring the CDCR to bring down overcrowding from 175% to 137.5%, the State correctly identified that relieving the pressure in the chamber could be achieved in many ways: it could build more prisons; it could invest in smart and effective probation measures; it could tinker with the sentencing rules; or it could mobilise county facilities to do jobs that were historically reserved for the state. It ultimately settled on the fourth option.

The state’s effort to transfer inmates from state facilities into county jails was a move of legal and political ingenuity. It enabled the Governor to assure citizens that he wasn’t releasing offenders, as Alito had forewarned in his dissent to Brown v. Plata, and it evaded having to raise vast amounts of money to build new prisons, thus protecting Brown’s re-election prospects for 2014.

Read more: http://www.samefacts.com/2013/08/california-politics/prison-overcrowding-and-offender-releases/

August 10, 2013

Ex-MI6 officer joins Guantánamo inmate in hunger strike

A former MI6 officer will begin a week-long hunger strike on Monday in solidarity with the Guantánamo Bay detention camp prisoner Shaker Aamer, a move he says is prompted by shame over the behaviour of the British intelligence service he once served.

Harry Ferguson, 52, will attempt to fast for a week to highlight the plight of Aamer, the last UK resident being held at the US military camp, who has been on hunger strike for more than 170 days. The former MI6 operative, who took part in the fight against terrorism, said he was motivated by a regret that the “organisation of which I was once proud to be a member now supports policies including assassination, rendition, torture and detention without trial”.

Caption: Former MI6 officer Harry Ferguson. Photograph: Gerard Farrell

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/10/mi6-officer-guantanamo-hunger-strike

After Guantánamo, Another Injustice

By John Grisham  Published by the NYtimes

ABOUT two months ago I learned that some of my books had been banned at Guantánamo Bay. Apparently detainees were requesting them, and their lawyers were delivering them to the prison, but they were not being allowed in because of “impermissible content.”

I became curious and tracked down a detainee who enjoys my books. His name is Nabil Hadjarab, and he is a 34-year-old Algerian who grew up in France. He learned to speak French before he learned to speak Arabic. He has close family and friends in France, but not in Algeria. As a kid growing up near Lyon, he was a gifted soccer player and dreamed of playing for Paris St.-Germain, or another top French club.

Caption: Joe Raedle/Getty Images A restraint chair used to force-feed detainees at the military hospital at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/11/opinion/sunday/after-guantanamo-another-injustice.html?smid=fb-share

Just released – Song for Pelican Bay: They’re Not Eating Any More

– by David Rovics (www.davidrovics.com) – 5th week of Pelican Bay Hunger Strike

Fast Tube by Casper

Shocking Mos Def video sheds light on force-feeding of Gitmo detainees

Fast Tube by Casper

L.A Times — By Alexandra Le Tellier  July 8, 2013, 12:43 p.m.

What is it like to be force-fed by a tube jammed up your nose while shackled to a restraint chair? MosDef demonstrates the procedure in a stomach-churning new video on the Guardian’s website meant to shed light on what the Guantanamo Bay detainees on hunger strike are suffering.

In the video, which was made by Reprieve, an organization fighting to protect human rights of prisoners, the actor and rapper also known as Yasiin Bey is seen in an orange jumpsuit, shackled to a chair. He is writhing in pain, gagging, screaming, crying and begging for the procedure to end.

It is impossible to watch it without feeling absolutely gutted. And worse, this is what our country is doing in Guantanamo.

In a Sunday Op-Ed about force-feeding detainees at Gitmo, Alka Pradhan, Kent Eiler and Katherine Hawkins, who worked for the Constitution Project’s Task Force on Detainee Treatment, warned:

Putting detainees in lockdown and force-feeding them in restraints can postpone deaths, but it cannot prevent them indefinitely. Prolonged force-feeding carries its own medical risks, and Guantanamo detainees have killed themselves even in the highest security sections of the prison. There have been seven suicides.

They called on President Obama to put an end to force-feeding detainees by taking the appropriate steps to end the hunger strike.

As the president said in a speech on May 23, force-feeding detainees who have been held without charge for more than a decade is unacceptable: “Is that who we are? Is that something our founders foresaw? Is that the America we want to leave our children?”

Unfortunately, the detainees at Guantanamo no longer place much hope in Obama’s promise to close the prison. Since the president’s speech, the number of detainees being force-fed has increased by at least 13. The administration must move as swiftly as possible to exercise its authority to restart transfers out of Guantanamo, beginning with those detainees previously cleared for transfer. Exercising that authority is the best chance to end the hunger strike.

Read more: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-mos-def-video-force-feeding-gitmo-20130708,0,2946458.story

August 8, 2013 

Mediators talk with prisoners as hunger strike reaches one month mark, situation remains critical, negotiations crucial

www.sfbayview.com – by Isaac Ontiveros, Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity Coalition Oakland, Aug. 8, 2013

Today marks one month for prisoners on hunger strike throughout the California prison system. Earlier today, the mediation team working on behalf of the strikers was able to speak to the prisoners at Pelican Bay who initially called for the strike. Just moments ago members of the mediation team issued the following statement: “All of the members of our mediation team were able to speak with hunger strike representatives at Pelican Bay for two-and-a-half hours. All four representatives are totally united and resolute. They were clear that this peaceful protest is not about them – it is about making real, fundamental changes to an incredibly unjust system. “They haven’t eaten for 32 days but they are cogent, focused and committed. “We were able to work together to develop new ideas about how to move forward, which we’ll be acting on over the next few days. The mediation team will be staying in contact with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and issuing statements daily.” Reports from prisoners at Pelican Bay indicate escalated mistreatment from guards in the Administrative Segregation and Security Housing Units. Prisoners report being verbally abused by guards and overhearing them discussing orders “to treat some prisoners really nicely and others really badly.”

Caption: Hunger striker supporters drew many curious people to a display at Venice Beach on the last weekend in July. – Photo: Keith James

Read more: http://sfbayview.com/2013/mediators-talk-with-prisoners-as-hunger-strike-reaches-one-month-mark-situation-remains-critical-negotiations-crucial/

What the Guantanamo Hunger Strikers Achieved

prisoner per year. Though so little in American politics has changed, the debate about Guantanamo feels — and genuinely seems — renewed. Two months ago, President Obama addressed Guantanamo and the force feeding of hunger strikers there in a high-profile, national security speech. Between that speech and this week’s hearing, federal courts have issued a spate of rulings on Guantanamo, one of which sharply criticized the force feeding of detainees as “a painful, humiliating, and degrading process.” The Pentagon has also gotten involved, recently announcing that it will assess whether seventy-one detainees at the facility remain threats to the U.S.

Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-del-rosso/guantanamo-hunger-strikers_b_3720244.html

Top enlisted sailor at Guantanamo hospital suspended

Prisoner hunger strike Day 32: Countdown for humane conditions

www.sfbayview.com – by Barbara Becnel, Mediation Team member Aug. 8, 2013 –

Today is the one-month anniversary of a hunger strike initiated by prisoners at Pelican Bay State Prison that quickly spread to other correctional facilities across the state of California. To be precise, it is Day 32 of a month-long period of no solid foods for what are now hundreds of prisoners. These are men risking their lives to insist on humane conditions and certain terms for those prisoners who have otherwise been banished to indefinite sentences of solitary confinement in California’s prison system. Many of these men have been isolated for decades with no windows, no contact visits, no outside sunlight and no real exercise. Recent reports from these prisoners demonstrate that their brave efforts have been made all the more difficult by prison guards who are treating them very harshly. Guards are knocking them into walls, handcuffing them incorrectly to cause suffering and bending their arms to provoke extreme pain. Guards are spitting out racial epithets or deliberately placing an African American prisoner, for example, in a cell with racist graffiti.

