Human Rights Groups Criticize Obama Administration Delays on Guantanamo Closure

The following is the text of a letter to President Obama decrying the long delay in the implementation of the Administration's promises to act on closing Guantanamo. In fact, since writing the letter, the Obama administration announced that Paul Lewis would be the Department of Defense Special Envoy for the closure of Guantánamo's prison.

I'd like to know more about Lewis's role as Counsel for the House Armed Services Committee, particularly during the time legislation was being drawn up for the Military Commissions Act of 2006. But I doubt we'll see much investigation by the press into these kinds of appointments.

New Rules

Meanwhile, just today, DoD released a new set of rules concerning the Administration's "Periodic Review Board" (PRB) for Guantanamo. (H/T Jonathan Horowitz) A full analysis of this document awaits, but preliminary assessments by human rights legal experts on Twitter see this new set of rules -- released 30 months after promised by President Obama, and over a year after the mandatory date for action on it -- as akin to the PRB that was established for prisoners at Parwan, Afghanistan. My own reading saw them as not too different from the CSRTs from Bush Administration days.

Back in April, 2012, Human Rights Watch made some recommendations for the new PRBs at Guantananmo. Let's see how Obama and the DoD did:

Access to counsel/personal representative.... We urge you to implement procedures guaranteeing all persons held in US military detention access to a lawyer and a judge. Should you choose not to apply this standard universally such that some persons are assigned only a personal representative (a decision we would oppose), we urge you to make clear that communications between a detainee and the personal representative assigned to his case would be kept confidential in a manner similar to the rules governing attorney-client privilege. We further urge you to make clear that private counsel selected by the detainee in accordance with the Executive Order have access to all relevant inculpatory, exculpatory, and mitigating evidence, including classified evidence, provided they have the appropriate clearances.

From my reading of the new PRB process, only a "uniformed military officer (referred to as a personal representative)" will be assigned to assist detainees. Detainees can obtain their own private attorney "at no expense to the government, to assist the detainee in the review process." Nothing is said about confidentiality, but this is not surprising, as the government has gone out of its way to contaminate the military commissions process with intrusive theft, surveillance, and/or outrageous incompetence that amounts to obstruction of a detainee's right to counsel.

Access to evidence. The Executive Order provides that a detainee will receive an unclassified summary of the evidence against him, but that his personal representative and private counsel may be provided with other evidence; while not explicit, it appears that classified information may not be available to the detainee. In addition, the representative and counsel may, at the discretion of the PRB, be provided with substitutes or summaries of certain information on national security grounds. The ability of the detainee’s representative and/or counsel (but not the detainee himself) to access classified information does not alleviate the inherent unfairness of a system in which a person may be detained on the basis of information to which he cannot meaningfully respond. Should protection of national security truly require the use of some classified information, the implementing guidelines should make clear that the detainee be provided with as much information as possible and that the information be sufficient to allow him to contest the factual allegations against him.

Moreover, the Executive Order does not provide for a mechanism by which the detainee or his representative can challenge the adequacy of the production of the evidence. We urge you to include in the implementing guidelines a mechanism by which such challenges may be raised to an independent, preferably judicial, authority.

The new PRB rules go to some length to explain how classified information can be withheld for "national security" reasons from "personal representatives" and attorneys for the detainee. Yes, though substitutes or summaries of such information will be provided, DoD states,"The PRB will ensure that any such substitutes or summaries of information are sufficient to provide the personal representative or private counsel with a meaningful opportunity to assist the detainee during the review process."

So in the end, a prisoner held for years in indefinite detention, often with "evidence" that comes from "national security," secret sources that cannot be reviewed directly, will have to rely on the "cross-section of the national security community: that is the PRB to determine whether substitute summaries are adequate for defense. The need for "an independent, preferably judicial, authority" to vet such government claims is nowhere to be found in these new set of rules.

There's much more that could likely be said about these new PRB rules. (For instance, the Parwan PRBs allowed for public hearings, but there's nothing in the Guantanamo PRB process that allows for that.) I'll try and post more later here, or check my twitter feed to see links (@jeff_kaye).

Letter to President Obama

The text below is taken from Josh Gerstein's posting at Politico, where he also supplied his own analysis. However, the link there is for the reader's own use, as a copy of the letter was also sent privately to me.

