The Problem Prisoners: Ten of the most controversial detainees still held at Guantánamo.

[Jefferson23]

January 10, 2012

Ten years after it was established, 171 detainees are still being held at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility. Despite promises at the beginning of Barack Obama's presidency, the facility seems unlikely to be shut down anytime soon. While the very existence of the camp is controversial, some cases have drawn particular attention.

AHMED BIN SALEH BEL BACHA

Nationality: Algeria

This former professional soccer player fled to Britain in 1999 after receiving death threats from Islamist militants in his home country. He was traveling in Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2001 and was turned over to U.S. forces by opportunistic villagers who claimed he was a member of al Qaeda.

After six years of imprisonment, he was cleared for release in 2007 by George W. Bush's administration but has remained at the facility for four years, fighting against repatriation to Algeria, where he fears both imprisonment by the government -- which tried him in absentia and sentenced him to 20 years in prison for belonging to an overseas terrorist group -- and attacks by militant groups. Ahmed Bin Saleh Bel Bacha's former country of residence, Britain, has rejected his request for asylum. The town of Amherst, Massachusetts, has offered him asylum, but federal law prevents Guantánamo detainees from being resettled in the United States.

remainder: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/01/10/the_problem_prisoners?page=0,1

[Jefferson23]

1. The shame of Guantanamo Bay by Anthony Romero

All branches of the US government must act to end one of the most shameful episodes in American history.

January 11, 2012

New York, New York - This week marks the 10-year anniversary of the first prisoner arriving at Guantanamo Bay, making it the longest-standing war prison in US history. Guantanamo has been a catastrophic failure on every front. It has long been past the time for this shameful episode in American history to be brought to a close.

President Obama has failed to shutter Guantanamo, even though on his second day in office he signed an executive order to close the prison and restore "core constitutional values". In fact, the 2012 National Defence Authorization Act that Obama signed on New Year's Eve contains a sweeping provision that makes indefinite military detention, including of people captured far from any battlefield, a permanent part of American law for the first time in this country's history. This is not just unconstitutional - it's just plain wrong.

Guantanamo was fashioned as an "island outside the law" where terrorism suspects could be held without charge and interrogated without restraint. Almost 800 men have passed through its cells. Today, 171 remain.


As documents secured by the ACLU demonstrate, Guantanamo became a perverse laboratory for brutal interrogation methods. Prisoners were subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation, stress positions, extreme temperatures and prolonged isolation. It started with two false premises: Those who were sent there were all terrorists picked up on the battlefield and that, as "unlawful enemy combatants", they had no legal rights. In reality, a tiny percentage was captured by US forces; most were seized by Pakistani and Afghan militias, tribesmen, and officials, and then sold to the US for large bounties.

in full: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/201211193555298292.html