Caption: One martyr to the hunger strikers’ struggle for human rights and an end to the torture that is solitary confinement has already fallen. This altar to the outstanding artist Billy Michael Sell, known as Guero, was created for a recent demonstration at Oakland’s Oscar Grant Plaza in support of the strike. – Photo: Molly Batchelder

Read more: http://sfbayview.com/2013/mediators-talk-with-prisoners-as-hunger-strike-reaches-one-month-mark-situation-remains-critical-negotiations-crucial/

August 7, 2013

Pelican Bay Prison Hunger-Strikers’ Stories: Lorenzo Benton

Wednesday, 07 August 2013 00:00 By Lorenzo Benton, Truthout | Report

The following letter by Pelican Bay Secure Housing Unit inmate Lorenzo Benton was addressed to Truthout contributor Victoria Law. July 28, 2013 My cordial greetings, Vikki! As always, with the sharing of respect, concerns, and appreciation, it does one good to share this time with you. Received your letter from July 16^th on the 26^th of July, and as it was my 18^th day within this current hunger strike, it discovered me not in the best of wear – mentally my mind appears to be a lot clearer, but physically my body and energy are undergoing a transformation (reduction) in performance … so even though all is not as it should be, I remain within a positive state of being (all things considered) and with that being the case, I trust that you and yours are well as one moves forward within life and contribute[s] to its well-being. Now with this hunger strike about to enter its fourth week of endurance, I have been maintaining a practice of approximately 20 cups of water a day, no physical exercises, and a lot of reading and a little writing per day to sustain my physical and mental health as best as I can (so far so good). On July 25, 2013, prison officials started to offer those of us on hunger strike status packages of vitamins (multivitamins and vitamin B and C: a 30-day allotment) and 2 packets of Gatorade powder to minimize potential damage to our bodies. The latter action was as a result of our main reps making known to prison officials and our outside reps that we are in fact on a solid food hunger strike and not a liquid one, so should not be precluded from drinking other liquids besides water. So as of July 25^th, vitamins and other liquids (electrolyte) were provided us, so as it stand[s] now, it appears that as one journeys further into this hunger strike, one’s body will be able to last a little longer with the addition of these supplements as we seek to bring these actions to a just conclusion, as we put our bodies/lives on the line. And that’s where I stand. So far, prison officials have taken the following actions against those of us on hunger strike and those who are not:

• On July 11^th (the fourth day of the hunger strike), prison officials removed from our environment all of the main reps and just about all of the secondary reps and placed them in Ad-Seg [administrative segregation] with none of their personal property. Later, though, it was reported they were provided with all of their legal work, but no appliances, a few days later.

• On July 12^th, prison officials removed all canteen food items (including drinks and vitamins) from all hunger strike participants in my environment.

• On/from July 8 to 17, 2013, all hunger strike participants were denied access to the recreation yard, but [that] was restored July 18^th.

• On July 20, 2013, prison officials started issuing out CDC-115 rule violation reports to all hunger strike participants within my environment, charging us with allegedly willfully delaying a peace officer (participation in a mass hunger strike).

• On July 24, 2013, prison officials started moving/separating all hunger strike participants from non-participants in the Short Corridor, placing all participants in a pod together. This was completed on July 25, 2013.

Read more:  http://truth-out.org/news/item/18023-pelican-bay-prison-hunger-strikers-stories-lorenzo-benton

Security threat from Yemen complicates Obama’s Guantanamo plan

The recent security threat emanating from Yemen has complicated President Obama’s latest push to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, reviving doubts among conservative lawmakers about whether it is safe to return Yemeni detainees to their turbulent home country.More than half of the 166 prisoners being held in Guantanamo are from Yemen, and the transfer of many of them is essential to Obama’s long-promised goal of closing the detention center.

But the recent threat involving al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, as the terrorist group’s Yemen-based branch is known, underlines the national security and political obstacles ahead. The United States and other countries this week shut down their embassies in Yemen, citing concerns about security. “Since it’s now well-known that Yemen-based al-Qaeda is actively plotting against us, I don’t see how the president can honestly say any detainee should be transferred to Yemen,” Sen. Saxby Chambliss (Ga.), the ranking Republican on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, said in a statement. “Sending them to countries where al-Qaeda and its affiliates operate and continue to attack our interests is not a solution.” It is not the first time that Yemen has emerged as the prime obstacle to Obama’s attempt to close the prison, which he has called an important terrorist recruiting tool and a $350 million annual burden on the strained federal budget.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/security-threat-from-yemen-complicates-obamas-guantanamo-plan/2013/08/07/06766c0e-ff89-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html

Yemen turmoil could stall Obama’s effort to empty Guantánamo

BY SUSAN CORNWELL

REUTERS

WASHINGTON – Turmoil in Yemen and the warnings of attacks that prompted the United States to shut diplomatic missions across the Middle East could hinder President Barack Obama’s plans to close Guantánamo Bay prison.

August 6, 2013

Shaker Aamer And Other Guantánamo Prisoners Call Force-Feeding Torture, Ask Appeals Court for Help – OpEd

Eurasia Review By Andy Worthington  August 6, 2013

On June 30, as I reported here, lawyers for four prisoners in Guantánamo — Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, Nabil Hadjarab and Ahmed Belbacha, both Algerians, and Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian — filed a motion with the District Court in Washington D.C., asking a judge to issue a ruling compelling the government to “stop force-feeding in the prison and stop force-medicating prisoners, particularly with Reglan, a drug used by the US during the force-feeding process that when used for extended periods of time can cause severe neurological disorders, including one that mimics Parkinson’s disease,” as it was described in a press release by Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity whose lawyers filed the motion, along with Jon B. Eisenberg in the US. The men are amongst the 86 prisoners (out of the 166 men still held), who were cleared for release by the inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force, established by President Obama when he took office in 2009. In addition, all are involved in the prison-wide hunger strike that began six months ago, and both Nabil Hadjarab and Ahmed Belbacha are amongst the 41 prisoners who are being force-fed. Although the prisoners made a compelling argument for the need for intervention, the judge ruling in Abu Wa’el Dhiab’s case, Judge Gladys Kessler, was unable to grant the motion, because of a legal precedent from February 2009, when, in the case of Mohammed al-Adahi, a Yemeni who sought to stop his force-feeding, a court ruled that “no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any other action against the United States or its agents relating to any aspect of the detention, transfer, treatment, trial, or conditions of confinement of an alien who is or was detained by the United States and has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant.”

Read More: http://www.eurasiareview.com/06082013-shaker-aamer-and-other-guantanamo-prisoners-call-force-feeding-torture-ask-appeals-court-for-help-oped/

Guantánamo: 4,000 days in limbo

Livewire – Amnesty International’s Blog 6 August 2013 by Livewire Team

Imagine this. You are 19 years old, asleep in your family home in a remote rural village. In the middle of the night, foreign soldiers burst in. They put a hood over your head and force you to sit against a wall. You are terrified. After a few hours, bound hand and foot and still hooded, you are taken to a military base. There you are physically assaulted, interrogated, threatened with a knife, and deprived of sleep and food. You fear you will be killed. After what you think is about 48 hours – your disorientation makes it difficult to know for sure – you are bundled, still hooded and shackled, into a helicopter and flown to another, larger military facility. There the interrogations and abuse continue. Three months later, you are taken from your cell, your head is shaved, you are put into shackles and blacked-out goggles, and you and some others are thrown into a transport plane and tied down like cargo.