President Barack Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

RE: More than Four-Month Delay in Meeting Two of Your Key Commitments on Closing Guantanamo and Ending Indefinite Detention

Dear President Obama:

The undersigned human rights, religious, and civil liberties organizations strongly urge your administration to promptly and fully carry out two key commitments you made as steps toward closing the Guantanamo Bay prison and ending indefinite detention. Specifically, we urge you to 1) appoint an envoy in the Defense Department to lead the effort to close Guantanamo, and 2) direct Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to use his existing statutory authority, including any applicable certifications or national security waivers specified by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013 (“NDAA-FY13”), to transfer cleared detainees from Guantanamo to foreign countries that will respect their human rights. These actions would help to fulfill your renewed promise to end indefinite detention and close the Guantanamo prison.

More than four months have passed since you delivered your May 23, 2013 speech at the National Defense University, in which you recommitted the United States to the goal of closing the Guantanamo prison. Shortly before that speech, at your April 30, 2013 White House press conference, you committed the United States to ending indefinite detention at Guantanamo, stating: “the idea that we would still maintain forever a group of individuals who have not been tried, that is contrary to who we are, it is contrary to our interests, and it needs to stop.” You reiterated your commitment to closing the Guantanamo prison last month, in your speech at the United Nations. We greatly appreciate these important statements of a renewed commitment.

However, despite your personal commitment and engagement, the population at Guantanamo over the past four months has been reduced by only two detainees, moving only from 166 to 164. Of the detainees who remain, 84 were cleared for transfer by national security officials more than four years ago.

We are particularly concerned that two of your specific commitments have not yet been met:

Lengthy Delay in Appointment of a Senior Envoy at the Department of Defense: In your National Defense University speech, you stated, “I’m appointing a new senior envoy at the State Department and Defense Department whose sole responsibility will be to achieve the transfer of detainees to third countries.” The White House clarified later that same day that there would be separate envoys for State and Defense. While Secretary of State John Kerry appointed Clifford Sloan as the envoy for State in June, Secretary Hagel has yet to appoint an envoy at the Defense Department. The problems caused by the lack of an envoy at the Defense Department have been compounded by the recent departure of the Pentagon head of Detainee Affairs and the absence of a permanent General Counsel. Vacancies in these critical positions have resulted in a leadership void within the Defense Department, which has delayed decisions and actions needed to reduce the population at Guantanamo by transferring cleared detainees to foreign countries that will respect their human rights.

Delays in Transferring Detainees out of Guantanamo Due to Internal Administration Disagreements on Scope of Existing Statutory Authority: In the National Defense University speech, you also stated, “To the greatest extent possible, we will transfer detainees who have been cleared to go to other countries.” Many of our groups wrote to you on April 11, 2013 to urge you to use your existing statutory authority to “transfer the remaining detained men to their home countries or other countries for resettlement, or to charge them in a court that comports with fair trial standards.” Your press conference and speech more than four months ago expressed your determination to do so.

Despite your order to fully use existing authority to transfer cleared detainees, some administration officials have an exceedingly cramped view of that authority. As a result, after more than four months only two detainees have been transferred out of the 166 men who were held at Guantanamo on the day of your speech.

While we recognize that transfer restrictions in the NDAA-FY13 had needlessly complicated some transfers, the NDAA-FY13, if it again becomes applicable, includes a waiver that provides that the Secretary of Defense can waive the most onerous certification requirements if the government has taken steps to substantially mitigate risk. Particularly for the 84 men who have long been cleared for transfer, there is no reason why the Departments of Defense and State cannot work swiftly towards transferring all of them to foreign countries that will respect their human rights.

The Chairmen of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees have expressed their frustration with the overly narrow view of the NDAA-FY13 transfer provisions taken by some administration officials. Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin wrote to the White House Counsel, on May 6, 2013, explaining that “more than a year ago, I successfully fought for a national security waiver that provides a clear route for the transfer of detainees to third countries in appropriate cases, i.e., to make sure the certification requirements do not constitute an effective prohibition.” Similarly, House Armed Services Committee Chairman Buck McKeon wrote in the Washington Post on May 2, 2013 that the certification requirements were not a prohibition. The Senate Armed Services Committee itself, in its committee report for the NDAA for Fiscal Year 2014, wrote, “the committee emphasizes that the certification requirements [in the NDAA-FY13] were never intended to constitute an absolute prohibition on the transfer of Guantanamo detainees to countries other than the United States.” Other senior members of the Senate and House Armed Services Committees have made similar comments.

