Judge Orders Release of Guantanamo Prisoner After Seven Years, Saying Government Position "Defies Common Sense"

Democracy Now reports that:

A federal judge has ordered the release of another prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay, thirty-year-old Syrian national Abdul Rahim Abdul Razak Al Janko. In the year 2000, Al Janko was tortured by al-Qaeda, who accused him of being a Western spy, and he was imprisoned by the Taliban for eighteen months. He was then captured by the United States in 2002 and spent the next seven years in Guantanamo. On Monday, District Court Judge Richard Leon rejected the government's position that Al Janko had once been a part of al-Qaeda, saying it "defies common sense." We speak with British journalist Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison.

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http://www.democracynow.org/2009/6/23/judge_orders_release_of_guantanamo_prisoner\

When our own officials are calling our bluff you know it's bad.

Ever wondered what hell looks like?

Well, the US DOJ has the answer. (From this article in the NYT on why we shouldn't be afraid to close Guantanamo - there are plenty of draconian US prisons waiting for "most dangerous" criminals.)

Note the emphasis on CONTROL.

Beyond the gates is a 20-foot “no man’s land” between the administrative offices and the inmate housing units. A collapsible barbed wire fence runs along the outside of the strip. Razor wire swirls along the fence, which is rigged with sensors to detect attempted breaches. At night, the security strip is bathed in light and kept under constant surveillance by guards with rifles.

Beyond another set of airlock security doors is a long hallway separating the inmates’ living quarters and the dining hall from the dusty recreational fields and basketball courts at the center of the prison. The hall is interrupted by gates every several feet to control the prisoners’ movement.

“Our thing is control,” said Charles Ringwood, a prison spokesman. “The schedule is controlled. All movements are controlled. Everything has to be controlled.”

Standing above the prison yard, Guard Tower 7 forms the hub of the penitentiary. Wire fences slice the recreation yard into sections. Inmates in standard-issue khaki uniforms played a full-court basketball game in one section; in another, inmates walked in a circle. There were no free weights, which have been banned in most federal prisons.

Inmates live in six triangular housing pods arrayed around the prison yard, each holding about 250 prisoners. Inmates from different housing units rarely associate with one another. Each housing pod has two levels of cells around a common area. Inmates can use earphones to listen to televisions, which are affixed to a post. The area has payphones and a microwave for food bought at the commissary.

Inmates sleep in two-bunk cells. Random searches are conducted daily. Prisoners are counted five times each day — at 4 p.m., 10 p.m., midnight, 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. Inmates deemed to be “high security risks,” including some international terrorists, must check in with prison staff members every two hours. Those who do not may be sent to the Special Handling Unit, a set of isolation cells where inmates have little or no contact with others.

The isolation cells were full, Mr. Norwood said, with 235 inmates there for reasons including violence and disobeying commands. Some are there to be protected from other prisoners. Prisoners generally stay in isolation cells for one to six months, Mr. Norwood said.

British detainee repatriated

The NYT reports that British citizen Binyam Mohamed will finally be returned to the UK after detention and interrogation in Pakistan and at Guantanamo Bay:

"At the time of his arrest, in April 2002, American officials said that Mr. Mohamed, who has a brother and two sisters living in the United States, was part of a conspiracy to detonate a dirty bomb on American soil. But he will leave Guantánamo without having been charged with any terrorist activity, or other crimes."

The full article describes Mohamed's past a bit as well as his experiences being detained - I have nothing to say except why and how does this continue? We know that people are being tortured and detained for no real reason, so why hasn't it stopped yet? Will it ever stop? Will we ever hold our government(s) accountable? Will they listen?

When will Guantanamo end?

January 13, 2009
New York Times

Obama’s Plan to Close Prison at Guantánamo May Take Year

President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, people briefed by Obama transition officials said Monday.

But experts say it is likely to take many months, perhaps as long as a year, to empty the prison that has drawn international criticism since it received its first prisoners seven years ago this week. One transition official said the new administration expected that it would take several months to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, decide how to try suspects and deal with the many other legal challenges posed by closing the camp.

People who have discussed the issues with transition officials in recent weeks said it appeared that the broad outlines of plans for the detention camp were taking shape. They said transition officials appeared committed to ordering an immediate suspension of the Bush administration’s military commissions system for trying detainees.

In addition, people who have conferred with transition officials said the incoming administration appeared to have rejected a proposal to seek a new law authorizing indefinite detention inside the United States. The Bush administration has insisted that such a measure is necessary to close the Guantánamo camp and bring some detainees to the United States.

Mr. Obama has repeatedly said he wants to close the camp. But in an interview on Sunday on ABC, he indicated that the process could take time, saying, “It is more difficult than I think a lot of people realize.” Closing it within the first 100 days of his administration, he said, would be “a challenge.”

The president-elect drew criticism from some human rights groups Monday who said his remarks suggested that closing Guantánamo was not among the new administration’s highest priorities. But even if the detention camp remains open for months, the decision to address Guantánamo on the day after his inauguration seemed intended to make a symbolic break with some of the most controversial policies of the Bush administration.

[...]

In formulating their policy in recent weeks, Obama transition officials have consulted with a variety of authorities on legal and human rights and with military experts. Several of those experts said the officials had expressed great interest in alternatives to the military commission system, like trying detainees in federal courts, and appeared to have grown hostile to proposals like an indefinite detention law.

They also said the transition officials were intensely focused on new international efforts to transfer many of the detainees to other countries.

Several said the officials appeared concerned that a proposal for a new law authorizing indefinite detention would bring the new administration much of the criticism that has been directed at the Bush administration over Guantánamo. A former military official who was part of a series of briefings at the transition headquarters in Washington said the officials had spoken about the indefinite detention proposal as a way of creating a “new Guantanámo someplace else.”

“That is very much not the desire of the Obama team,” said the former military official, who insisted on anonymity because of his concerns about how the transition officials would react to public discussion of their comments.

Catherine Powell, an associate professor of law at Fordham, said transition officials appeared most interested at a meeting last month in showing international critics that they were returning to what they see as traditional American legal values.

“They are really looking for tools that we have in our existing system short of creating an indefinite detention system,” Ms. Powell said.

Mark P. Denbeaux, a Seton Hall law professor who has been a prominent lawyer for Guantánamo detainees, said that at a briefing he attended with senior officials of the transition last month the officials seemed to have decided to suspend the military commissions immediately.

“Their position is they’re a complete and utter failure,” Mr. Denbeaux said.

[...]

Some human rights groups said Monday that they were alarmed by Mr. Obama’s vague timetable and lack of specifics in his remarks Sunday. They said they worried that the administration might yield to pressure to display its toughness in dealing with terrorism in its detention policies.

“The devil is in the details,” said Anthony D. Romero, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, who has been pressing the new administration to publicly commit to immediately close Guantánamo.

Mr. Romero said he had grown concerned because transition officials had provided details of their plans for dealing with the economic crisis, but had yet to provide details for how they will close Guantánamo, which has brought worldwide criticism.

“Just like we need specifics on an economic recovery package,” Mr. Romero said, “we need specifics on a ‘justice recovery package.’ ”

Full article here