Read more: http://livewire.amnesty.org/2013/08/06/guantanamo-4000-days-in-limbo/

August 5, 2013

Gitmo Architect Says Gitmo Shouldn’t Have Been Built

Published on Monday, August 5, 2013 by Common Dreams - Andrea Germanos, staff writer

William Lietzau, the Pentagon detainee policy head with history of defending indefinite detention, now says notorious prison was a mistake

A key architect of the Guantánamo Bay prison is now saying it should never have opened. William Lietzau, the Pentagon’s top official on detainee policy, made the statement in an interview with the UK’s The Mail on Sunday. Instead, Lietzau told the paper, the prisoners should have been labeled prisoners of war and “held in Afghanistan,” or, if they were charged with a crime, they should have been charged in federal courts, not the military commissions—the commissions he helped develop. Further, he charged, George W. Bush’s label of “‘the global war on terrorism’ had suffered from a lack of clarity, suggesting that it might be effectively limitless.” On torture at the prison, he said, “There were people who were treated badly, and this is not something we are proud of,” and dismissed widespread reports of ongoing torture.

Caption: Photo: Justin Norman/cc/flickr

Read more: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/05-3

Bagram: Torture, Detention Without End at US Military’s ‘Other Guantanamo’

Published on Monday, August 5, 2013 by Common Dreams  - Sarah Lazare, staff writer

The US military has no plan to close the infamous Bagram prison in Afghanistan—often referred to as the “other Guantanamo“—despite claims it is winding down the US-led war in Afghanistan. “Is there a plan [to close the prison]? No,” Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, told the Washington Post in a report published Monday. Top officials admitted a few weeks ago that there is no end in sight to the prison. “Our impression is that Bagram will remain open even after U.S. combat operations cease in December 2014,” Pentagon spokesperson Todd Breasseale told Rolling Stone in late July. In March, approximately 3,000 Afghan inmates were handed over to the Afghan authorities, who in exchange gave the US permission to continue running the prison for “third party nationals.” Despite widely publicized claims that the US handed over control of the prison to Afghan authorities, the US in fact maintains a powerful role at the prison and complete control over the 67 non-Afghan prisoners, two thirds of them Pakistani, with many captured in other countries and transported to the prison.

Read More: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/08/05-5

Caption: A lone soldier walks the wall at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan (Photo: J Smith/Flickr Creative Commons)

Oakland State Building Protest: Protest lock themselves to door

August 5, 2013, Oakland— At 8:00am this morning, protestors locked themselves to the doors of the Oakland State Building at 1515 Clay St. in solidarity with the California Prisoner Hunger Strike and called for Governor Brown and the CDCR to enter honest negotiations to meet the hunger strikers 5 demands. The demands are an end to long term solitary confinement, comprehensive changes in draconian “anti-gang” policies, an end to collective punishment, and the provision of nutritious food and constructive programs and educational services.

More: http://closegitmo.net/newsevents/press-releases/august-5-2013-oakland-state-building-protest/

August 4, 2013

PJ Harvey Releases New Track ‘Shaker Aamer’ for Guantanamo Detainee

PJ Harvey released a new track on Saturday to draw attention to the case of a British resident detained at Guantanamo Bay. Following in the dark, politically charged vein of 2011′s Let England Shake, “Shaker Aamer” describes the agony of its title subject’s four-month hunger strike as he endures the prison’s feeding tubes, restraining chairs and shackles. Aamer is the last British resident remaining in the US prison. According to the Guardian, the 46-year-old has been held at Guantanamo for more than 11 years without being charged or tried. He was cleared for release in 2007, and the British government has repeatedly requested that Aamer, who has a British wife and four British-born children, be returned to the UK. While the US announced last week that it would restart its repatriation of low-level detainees from Guantanamo, Aamer’s supporters fear that he will be sent to his birthplace of Saudi Arabia for imprisonment instead. Guantanamo Bay: Stories From Inside the World’s Most Infamous Jail ”We hope that people listen to this song and think about Shaker Aamer’s plight: detained for eleven long years at Guantanamo, without charge or trial – despite having been cleared for release by both Bush and Obama,” Clive Stafford Smith, Aamer’s lawyer and director of the prisoners’ rights nonprofit Reprieve, said in a statement on Harvey’s website. “The UK Government must do everything it can to bring Shaker back home to his wife and kids in London, where he belongs. PJ Harvey has written a wonderful song – I know Shaker will be deeply moved by it – and I only hope that, with the support of the public, he will one day be able to listen to it in freedom.” Photo caption: PJ Harvey performs in London by Matt Kent/WireImage

August 3, 2013

US denies Russia access to Russian held at illegal Guantanamo site

  August 3,  2013 Radio: Russia’s Kommersant newspaper reports that talks that had been ongoing between Russia and the United States on the visit of a Russian delegation to the illegal Guantanamo Bay U.S. “terror” prison to meet with a Russian national kept there for over a decade without formal charges have come to a deadlock. Read more: http://english.ruvr.ru/news/2013_08_03/U-S-denies-Russia-access-to-Russian-held-at-illegal-Guantanamo-site-8337/

Prison breakouts in Iraq, Pakistan and Libya endanger Guantánamo closure

Obama praises Yemeni leader, makes no mention of Guantanamo

 Jeff Mason 16 hours agoPoliticsBarack ObamaYemenPresidency of Barack ObamaAl-Qaeda

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Barack Obama praised Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi for his work combating terrorism but made no mention of efforts to repatriate detainees from the Guantanamo Bay prison in public remarks at the White House on Thursday.

http://news.yahoo.com/obama-praises-yemeni-leader-makes-no-mention-guantanamo-231951980.html

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Aug. 2, 2013

Advocates for inmates on hunger strike offer Calif. prison chief ideas to improve conditions

Associated Press, Published August 02, 2013

SACRAMENTO, Calif. –  Advocates for inmates on a hunger strike to protest California’s solitary confinement program met with the state prisons chief on Friday as they pushed for an end to practices they say are inhumane.

Mediators who support the protesting inmates issued a statement after the hour-long meeting with Corrections Secretary Jeffrey Beard, saying they offered ideas for ending the hunger strike and improving prison conditions that include indeterminate sentences in isolation units.

“He received us well and listened to our concerns and those of the prisoners and their families,” the statement said.

Ron Ahnen, president of California Prison Focus, who was among those who met with Beard, declined to elaborate on the secretary’s response to their suggestions.

More than 300 inmates have refused all meals since the strike began on July 8. About 30,000 inmates initially participated.

Corrections officials declined to immediately comment on the specifics of Friday’s meeting. But spokesman Jeffrey Callison said before the meeting that Beard intended to explain the changes California has already made to the confinement program.

Those include policy revisions allowing some inmates classified as gang members to be moved out of the units without having to inform on other inmates.

This is the third hunger strike launched since 2011 to protest living conditions in those prison units, where 4,500 gang members, gang associates and serious offenders are held.

The meeting occurred shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling paving the way for the early release of nearly 10,000 California inmates. A majority of the court rejected Gov. Jerry Brown’s emergency request to halt a lower court’s directive for the early release of prisoners, which is intended to ease severe overcrowding at California’s 33 adult prisons.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/08/02/advocates-for-inmates-on-hunger-strike-offer-calif-prison-chief-ideas-to/

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Have I Lost Hope at Guantanamo?

Posted: 02/08/2013 00:00

By Shaker Aamer

My name is Shaker. I am also known as Sawad Al-Madany because I was born in the Holy City of Medina. Please can you remember these names for me, because I hardly can anymore.

Here, they call me 239. In fact, I call myself 239. It feels so strange to witness my name slipping away from me. I can’t do anything about it. I wonder how long it is going to take for all of us here in Guantánamo to slip away from the world’s memory?

Read More: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/shaker-aamer/shaker-aamer-guantanamo-have-i-lost-hope_b_3683130.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

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July 31, 2013

Zawahri vows al Qaeda to free Guantanamo inmates (Reuters) – Al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri slammed U.S. treatment of hunger striking inmates at Guantanamo Bay and said the group would spare no effort to free them, according to an audio recording posted on the Internet on Wednesday.