The statutory waiver authority created enough flexibility in the certification requirements that there should have been far more than two detainees transferred during the more than four months since your speech. Your order to fully use your existing authority to transfer cleared detainees “to the greatest extent possible” appears to have been largely thwarted by some administration officials applying exceedingly narrow interpretations of that authority, and of the certification requirements. Their interpretations defy a plain reading of the statute and cut against the stated intent of both its authors and the Senate committee of jurisdiction.

While we join your administration in strongly supporting statutory changes to the transfer provisions, which are included in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014, as reported by the Senate Armed Services Committee, there is no reason to wait for a change in the law. Enactment of the transfer provisions in the Senate bill is important because it will restore much more of your authority to transfer detainees out of Guantanamo, but you already have significant transfer authority under the NDAA-FY13, if the provision again becomes applicable.

A number of countries are clearly interested in receiving transferred detainees, and have the ability to reintegrate detainees back into society. Unless a detainee objects to a transfer based on a fear of denial of human rights, including a fear of treatment that would violate the Convention Against Torture, the United States should transfer detainees to these countries. In fact, the list of governments seeking the return of their citizens is long, and includes important allies of the United States. Leaders of these countries - including British Prime Minister David Cameron - have made public statements to that effect. In addition to these calls, your lifting of the moratorium on transfers of Yemeni detainees should allow for transfer of the majority of already cleared detainees. There is no reason for further delay in the transfer overseas of many of the detainees.

In both your press conference and speech more than four months ago, you eloquently and forcefully argued why the United States must prioritize the work to close the Guantanamo prison and end indefinite detention, and you set out some concrete steps toward that end, including the two steps discussed in this letter. We strongly support you in your commitment to close the Guantanamo prison and end indefinite detention. It is in this effort to support you that we want to make clear our concern that the more than four-month delay in your administration carrying out two key steps could jeopardize your ability to close the Guantanamo prison and end indefinite detention during your presidency.

Thank you for attention to these concerns.

Sincerely,
American Civil Liberties Union
Amnesty International USA
Appeal for Justice
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Center for Constitutional Rights
Center for the Victims of Torture
Constitution Project
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Defending Dissent Foundation
Friends Committee on National Legislation
Human Rights Watch
International Justice Network
Japanese American Citizens League
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
National Religious Campaign Against Torture
Presbyterian Church (USA)
Physicians for Human Rights
Win Without War

Using Evidence from Water Torture to Hold Detainees at Guantanamo

Originally posted at FDL/The Dissenter

A few weeks ago, Truthout published an article that examined a number of instances of water torture, including evidence of near-drowning, on prisoners held by the Department of Defense. A second article, with further documentation, including other cases of submersion in water and also extreme forms of "water dousing," will be coming out soon. But not everything can be squeezed into even two articles.

One of the more egregious examples of water torture that I found in my investigations wasn't conducted by DoD, but was used by Egyptian interrogators contracted to torture U.S. rendition victim Mamdouh Habib. Habib was an Egyptian born Australian Muslim who was renditioned from Afghanistan to Egypt in late 2001 or early 2002. He has written a book about his experiences, My Story: The Tale of a Terrorist Who Wasn't. Earlier this year, Habib filed suit in Egypt against former intelligence chief, Omar Suleiman, a long-time ally of the United States.

According to a 2005 article in The Age, Habib declared in an affadavit that in Egypt he had been placed in a room by Egyptian authorities. The torturers would "gradually fill it with water, leaving only his head exposed and forced him to stand on tiptoe for hours."

In his memoir, My Story, Habib further described his experience in the water-filled room. "Every time I began to drown," Habib wrote, "they hauled me out, revived me, and put me back in.... I got to the stage where I didn't care anymore; I'd relax and close my eyes and start to drown, hoping I would die. I don't know how many days this went on for."