Photo Caption: DUBAI | Wed Jul 31, 2013 7:19am EDT

Read More: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/07/31/us-usa-qaeda-guantanamo-idUSBRE96U07K20130731

Guantánamo Bay inmates will be freed vows al-Qaida chief Zawahiri

Leader’s online recording condemns US over hunger-striking detainees at Cuba base and drone strikes ‘aimed at Islamists’ Reuters in Dubai - theguardian.com, Wednesday 31 July 2013  The al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has denounced US treatment of hunger-striking inmates at Guantánamo Bay, saying his organisation will spare no effort to free them, according to a recording posted online on Wednesday. “The [hunger] strike by our brothers at Guantánamo unmasks the true ugly face of America,” Zawahiri said in the audio recording on an Islamist website, the authenticity of which could not be verified. “We pledge to God that we will spare no effort to free all our prisoners, on top of whom are Omar Abdel Rahman, Aafia Siddiqui, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, and every oppressed Muslim everywhere,” he said, referring to prominent Islamist militants held by the US. He did not elaborate on what al-Qaida intended to do, but militants have in the past kidnapped westerners and sought to trade them for jailed comrades. Al-Qaida also claimed responsibility for simultaneous raids on two Iraqi jails last week in which the group said more than 500 inmates were set free. And in Pakistan Taliban members broke 250 prisoners out of a prison on Tuesday.

Caption: Protesters in Washington DC highlighting the Guantánmo Bay hunger strikes in July. Photograph: Paul J Richards/AFP/Getty

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/31/guantanamo-inmates-al-qaida-zawahri

July 30, 2013 How Solitary Confinement in Pelican Bay Almost Drove Me Mad 

New America Media, Commentary, Michael Cabral, Posted: Jul 30, 2013

Michael Cabral has served ten years on a 15-Life sentence for murder, beginning when he was still a juvenile. His first two and a half years were spent in the Pelican Bay SHU. He spent time in Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad, and is currently at Corcoran State Prison. His writing has appeared often in The Beat Within, NAM’s weekly publication of writing and art by juvenile detainees, and NAM has published previous commentaries from him.

How can I make anyone understand what it’s like to cling desperately to the hope of someday being heard because that’s the only hope left? That’s one reason why the hunger strike going on across California’s prisons matters. It might just keep that hope alive for prisoners locked down in Pelican Bay State Prison’s Security Housing and Administrative Segregation Units (known as the SHU). At the age of eighteen years, four months, and six days, I was cast into the SHU where I stayed for two and half years, alone, without a window, a television, or a radio. (Mail, when it came, was delayed for months at a time.) My only real distractions were the terrifying and gut-wrenching sounds and smells of grown men reaching their breaking points: crying, screaming, banging; blood and feces being smeared on walls and bodies; Correctional Officers (C/Os) yelling, shooting pepper spray… and puking. I found a small measure of comfort in books and in treasured conversations through the ventilation system, with older men whose faces I’d never see (conversing with anyone face-to-face was so rare as to be nonexistent). There was also the sound of my door being padlocked shut whenever there was a tsunami warning, meaning that if a tsunami did wash over us, the inmates’ only hope is that death comes quickly. Maybe that sound was the most dehumanizing of all, because to realize you matter so little to other human beings is not a feeling one gets used to, or ever forgets. There were seven inmate suicides during my time in the SHU. None of them surprised me. As an eighteen-year-old with my entire life ahead of me, I understood why people wanted to die.

Read more: http://newamericamedia.org/2013/07/how-solitary-confinement-in-pelican-bay-almost-drove-me-mad.php

July 24, 2013 Senate debates Guantánamo in first hearing on closing prison since 2009

Dick Durbin and Ted Cruz face off over what to do with detainees housed at US military site where 69 are on hunger strike

Associated Press in Washington: theguardian.com, Wednesday 24 July 2013 17.16 EDT

Deep divisions among members of a Senate panel over whether to close the US detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, underscore the uphill battle President Barack Obama faces in fulfilling a five-year-old promise to shutter the facility. Opening the first Senate hearing on closing Guantánamo since 2009, senator Dick Durbin, a Democrat from Illinois, said Wednesday that it’s time to end a “sad chapter” in American history and close Guantánamo. The Obama administration can do more to begin closing the prison, according to Durbin, but he said the blame for the failure to shutter the much-maligned facility rests primarily with Congress. Restrictions enacted by Congress on the transfer of terror suspects at Guantánamo – including a ban on moving detainees to the US – have undercut President Barack Obama’s authority and made it nearly impossible to close the facility, he said. “It’s time to lift these restrictions and move forward with shutting down Guantánamo prison,” said Durbin, the Senate’s No 2 Democrat and chairman of the Senate judiciary subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights and human rights.

Caption:  Silent protesters holding photos of Guantánamo detainees watch the Senate debate on Wednesday. Photograph:J Scott Applewhite/AP

Read More http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/24/senate-debates-closing-guantanamo-bay

Published time: July 26, 2013 18:50

EXCLUSIVE: Guantanamo’s Indefinite Prisoners To Have Cases Reviewed

Solitary Confinement (Photo: Kim Panian/Flickr Creative Commons)

US military officials insist that genital searches are necessary for the life of the detainees, according to court documents [Getty Images]

The typical inmate doesn’t want trouble. He has little to gain and too much to lose: his job, his visits, his recreation time, his phone privileges, his right to buy tuna, ramen and stale bread at inflated prices in the commissary. The ways even a bystander to the most peaceful protest can be punished are limited only by the imagination of the authorities. Besides, logistics are difficult: men from cellblock X can’t just stroll down to see the inmates in cellblock Y. Strategizing must be done furtively, usually through intermediaries, any one of whom might snitch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/opinion/when-prisoners-protest.html?_r=0

A FORMER IRA HUNGER STRIKER TALKS ABOUT THE GUANTANAMO HUNGER STRIKERS

By Danny McDonald

The hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay has moved beyond its 160 day. Prisoners are refusing to eat in protest against conditions in the detainment camp, the fact that the majority of them haven’t even been charged with a crime—despite being held there for years—and because 86 prisoners have been cleared for release but are still being held without any reasonable explanation.

To make matters worse, there have been reports of guards punishing and humiliating strikers, and officialshave been accused of using the Muslim holy month of Ramadan to massage hunger strike numbers. Oh, and everyone’s seen that incredibly distressing video of Yasiin Bey (aka Mos Def) being force-fed—that’s what guards are currently inflicting upon more than 40 hunger strikers in the camp. (Except—without wishing to diminish the power of Bey and Asif Kapadia’s film—it’s for two hours twice per day in a Cuban prison camp rather than four minutes in a video directed by a Bafta-winning director).

http://www.vice.com/read/i-spoke-to-a-former-ira-hunger-striker-about-the-guantanamo-hunger-strikers

July 16, 2013

No one outdoes Texan Diane Wilson for unflinching, off-the-wall, over-the-fence, ingeniously brilliant protests. That insight struck me after a phone chat about her dramatic, face-to-face White House fence insurgency against relentless Guantanamo abuses. Then, for perspective, I asked her celebrated CODEPINK cohort to pinpoint Diane’s special gifts and activist standing.

“One of a kind,” says the anti-war group’s co-founder, Medea Benjamin, amazed how this “fearless, clairvoyant visionary” brings to every protest action an “enormous compassion” for those wronged by official powers. “She gets it,” Benjamin explained, “how separate parts are linked, intuitively connecting human suffering with key corporate, environmental, legal and political focal points.”

Consistent with hardscrabble, heartland origins — Pentecostal upbringing, mother of five, Native American grandfather, fourth-generation Gulf shrimper — Diane’s heart-felt pragmatism is liberated from both constraints of ideology or fear of bodily injury. Her first book, “An Unreasonable Woman,” sets forth her evolved wisdom: 1) “Prison doesn’t greatly bother me,” and 2) “Risking one’s life can be strangely liberating.”

Fortified with Convictions

Her moral driver, as CODEPINK co-founder, is simplicity itself: justice and empathy for the defenseless against hypocrisy. In action, Benjamin verifies, “Diane enters war zones more courageously than Marines armed to the teeth. Her legendary courage means she goes anywhere, fortified only with her convictions.”

More: http://www.opednews.com/articles/America-s-Most-Reasonable-by-Robert-S-Becker-130716-877.html

The military reported on Sunday that the number of Guantánamo Bay detainees on hunger strike is decreasing, not that having 81 of 166 prisoners still refusing food is very good news. The number has been dropping steadily since Wednesday, when participation in the strike hit a high of 106. The military had forced detainees into individual-cell lockdown after a raid in April, but with the start of Ramadan last week compliant prisoners were allowed to move back into communal living conditions and continue praying together. “We can’t speculate why they are choosing to come off hunger strike. It may be because of Ramadan or because they feel they’ve gotten their message across,”  Army Lt. Col. Samuel House, a base spokesman,told CBS News. On the other hand, some say the military may actually be using the Islamic holy month to distort the statistics.

“Some detainees are taking a token amount of food as part of the traditional breaking of the fast at the end of each day in Ramadan, so that is now conveniently allowing them to be counted as not striking,” said Clive Stafford Smith, an attorney whose organization, Reprieve, represents detainees. David Remes, another Guantánamo defense attorney, told the New York Times he’s also skeptical about the military’s figures, and wants to talk with his clients about their reasons for ending the strike. “Perhaps the authorities finally made hunger striking such a horrendous experience that some men, at least, are dropping out,” Remes said. “Perhaps some men feel the hunger strike has achieved its goals by forcing Guantánamo back onto the national agenda and jump-starting the transfer process. There are still other ways to read the numbers. Until we speak with our clients, we can only speculate.”

One number has remained unchanged: The amount of detainees who have lost enough weight to qualify for force feedings. Since July 2 that figure has held steady at 45.

July 13, 2013

Prisoners suspend hunger strike at Guantanamo

Last Modified: 13 Jul 2013 05:16

Most prisoners on hunger strike at Guantanamo Bay have resumed eating, the US military has said.The inmates of the army-controlled detention centre ended, or at least paused, the hunger strike on Friday as 99 of the 102 prisoners have now eaten at least one meal in the past 24 hours.They are still considered hunger strikers because the military requires several days of sustained eating and a minimal caloric intake before a prisoner is removed from the list.http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/07/201371324022408210.html

July 12, 2013

A couple of great interviews from Cynthia Papermaster (Codepink) on her 28th day of solidarity hunger strike.

Dennis Bernstein’s Flashpoints @57:28
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/93322

Flashpoints 

Gerry Condon (Veterans for Peace) reporting on Bradley Manning trial at 37 minutes. Directly following his interview is solidarity hunger strike, Elliott Adams.

http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/93223

 Why Doctors Oppose Force-Feeding Guantanamo Hunger Strikers

New report exposes violent tactics used to break Guantanamo hunger strike

A new report released today by human rights charity Reprieve uses Guantanamo detainees’ testimony to expose the violent tactics being used by the Obama administration in an attempt to break the ongoing hunger strike.

The report - Down the tubes: The 2013 Hunger Strike at Guantanamo Bay – collates unclassified testimony from the men to expose the hunger strike from the inside, in the words of those engaged in it. The first-hand testimony is organised around themes that emerged from the men’s words, including force-feeding as punishment, Forcible Cell Extractions (FCE’s), forced medication and solitary confinement.

The report shows the impact of the hunger-strike – some detainees have lost as much as a quarter (Shaker Aamer) or even a third (Ahmed Rabbani) of their weight. Others report health problems including chest pain, low blood pressure, and problems with their sight. More worryingly, it finds evidence of prison authorities using heavy-handed tactics in an attempt to break the strike. Among other things, the detainees report:

http://www.reprieve.org.uk/press/2013_07_10_guantanamo_hunger_strike_violence_obama/

Judge: Gitmo Force-Feeding “Painful, Humiliating, Degrading,” in Obama’s Hands  

Democracy Now!  July 9, 2013

A federal judge has issued a ruling suggesting the force-feeding of hunger striking Guantanamo Bay prisoners is 
illegal, but warning only President Obama can stop it. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler rejected a 
prisoner's effort to halt his force-feeding, saying she lacks jurisdiction. But she said "It is perfectly clear…. that 
force-feeding is a painful, humiliating, and degrading process." Judge Kesller added: "It would seem to follow 
[the president] has the authority — and power — to directly address the issue of force-feeding of detainees at 
Guantanamo Bay." At least 45 of the estimated 106 Guantanamo hunger strikers are being force fed through tubes.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/9/headlines#799

California Prisoners Begin What Could Be State’s Largest Hunger-Strike

Thousands of prisoners across California have launched their third large-scale hunger strike in the past two years. The action focuses on ending long-term solitary confinement, which the prisoners call a form of “indefinite state-sanctioned torture.” Thousands took part in the most recent hunger strike in the fall of 2011, winning vows to improve conditions in solitary confinement. The fast started at Pelican Bay State Prison but it’s now spread to two-thirds of the state’s 33 prisons. California officials say some 30,000 prisoners refused meals on the strike’s first day, which if sustained would result in the largest prison hunger strike in the state’s history. In addition to refusing meals, many prisoners are also missing classes and prison work programs.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/7/9/headlines#7910

July 8, 2013

30,000 California prisoners refuse meals in apparent hunger strike 

Protesting California prison policies of indefinite isolation, inmates signal beginning of a hunger strike by refusing meals.

SACRAMENTO — Officials said 30,000 California inmates refused meals Monday at the start of a prison strike involving two-thirds of the state’s 33 lockups, as well as four out-of-state facilities. 

Participants refused breakfast and lunch, said corrections spokeswoman Terry Thornton. In addition, 2,300 prisoners skipped work or classes, some saying they were sick.

The protest was organized by a small group of inmates held in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay State Prison near the Oregon border. Their complaints focus on policies that put inmates in isolation indefinitely, some for decades, if they are suspected of having ties to prison gangs.

They want a five-year limit on such isolation. They also seek education and rehabilitation programs and the right to make monthly phone calls.

Last year, corrections officials began releasing inmates from isolation who showed no evidence of gang-related behavior. Nearly half of the 400 prisoners reviewed so far have been returned to the general inmate population.

Corrections policy is not to declare a hunger strike until inmates miss nine meals. Even so, Thornton said, Monday’s protest participants number far more than two years ago, when 11,600 inmates were refusing meals at one point.

Thornton said prisons operated as usual despite the protests. “Everything has been running smoothly,” she said.

The action coincided with the start Monday evening of Ramadan, the annual period during which Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset, possibly complicating authorities’ attempt to count the protesters.

photo caption: John A. Imani, seen right, joins about 75 demonstrators in front of the Ronald Reagan State Office building downtown for a rally in support of Pelican Bay State Prison inmates who are on a hunger strike in protest of conditions at state prisons. (Barbara Davidson, Los Angeles Times / July 8, 2013)

www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-ff-prison-strike-20130709,0,3801154.story

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Published on Monday, July 8, 2013 by Common Dreams

Prisoners’ Hunger Strike Blasts ‘Decades of Indefinite State-Sanctioned Torture’

Pelican Bay prisoners in California resume strike until officials reform abusive practices

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/07/08-8

Moath al-Alwi is a Yemeni national who has been in US custody since 2002. He was one of the very first prisoners moved to Guantanamo, where the US military assigned him the Internment Serial Number 028.