Habib also reports that one room he was put in had "electrified water."

While researching the subject of water torture in general, I discovered that in Habib's Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) hearing at Guantanamo (PDF), the tribunal specifically used statements drawn from Habib during torture, including the water torture described above, to identify him as an "enemy combatant."

Judge Green described the case of Mamdouh Habib, who alleged that he had been sent by the United States to Egypt for interrogation where he was subjected to severe beatings, locked in handcuffs in a room that gradually filled with water to a level just below his chin as he stood for hours on the tips of his toes, and that he was suspended from a wall with his feet resting on an electrified cylindrical drum. Mr. Habib alleged that, while undergoing this treatment, he admitted to doing many things he had never done.... Without resolving the accuracy of Mr. Habib’s allegations, the CSRT relied on the statements that he made while in Egypt and concluded that he was an enemy combatant.

Now this might not be news to many people, as the issue of using tortured evidence at both the CSRTs and the Military Commissions, including waterboarding or other water-type tortures, has long been an issue among human rights activists and critics of U.S. detention and torture policies. But one can become inured to such things, unaccustomed to reading about what kind of torture produced the evidence.

The CSRT panels, which consist of three military officers, were instituted after the Supreme Court rulings in Hamdi and Rasul in June 2004. According to a CSRT "fact sheet," the hearings were supposed to provide an "opportunity for detainees to contest their designation as enemy combatants, and thereby the basis for their detention."

The CSRTs were amply criticized by human rights groups. Human Rights First summarized some of their main problems:

The CSRTs fail to meet fair hearing standards in several ways:
-- There is no meaningful way for a detainee to challenge a CSRT’s determination as he has little or no access to witnesses or classified information on which the determination to detain is based.
-- The CSRT can rely on information obtained through unlawful methods, including information coerced from detainees who were subjected to torture or cruel, inhuman degrading treatment. Because CSRTs can also rely on secret evidence, the fact that evidence is obtained illegally, including through torture, might never be known.
-- The CSRTs lack an effective remedy as they are not mandated to release a detainee who is not designated as an enemy combatant.

They also deny the detainee the right to counsel, the right to call witnesses, and the right to present evidence. The detainee has no right to an impartial hearing.

In 2008, in a landmark ruling, Boumediene v. Bush , Guantanamo prisoners were supposedly granted actual habeas rights in U.S. courts, which were believed at the time to redress the problems with the CSRTs. But, as Andy Worthington noted in an article last month, the ruling has been effectively gutted.

The courts’ failure has come about largely because a number of judges in the D.C. Circuit Court, where appeals against the habeas rulings are filed, have revealed themselves to be at least as right-wing as the architects of the “war on terror” in the Bush administration. Led by Judge A. Raymond Randolph, whose previous claim to fame on national-security issues was that he supported every piece of Guantánamo-related legislation that was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court, the Circuit Court has, in the last year, succeeded in gutting habeas corpus of all meaning, when its relief is sought by any of the 171 men still held at Guantánamo....

... judges have whittled away at the lower courts’ demands that the government establish its case “by a preponderance of the evidence,” which is a very low standard in the first place; and secondly, because the Circuit Court has reinforced the misconception at the heart of the “war on terror,” almost delighting, it seems, in failing to acknowledge that soldiers are different from terrorists.

In fact, despite the Supreme Court’s attempt to recognize rights of the prisoners, both soldiers and terrorists are still, essentially, held at Guantánamo as a category of human being with almost no rights at all — what George W. Bush notoriously referred to as “unlawful enemy combatants."

While some detainees have won habeas cases due to evidence thrown out because of torture, as in the case of Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman last year, others, like Tawfiq al-Bihani, have not been so lucky. -- For more on the death of habeas in the D.C. Circuit, see this posting by bmaz over at emptywheel.net.

Meanwhile, the CSRT rules and procedures remain in place under Obama. DoD's official tribunal procedures can be accessed here (PDF).

The last major change occurred in December 2005, when as part of the Detainee Treatment Act the law stated " a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or Administrative Review Board, or any similar or successor administrative Tribunal or board, in making a determination of status or disposition of any detainee under such procedures, shall, to the extent practicable, assess-- (A) whether any statement derived from or relating to such detainee was obtained as a result of coercion; and (B) the probative value (if any) of any such statement."