July 1, 2013

By BEN FOX 07/01/13 02:29 PM ET EDT 

MIAMI — Prisoners at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are asking a federal court to halt the force-feeding that is intended to prevent prisoners from starving to death during a hunger strike that has dragged on for more than four months.

A motion filed on behalf of four prisoners argues that the military’s practice of using a nasogastric tube to involuntarily feed striking prisoners with a liquid nutrient mix is inhumane and violates medical ethics. They also say it will prevent them from observing the traditional fast during the upcoming Muslim holy period of Ramadan, depriving them of the right to practice their religion as guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions.

“Being strapped to a chair and having a tube forcibly inserted through one’s nostrils and into one’s stomach is dishonorable and degrading,” according to the motion for a preliminary injunction. “It falls within the ambit of torture.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/01/guantanamo-force-feeding_n_3529252.html

Hunger-striking Guantánamo detainees seek end to force-feedings for Ramadan

A lawsuit filed on behalf of four Guantánamo detainees asks a federal judge to order a halt to force-feedings and forcible drugging in advance of the religious fast during Ramadan, which begins July 8. They and about 40 others are on hunger strike to protest their indefinite detentions.

By Warren Richey, The Christian Science Monitor, Staff writer / July 1, 2013 – Longtime prisoners on hunger strike at the Guantánamo detention camp for terrorism suspects are asking a federal judge to order the US

government to stop forcibly drugging them and to stop force-feeding them in advance of the religious fast during Ramadan.

The month-long fast, celebrated by all Muslims, is set to begin with the new moon on July 8.

The motion was filed Sunday. It asks the judge to block US officials from continuing to administer a drug said to cause dangerous side-effects. Prolonged use of the drug, Reglan, may cause a neurological muscular disorder similar to Parkinson’s disease, lawyers for the detainees say. It can also trigger depression, suicidal thoughts, and suicide, they argue.

http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2013/0701/Hunger-striking-Guantanamo-detainees-seek-end-to-force-feedings-for-Ramadan

Navy Commander Rescinds Order Halting Commercial Flights From Florida to Guantanamo

By Jason Leopold, Truthout – The Navy commander at Guantanamo has rescinded an order issued last month halting commercial air travel to Guantanamo from Florida.

In an email obtained by Truthout, the contents of which were confirmed by a Pentagon official, the flights to the prison will continue as usual, albeit it “until at least the end of the year.” The author of the email, Angela Weidenbenner, is legal counsel at the Defense Department’s Office of General Counsel.

http://truth-out.org/articles/item/15741-navy-commander-rescinds-order-halting-commercial-flights-from-florida-to-guantanamo

June 28, 2013

Guantanamo criticised over inmate death

Report obtained by Al Jazeera indicates failings by guards at Guantanamo Bay contributed to inmate’s suicide.

28 Jun 2013, www.aljazeera.com – A report by the US military into the suicide of a Guantanamo detainee last year has criticised the facility’s guards and medical staff for not following correct procedure.

Al Jazeera has obtained a copy of the report into the suicide of Adnan Latif, a 31-year-old Yemeni man who overdosed on anti-psychotic medication last September.

Latif was pronounced dead on September 8, 2012, the same day that his mother died, according to the report.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/americas/2013/06/2013628205450434295.html

New York Times

Suicide by Pills Is Cited in Death of Guantánamo Detainee

By CHARLIE SAVAGE  Published: June 28, 2013

WASHINGTON — A Yemeni detainee who was found dead last year at the military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, committed suicide by taking an overdose of psychiatric medication, according to a military report made public on Friday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/29/us/politics/suicide-by-pills-is-cited-in-death-of-guantanamo-detainee.html?_r=1&

Diane Wilson Arrested After Jumping White House Fence

Huff Post By DARLENE SUPERVILLE 06/26/13 03:54 PM

WASHINGTON DC — The Secret Service says a woman is under arrest and in the custody of District of Columbia police after jumping over the White House fence on Wednesday.

A Secret Service spokesman identified the woman, who wore an orange jumpsuit, as Diane Wilson. She was charged with unlawful entry and handed over to local authorities.

No hometown was given for Wilson. She appeared to be among a group of 17 similarly attired demonstrators who had chained themselves to the fence on the northwest side of the White House.

They were protesting the detention of terrorist suspects at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

President Barack Obama was not in the White House at the time. He has said he is redoubling his efforts to close the Guantanamo facility.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/26/diane-wilson-jumped-white-house-fence_n_3505330.html

White House actions on June 26th by Jehovahjonesoccupy — June 28, 2013 

When several hundred social-justice activists gathered at the White House Wednesday to demand that President Obama free the scores of martyrs being illegally held prisoner at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, there were some in the crowd who were quietly determined not to be ignored yet again.

Representing Veterans for Peace, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Code Pink and World Can’t Wait, this constitutionally protected citizens’ protest featured prayer and singing of hymns, a huge contingent of protestors in orange prison jumpsuits, some bearing the names of the 86 prisoners who have been cleared of any crime and yet not freed, and a flock of pink umbrellas spelling out ‘Close Gitmo.’

http://jehovahjonesoccupy.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/rocking-the-boat/

US bishops ask president Obama to close Guantanamo Bay prison

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Yemenis in Guantanamo

Both Yemen and the US should take immediate action to address the current detention crisis in Guantánamo

Ghada Eldemellawy  – ALJAZEERA 26 Jun 2013 10:30

It has been over 10 years since the first Yemeni prisoner was declared an enemy combatant and transferred to Camp X-Ray. Since then, tales of discrimination, humiliation and torture in Guantanamo have galvanised public opinion against the prison. Yemenis, the largest group of inmates, continue to languish with no foreseeable return to their home country. Reason? Apparently, Washington policymakers deem the country too unstable to accept them.

Reducing Yemeni detainees to their passports, rather than treating them as individuals, is wrong and which suggests that Guantanamo would never close. With the largest hunger strike in the prison’s history underway, this is the single most important detention crisis of the Obama presidency. Sorting out the Yemenis will be an essential part of his legacy on Guantanamo.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2013/06/20136267452343798.html 

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Guantanamo: Amnesty International calls for Cameron to ‘urgently secure’ release of Shaker Aamer

Posted: 26 June 2013

‘Does Mr Cameron want to be remembered as the prime minister who acted too late to save Shaker Aamer?’ – Kate Allen

Amnesty International has launched a new call on Prime Minister David Cameron to “urgently secure” the release of Shaker Aamer, the last former UK resident held at Guantánamo Bay.

Last week Mr Cameron said in Parliament that he had raised Shaker Aamer’s case “directly” with the US President at the recent G8 meeting, and that he would be writing to Mr Obama “about the specifics of the case and everything that we can do to expedite it”.

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=20843

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June 25, 2013

Force-feeding Guantánamo detainees is unethical and inhumane

Solitary Confinement at Guantanamo Bay

Approximately 70% of the men imprisoned in Guantánamo are in solitary confinement or isolation. 2

Virtually none have ever been charged, and most will never be charged or tried. Yet, they remain in “super-maximum security confinement” conditions – held by a federal judge to “press the outer bounds of what most humans can psychologically tolerate.”