But, as was pointed out in a Seton Hall study, "No-Hearing Hearings" (PDF), these changes came after the CSRT hearings were mostly complete. The study added, "While there is no way to ascertain the extent, if any, that witness statements might have been affected by coercion, fully 18% of the detainees alleged torture; in each case, the detainee volunteered the information rather than being asked by the Tribunal or the personal representative. In each case, the panel proceeded to decide the case before any investigation was undertaken."

But the issue is all forgotten today, just like the torture endured by Habib, and the thousands tortured by the U.S. military and intelligence agencies, and their allied forces. Good for a historical look, and that's all.

More on Obama's Pernicious Executive Order on Indefinite Detention

Marcy Wheeler's analysis of the latest Obama Executive Order, bringing back the military commissions, and setting up an extrajudicial apparatus within the Executive Branch for review of indefinite detention cases, hits the nail on the head. She takes apart the contentions of Ken Gude at the UK Guardian that the new EO represents "a clearly articulated standard for continued detention."

Here’s the actual language of Obama’s EO:

Sec. 2. Standard for Continued Detention. Continued law of war detention is warranted for a detainee subject to the periodic review in section 3 of this order if it is necessary to protect against a significant threat to the security of the United States. [Emphasis added]

The grammar of the EO is a clear admission on the government’s part that it is willing to indefinitely detain a human being not for what he has done, but because of the big swirling boogeymen it believes to lurk out there.

And it’s important that those who write about this make that distinction clear.

Amen.

In addition, Gude’s claim that “A detainee must be lawfully held under the laws of war, must have had that detention upheld by a federal court in a habeas proceeding,” doesn’t jibe with my reading. The EO states that “Detainees at Guantánamo have the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, and nothing in this order is intended to affect the jurisdiction of Federal courts to determine the legality of their detention....”

As I read it, the latter is a pro forma statement, because it appears the Obama administration believes it can indefinitely hold someone despite a habeas decision. Moreover, they have been quite active in appealing successful habeas petitions, and is doing so with, as Andy Worthington puts it, "a political bent."

Since last January, when President Obama announced a moratorium on releasing any Yemenis from Guantánamo — in response to the hysteria that greeted the news that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the failed Christmas 2009 plane bomber, had been recruited in Yemen — every successful habeas petition by a Yemeni (with the exception of Mohammed Hassan Odaini, a student whose clearly mistaken detention was picked up by the mainstream media) has been appealed.

The U.S. government is seeking to eviscerate habeas (as has already been done, really) not by formally taking away habeas petitions, but ignoring or contesting their outcome, and claiming a new entity, their Periodic Review Board, will determine who is actually released, not some (cough) court.

And who is on the Periodic Review Board?

“Periodic Review Board” means: a board composed of senior officials tasked with fulfilling the functions described in section 3 of this order, one appointed by each of the following departments and offices: the Departments of State, Defense, Justice, and Homeland Security, as well as the Offices of the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

This puts the national IC community and military in charge of indefinite detention review. DOJ and State are mere rumps, at this point, of a militarist state seeking to put in place new institutions that will better represent their interests and rule.

Human Rights Watch, alone among human rights groups, while condemning the resumption of the military commissions, calls the latest position on indefinite detention "authorized but restricted," noting it "provides an additional layer of review not previously available."

While these new provisions are an improvement over the current system, which does not have such a review, the use by the US of indefinite detention without trial still fails to meet the most basic elements of due process under international law, Human Rights Watch said. Importantly however, the order only applies to detainees currently held at Guantanamo and not to anyone who might be captured in the future, a significant limitation given calls for sweeping detention authority by critics of the administration.

"Is added review an improvement? Yes. Does it make US detention policies lawful? No,"

said Andrea Prasow, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch. "Signing an executive order does not suddenly make it legal to lock people up and hold them forever without proving they have committed a crime."

It's strange, this search for something positive to say by HRW, as if the EO represented any kind of moral victory by providing a "significant limitation" of its abrogration of rights, and usurpation by the executive branch of unchecked review. It's quite clear that Obama is setting up a new version of the Combatant Status Review Boards set up during the Bush years, with bogus oversight by high defense department and intelligence officials, with fig leaf cover by State and DoJ.