Read the story here: http://ccrjustice.org/learn-more/faqs/solitary-confinement-guantanamo-bay

Navy lawyer tried to send al-Qaida magazine to accused 9/11 conspirator at Guantánamo

                                                          Santa Monica/6/20/2013/Tom Hofer

The silent protest involved about 20 people. These few walk down Monroe Avenue in Brighton at 12 Corners. / Gary McLendon/staff photographer

Stop force-feeding Guantanamo prisoners: Senator

“I am known only as 239 here,” wrote Shaker Aamer from his cell in Guantánamo. He is one of 166 prisoners trappedbetween a perpetual “war on terrorism” and a political/judicial system crippled by moral cowardice and jingoism. Captured 11 years ago, Aamer was cleared for release in 2007, but release never came.

Despair and anger have driven Aamer and more than 100 detainees to join a hunger strike that began February 6.

http://inthesetimes.com/article/15083/starving_for_justice_at_gitmo/

June 18th

U.S. and Yemeni demonstrators joined together outside the U.S. embassy in Sana’a, Yemen, Monday to call for Obama to comply with his five-year-old promise to close Guantánamo and transfer dozens of Yemenis and other prisoners back home. Former U.S. diplomat Col. Ann Wright was among them.

Col. Ann Wright: “I’d say the United States must close Guantánamo, clear the prisoners that have already, no charges; we must, the United States must release those prisoners. We must also stop our drone strikes in Yemen, they are very dangerous, they kill innocent civilians …”

More than 100 of Guantánamo’s 166 prisoners are on hunger strike.

http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/18/headlines#61812

On Sunday, Amnesty International staged a rally for the closure of Guantánamo Bay outside a Belfast venue where President Obama is speaking today. Amnesty spokesperson Patrick Corrigan said Guantánamo’s continued existence undermines Obama’s global credibility on critical issues.

Patrick Corrigan: “And we say to President Obama, come here, support our peace, but support peace and the rule of law internationally by closing Guantánamo and ceasing the breaches of international law. Then we can take you more seriously as a global leader.”

House votes to block Obama plan to close Guantanamo

(Reuters) - The U.S. House of Representatives passed a massive defense bill on Friday that includes measures to block President Barack Obama’s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, underscoring the tough fight ahead for the White House as it seeks to shutter the controversial detention camp.

The Republican-controlled House voted, 315-108, for the $638 billion National Defense Authorization Act, which authorizes money for weapons, troops and the war in Afghanistan. But it also addresses a range of policy matters, including this year’s efforts to combat sexual assault in the military and provisions intended to prevent the closure of the prison camp at the base in Cuba.

Despite a hunger strike by at least 104 of the 166 prisoners and appeals from Obama that the prison is too expensive to maintain and a recruiting tool for anti-American militants, the House voted, 249-174, to defeat an amendment calling for its shutdown by the end of 2014.

Lawmakers also voted to prevent the transfer to Yemen or the United States of any of the prisoners, captured in counterterrorism operations after the September 11, 2001, attacks, although more than half have been cleared for release during U.S. military and intelligence reviews.

Report back from New York City Grand Central Station

Saturday, June 15th 2013|Luke Nephew

Posted on Saturday, 06.15.13

BY BEN FOX

ASSOCIATED PRESS

The men undergoing forced-feeding aren’t permitted to speak to journalists, but Ahmed Zuhair, 47, knows what the experience is like. Until he was released from U.S. custody in 2009, he and another prisoner had the distinction of staging the longest hunger strikes at the prison. Zuhair kept at it for four years in a showdown that at times turned violent.

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June 14th

Standard Operating Procedure: Forget Obama’s Latest, In Order to Move Forward, Look to Guantánamo

Friday, 14 June 2013 12:52By Daniel Falcone, SpeakOut | Interview

President Obama started his first term with enormous expectations from the electorate. After eight years of President Bush, America was ready to exit the neo-conservative policy and worldview. Reality has been much different, partly because President Obama has proven to be a far better status quo politician than a real “change agent.” One reason that he has struggled from the beginning: the failure to close Guantánamo.

Just recently, at the George W. Bush Presidential Library opening, President Obama stated, “And that’s why every President gains a greater appreciation for all those who served before him; for the leaders from both parties who have taken on the momentous challenges and felt the enormous weight of a nation on their shoulders. And for me, that appreciation very much extends to President Bush.”

I.e.: Extreme policies at home and abroad come first, the American people and the world, second.

Read the story here: http://truth-out.org/speakout/item/16984-standard-operating-procedure-forget-obamas-latest-in-order-to-move-forward-look-to-guantanamo

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June 13th

Indefinite Inattention; the Obama Approach to Guantanamo

Thursday, 13 June 2013 09:37 By Bryan K. Bullock , Truthout | Op-Ed

President Obama has suddenly rediscovered that there are still about 130 men being held, without charge, in horrible conditions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It is good that the President has been aroused from his indefinite inattention, but neither the prisoners, habeas counsel nor those in the public who care about this issue should get overly excited. All of the men being held at Gitmo now, the day of the President’s awakening, were there when he took office in his first term.

Many of the President’s supporters say that Congress got in his way and prevented him from closing the notorious prison camp. It’s true that the President signed an executive order in his first few days in office indicating his desire to close the prison camp. It’s also true that the Congress immediately introduced legislation that restricted the President’s hand in many ways in what he could do in terms of bringing the prisoners here to stand trial in federal court. However, the President’s supposed helplessness at the hands of the Republican Congress gives one pause and requires a look at the facts as he now has indicated, five years later, that he still wants to close the prison.

Read the story here: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/16942-indefinite-inattention-the-obama-approach-to-guantanamo

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Americans on Long-Term Hunger Strike to Close Gitmo Prison

Medea Benjamin  Co-founder, CODEPINK: Women for Peace

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June 12th - 

Military doctors urged to refuse force-feeding at Guantanamo

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Gitmo prosecutors charge Iraqi inmate with unlawful war tactics

Saudi Gazette

GUANTANAMO BAY US NAVAL BASE — An Iraqi prisoner identified as a senior Al-Qaeda commander has been charged in the Guantanamo war crimes tribunal with firing on a medical evacuation helicopter and using unlawful tactics to wage war on US and allied forces in Afghanistan.

Read the story: http://www.saudigazette.com.sa/index.cfm?method=home.regcon&contentid=20130612169548

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June 11th -

Guantanamo war court debate: When is a spiral notebook a weapon?

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba —When is a spiral-bound notebook a possible weapon? And who gets to decide?

Defense and prosecution attorneys parried with the war court’s chief judge on this for about a half-hour Tuesday in a pre-trial hearing in the death penalty case of a Saudi Arabian prisoner.

Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, 48, is accused of being architect of al-Qaida’s suicide bombing of the USS Cole destroyer off Yemen a dozen years ago. Seventeen sailors were killed and many more were wounded – and Tuesday morning’s hearings focused on which witnesses defense attorneys would be allowed to testify at the war court as they argue that the military meddles in the attorney-client relationship.

Read the story here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/06/11/193640/guantanamo-war-court-debate-when.html#.UbixSECsiSp#storylink=cpy

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Guantanamo Prosecution Plans Scaled Back By Obama Administration

The Huffington Post

By Ryan J. Reilly

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration probably will bring military commissions charges against about half of the 36 detainees it originally said could be charged, the military’s chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo military tribunals said this week.

In 2010, the Obama administration’s Guantanamo Review Task Force found that 36 detainees were eligible for prosecution. One of the 36 has since been charged and convicted in federal court, but the other 35 were supposed to be charged in military commissions or in federal court. In a military commission, the “jury” is made up of members of the United States military and the rules of evidence are generally considered more lax. Federal court trials are better established and involve a conventional jury.

Read the story here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/11/guantanamo-obama_n_3422868.html?utm_hp_ref=politics

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Gitmo Is Killing Me

By Samir Naji al Hasan Moqbel

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/15/opinion/hunger-striking-at-guantanamo-bay.html?hpw&_r=2&

Since this piece was published on April 14, 2013, I have finished my second year of law school, started working at CCR for the summer & celebrated my son’s sixth birthday (among other things).

TODAY is DAY 125 of the Guantanamo Hunger Strike. The only thing that has changed in Guantanamo, despite renewed attention and presidential hand-wringing, is now over 100 men are participating — 41 are being force fed — and 4 are in the hospital.

If you haven’t read this piece, please do. If you have, read it again. And then join our rolling fast in solidarity. Make phone calls. Share ideas. Use whatever tools are at your disposal.

- Matthew Daloisio, Witness Against Torture

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June 10th -

The Miami Herald

Charges sought for Iraqi held at Guantánamo

By Ben Fox

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba – U.S. military prosecutors announced plans Monday to add another case to the docket of the war crimes tribunal at Guantánamo amid efforts by President Barack Obama to move the proceedings to the United States and shutter the detention center.

Prosecutors have filed charges against Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi for the war crime known as “perfidy,” alleging he coordinated a long series of suicide attacks on U.S. and allied troops and civilians in Afghanistan, the chief prosecutor for the Guantánamo tribunals, Army Gen. Mark Martins, told reporters at the base.

Read the story: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/10/3444080/charges-sought-for-iraqi-held.html

US Senate hopefuls differ on foreign policy, Guantanamo Bay and national security issues

By Bob Salsberg

U.S. Senate candidate Republican Gabriel Gomez, left, gestures during last week’s debate, while Democrat Edward Markey listens. (Associated Press)

BOSTON — The U.S. Senate candidates in Massachusetts’ special election have differing views on many national security and foreign policy issues but also appear to share some core philosophies when it comes to America’s role on the global stage.

Read more here: http://www.thetranscript.com/headlines/ci_23425434/us-senate-hopefuls-differ-foreign-policy-guantanamo-bay?source=most_viewed

June 8th -

The Guardian UK

McCain and Feinstein pledge to close Guantánamo but sidestep hunger strike

By Matt Williams

McCain visited the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay on Friday, accompanied by Dianne Feinstein and the White House chief of staff. Photograph: Win Mcnamee/Getty Images

Returning from trip to US prison camp, senators say inmates’ care is ‘safe and respectful’ as dozens protest treatment. A cross-party delegation consisting of two leading US senators and President Barack Obama‘s most senior aide have reaffirmed a determination to close Guantánamo Bay following a visit to the camp.

In a joint statement late Friday, Republican senator John McCain, Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic chair of the Senate Intelligence committee, and White House chief of staff Denis McDonough said it remained in the “national interest” to shutter the centre and move inmates to other locations.

Read the story: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/08/mccain-feinstein-guantanamo-hunger-strike

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June 7th, 2013 - 

Free Ahmed Ould Abdel Aziz, a Mauritanian teacher in Guantánamo

By Andy Worthington

Due to a misunderstanding by a human rights representative in Mauritania, it was mistakenly thought last weekend that Ahmed had been released. Sadly, however, he is still held, even though he is one of the 86 prisoners cleared for release by President Obama’s inter-agency task force in January 2010.

Letters to Senators Kerry and Napolitano

CCR's opposition, which contains much of the history on this, is here: CCR PDF

The letters can be found here:

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June 6, 2013  –

Democracy Now! 

Report: U.S. Sends 125 More Troops to Contain Guantanamo Revolt

The U.S. military is sending a massive new contingent of guards to help contain the revolt of hunger-striking prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The Miami Herald reports the Army Reserve is deploying 125 troops to assist the holding of prisoners in solitary confinement and the force-feeding of 39 hunger strikers.

Read more here: http://www.democracynow.org/2013/6/6/headlines#663

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June 5, 2013  –

The Miami Herald

Guantanamo Prison Getting Reinforcements

By Carol Rosenberg [email protected]

The U.S. military is sending a massive new contingent of guards to help contain the revolt of hunger-striking prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The Miami Herald reports the Army Reserve is deploying 125 troops to assist the holding of prisoners in solitary confinement and the force-feeding of 39 hunger strikers.

The U.S. Southern Command said Wednesday it has requested additional guards for the prison camps at Guantánamo, with the goal of reaching a 2,000-strong staff at the detention center of 166 captives.

Part of the reason is the ongoing hunger strike that has most prisoners under lockdown. As of Wednesday, the Pentagon had 1,831 troops and civilians assigned to the prison, including 15 extra public-affairs troops training 20 replacements.

“When you go to single cell, that takes more people,” said Navy Capt. Robert Durand, the prison spokesman, who reported Wednesday night that 124 reinforcements from the Texas-based 591st Military Police Co. arrive at Guantánamo on Saturday.

Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/05/3434821/guantanamo-prison-getting-reinforcements.html

Revised Guantanamo force-feed policy exposed

Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – Hunger striking Guantanamo prisoners who are force-fed a liquid nutritional supplement undergo a brutal and dehumanising medical procedure that requires them to wear masks over their mouths while they sit shackled in a restraint chair for as long as two hours, according to documentation obtained by Al Jazeera. The prisoners remain this way, with a 61cm – or longer – tube snaked through their nostril until a chest X-ray, or a test dose of water, confirms it has reached their stomach.

At the end of the feeding, the prisoner is removed from the restraint chair and placed into a “dry cell” with no running water. A guard then observes the detainee for 45-60 minutes “for any indications of vomiting or attempts to induce vomiting”. If the prisoner vomits he is returned to the restraint chair.

That’s just a partial description of the “chair restraint system clinical protocol” which medical personnel are instructed to follow when administering a nutritional supplement to prisoners who have been selected for force-feeding by Guantanamo Commander Rear Admiral John Smith.

Standard operating procedure

The restraint system, published here for the first time, along with the feeding procedures policy, was contained in a newly revised Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for Guantanamo hunger strikers, obtained exclusively by Al Jazeera from United States Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which has oversight of the joint task force that operates the prison.

The 30-page manual contains the most detailed descriptions to date pertaining to the treatment of hunger strikers and prisoners who undergo force-feedings. The SOP replaced a previous SOP issued in 2003 – revised in 2005 - which was declassified several years ago by the Pentagon, albeit with redactions. The new, unredacted policy obtained by Al Jazeera went into effect March 5 - one month after Guantanamo prisoners launched their protest over the inspection of their Qurans.

The procedure appears to have been revised and implemented in order to deal with a mass hunger strike.

“Just as battlefield tactics must change throughout the course of a conflict, the medical responses to GTMO detainees who hunger strike has evolved with time,” says the SOP. “A mass hunger strike was successfully dealt with in [2005] by utilising procedures adopted from the Federal Bureau of Prisons and the approach delineated in this SOP.

“However, the composition of the detainee population, camp infrastructure, and policies has all undergone significant change since the initial version of this SOP… Much of the original instruction has been retained in the form of enclosures. In the event of a mass hunger strike, these enclosures can be utilised as they have proven efficacy under mass hunger strike conditions.”

The SOP notes that there are a number of prisoners who have been hunger striking since 2005, who have “proven their determination”, and whose physical frailty have limited Guantanamo authorities’ “options for intervention”. The document goes on to say, “in the event of a mass hunger strike, isolating hunger striking patients from each other is vital to prevent them from achieving solidarity”.

On April 13, guards staged a predawn raid at the communal camp and isolated more than 100 prisoners into single cells in an attempt to bring an end to the protest.

‘Orwellian’

Leonard Rubenstein, a lawyer at the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Heath and the Berman Institute of Bioethics, who reviewed the SOP document for Al Jazeera, said the revised guidelines were troubling because they prohibit doctors and nurses from acting independently and make clear that they are simply “adjuncts of the security apparatus”.