Sabin Willett, an attorney at Bingham McCutchen in Boston, representing the Chinese Uighurs at Guantanamo since 2005, had an apt question for the leaders of this country, or perhaps really for those unconvinced the U.S. government is out of control here (H/T powwow at Emptywheel/FDL).

The thing I’ve never understood is, why at least not convert GTMO to a POW camp? A real one? With real, honorable treatment of the enemy, as required by law and the service field manuals? Why the cages, interrogations, etc etc etc? Why aren’t there gardens, orchestras, newsletters, canteens, jobs — or were the Nazis (who had all those things in camps in Texas and Alabama) less dangerous than Taliban privates?

America is Winston Smith. You remember how Orwell’s 1984 ends.

Powwow adds:

It is all the more important that the Supreme Court act to rein in the D.C. Circuit, because evidently no branch of our federal government is the least bit inclined to forcibly remind the President that he too has “a solemn duty to follow” the law of war in wartime, including “competent tribunal” review of the default POW status of any (actual belligerent) wartime detainees captured or held by the United States military during a Congressionally-authorized armed conflict.

For aspects of the latest EO has they pertain to issues of indefinite detention at Bagram and elsewhere in Afghanistan, see also this article by Marcy Wheeler.

ACLU to Fight for Release of "Enemy Combatant" Tribunals Transcripts; Fayiz al-Kandari Loses Habeas Appeal

From a new ACLU press release:

ACLU In Federal Appeals Court Thursday To Argue For Release Of Guantánamo Detainee Statements

Tribunal Transcripts Would Provide Critical Testimony About Bush Torture Program

WASHINGTON – The American Civil Liberties Union will be in court Thursday to argue that the government should release transcripts in which 14 prisoners now held at Guantánamo Bay describe abuse and torture suffered in CIA custody.

The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit to obtain uncensored transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunals used to determine if Guantánamo detainees qualify as "enemy combatants." In October, a federal court ruled that the government can continue to suppress the detainees' testimony about the abuse they suffered in CIA custody. The ACLU is asking the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to reverse that decision.

More information about the case is available online at: www.aclu.org/national-security/csrt-foia

Oral arguments in American Civil Liberties Union v. DOD, a FOIA lawsuit seeking the release of transcripts from Guantánamo Combatant Status Review Tribunals.

Ben Wizner of the ACLU National Security Project will argue the case. Other attorneys on the case are Jameel Jaffer, ACLU Deputy Legal Director, Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project and Arthur B. Spitzer of the ACLU of the National Capital Area.

WHEN:
Thursday, September 23, 2010
9:30 a.m. EDT

WHERE:
United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
333 Constitution Ave. NW
Washington, D.C.

On a related note, see Andy Worthington's excellent article on Judge Kollar-Kotelly’s outrageous decision to deny Fayiz Al-Kandari his habeas petition. The decision itself has not been published. As Andy wrote:

... the authorities have refused to accept al-Kandari’s account of his activities, even though a cursory glance at the allegations against him demonstrates that, of the 20 allegations against him, 16 are attributed to an unidentified “individual,” and only one — a claim that he “suggested that he and another individual travel to Afghanistan to participate in jihad and … provided them with aliases” — came from al-Kandari himself (and has been refuted by him).

The paucity of evidence is so extreme that, after his Combatant Status Review Tribunal in 2004 (a deliberately one-sided process designed to rubber-stamp the men’s prior designation as “enemy combatants”), the tribunals’ legal advisor made a point of dissenting from the tribunal’s conclusion that he was an “enemy combatant,” stating:

Indeed, the evidence considered persuasive by the Tribunal is made up almost entirely of hearsay evidence recorded by unidentified individuals with no first hand knowledge of the events they describe.

As researchers at the Seton Hall law School noted, in a major analysis of the CSRT documentation, entitled, “No-Hearing Hearings” (PDF, p. 34), “Outside of the CSRT process, this type of evidence is more commonly referred to as ‘rumor.’”

Although these “rumors” were sufficient for the Pentagon to regard him as a prisoner of such significance that he was put forward for a trial by Military Commission in October 2008 (which has not been revived under President Obama), it is difficult to escape the conclusion that, inside the prison, he is regarded as a threat not because of what he is supposed to have done prior to his capture, but because of his attitude in detention.

The fact that the majority of the allegations against him were made by other prisoners is largely a testament to his own resistance. As one of Guantánamo’s least compliant prisoners, he has not fought back physically, but has refused to make false confessions implicating himself or others, as so many others have done under duress (and as the judges in the District Court have been exposing in other habeas petitions).

See the whole article, and while you're informing yourself, bookmark Andy's ongoing series describing "Who are the remaining prisoners in Guantánamo?

Using Photos of Abu Zubaydah's Torture to Intimidate and Threaten Other Prisoners

Originally posted at Firedoglake

The set-up of Abu Zubaydah as an Al Qaeda bigwig may have been meant, among other things, for use in intimidation and torture of other prisoners. Andy Worthington recounts how a prisoner captured with Zubaydah, Omar Gharmesh, reported to another prisoner in Syria's infamous Palestine Branch prison, where they were sent via "extraordinary rendition," that he was shown pictures of a tortured Abu Zubaydah and told, “If you don’t talk, this is what will happen to you.”

What has not been reported until now is that another prisoner reports that he and a number of other detainees at Guantanamo were also shown pictures of a tortured and injured Abu Zubaydah.

Ibrahim Mahdi Achmed Zeidan, a Jordanian prisoner transferred from Guantanamo to Jordan two years ago (despite the fact the Jordanians told him they "would beat" him when he was released from Guantanamo), stated in his Combatant Status Review Tribunal (Sept. 27, 2004) that he knew about Abu Zubaydah's torture. Zeidan claimed that Zubaydah's statements identifying him had been induced by this torture. How did he know Zubaydah had been tortured, the Guantanamo tribunal asked, and Zeidan replied (bold emphasis added):

We know from the American interrogators, not only me, but also a lot of other detainees on this island know that he was subject to a lot of torture. There was a picture of him, I didn't see it, and someone else did showing the signs of torture on his body.

Two recent news items  -- the revelation Binyam Mohamed was a victim of the same treatment Abu Zubaydah received, and at about the same time (discussed in my last post); and the repeated use of the fact of Zubaydah's torture in the interrogation of prisoners, including oral statements from interrogators and pictures of a tortured Zubaydah -- demonstrate how little we really know about the particulars of the operations of the U.S. torture program.

Nor do we know very much about what is going on even now, in an era of supposed transparency by the Obama administration. The Washington Post and New York Times each had articles over the weekend about torture occuring at a remaining, "classified" black site prison run by Special Operations at Bagram Air Base. The Post article used testimony from two Afghan teens, one of whom said he had been forced to watch pornography while also looking at a picture of his mother. The Times article, with 42-year-old displaced farmer Hamidullah, described a period of torture that took place since Obama became president.

Also demonstrating how little we still know about the extent of U.S. torture and abusive detention policies, in early November the ACLU wrote to Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, "requesting updated data on juveniles in U.S. military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan and information on efforts to bring U.S. policy regarding the treatment, detention and trial of juveniles into compliance with international law."

As for Abu Zubaydah, it seems likely at this point that his torture was singled out for special treatment and photographic propagation because he was being set-up as a major figure. After his cover story as a key leader was embedded in the public's mind (and remember that Ron Suskind found that Bush was the major figure in pushing the importance of Zubaydah). the fact of his torture was then paraded before other prisoners in an effort to scare and intimidate them. Meanwhile, a major scandal and investigation have involved the CIA's admitted destruction of videotapes of Zubaydah's interrogation. Were the photos of Zubaydah's torture also destroyed?

The similar torture of Binyam Mohamed and perhaps others, even quite early on, took place in total secrecy. For this part of the torture narrative, the United States and its British ally have been trying mightily to suppress all knowledge, but thanks to the intrepid morality of some British judges, they have failed.

As Andy Worthington noted, propagating knowledge of this "evidence of widespread torture and abuse prior to the August 2002 torture memo... may well have to be the focus of our pressure as writers and activists if, as anticipated, the OPR [Office of Public Responsibility] report on the OLC [Office of Legal Counsel] lawyers ends up having had its teeth removed."