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Moath al-Alwi was captured by the Pakistani army near the Afghan border in December 2001 and handed over to the US military.
Yemeni nationals, al-Alwi says He is fleeing to safetyIn January 2002, he was kidnapped by the U.S. military and sold to the U.S. military instead of a fighter. The U.S. military transported him to a tropical prisoner of war camp at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in January 2002.
In the following 20 years, the notorious Guantanamo Military Prison has become a symbol of the United States. Human rights violationMany detainees-mainly Muslim men-have been tortured or held for years or even decades without charge, trial or basic legal rights.
As one of the dozens of remaining detainees in Guantanamo Bay, Alvi has never been charged with any crime, but is still in prison. The U.S. Supreme Court rejected his petition in 2019 without comment.
With the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, activists saw President Joe Biden an opportunity to fulfill his political promise to close the prison in 2020. Others said that the Taliban took over Afghanistan and some of the new leaders were former Guantanamo prisoners, which created new obstacles.
Hundreds of American detainees in the Afghanistan war were transported to Guantanamo, where they were held indefinitely outside the laws of war convention [File: Joe Raedle/Getty Images]Why is the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay still open?
“The fact that the prison is still open 20 years later is because of the partisan politics in the United States. Unfortunately, the prisoners there are hostages to this politics,” said Ramsey Kasim, a professor at the City University of New York Law School, who represents the United States. . -Alwi and another detainee are still being held in Guantanamo prison.
At the end of George W. Bush’s presidency in 2008, the American public widely agreed that Guantanamo should be closed.
President Barack Obama announced that he would close the prison, but he was confronted by Republicans and Failed to keep his promise After the US Congress began to impose restrictions on the transfer of detainees in 2011.
Take the White House in 2016 as an example. President Donald Trump opposed the release of Guantanamo prison and stated that he would “fill up the bad guys”. During his four-year tenure, Trump released only one person.
“This is because the two parties lack the political will to shut down Guantanamo, and it is reasonable from a policy point of view. Both governments have failed to take the necessary measures,” Qasim told Al Jazeera.
In 2009, detainees were sitting in a detention facility in Guantanamo Bay. US President Barack Obama tried to close the facility in the face of the political enthusiasm of Congressional Republicans [File: Brennan Linsley/Pool via Reuters]Who is still being held in Guantanamo?
A relatively small number of 39 people are still being held in Guantanamo prison. They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), allegedly the mastermind of Al Qaeda’s attack on the United States on September 11, and four accomplices facing the trial of the military council.
Ten of the detainees have not faced charges and have been approved for release by US agencies, but they are still in custody.Including Saifula Paracha, A 74-year-old Pakistani man, the oldest detainee in Guantanamo prison, has never been charged with a crime.
Ten men still face lawsuits from the military committee. One is about to end his military sentence and will be released in February. Others were detained indefinitely without trial.
Who was released from Guantanamo?
By the end of 2008, the Bush administration had transferred approximately 540 detainees out of Guantanamo prison. By the beginning of 2017, the Obama administration had transferred nearly 200 people out of Guantanamo prison.
One of the challenges faced by the US authorities in transferring detainees out of Guantanamo is to obtain an agreement that guarantees humane treatment from their home country, or to get a third country to agree to resettle them and prevent them from returning to hostilities against the United States.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Slovakia and Albania are among the countries that receive the most nationals from other countries.
In 2014, five Taliban prisoners were transferred to Qatar in exchange for the release of American soldier Bob Dal, who was detained in Afghanistan and Pakistan for five years after escaping from the US military.Four of these five are now members of the organization New Taliban Government In Afghanistan.
Since Obama resigned in January 2017, two men have been released. Both have returned to their home countries.
After more than 15 years in Guantanamo prison, Ahmed Darby He returned to Saudi Arabia in 2018 to continue serving his sentence because of a bomb attack on an oil tanker off the coast of Yemen in 2002.
On July 19, the Biden administration released the first detainee. Abdul Latif NasserFour years after the transfer was approved in 2016, a Moroccan. Nasser has been imprisoned for 19 years and has never been charged with any crime.
The Biden government transferred Abdul Latif Nasser from Guantanamo Bay and sent the Moroccan man back home several years after being recommended by the review committee in July 2016. [File: Shelby Sullivan-Bennis via AP]What is the military committee in Guantanamo?
The Military Commission is a court organized by the U.S. Department of Defense outside the framework of U.S. and international law to bring charges against detainees in Guantanamo.
The U.S. Constitution does not apply the protection of due process, allowing the government to retain secret evidence from torture and detain detainees indefinitely.
Qasim said: “The real purpose of setting up these committees is to circumvent normal rules that restrict the operation of ordinary civil or military courts, especially prohibiting the use of contaminated evidence.”
Detainees must use the lawyer assigned to them. They are not allowed to see all the evidence against them. Conviction only requires two-thirds of the jury members, and even in the case of acquittal, there is no guarantee of release.
In 2020, activists wearing prison jumpsuits and black headscarves demonstrated at the White House against torture in the Guantanamo Bay detention camp and called for the detention camp to be closed [File: Mike Theiler/Reuters]How are detainees tortured by the United States?
Many detainees in Guantanamo were first held in black spots by the CIA or the US military and tortured before being transferred to Guantanamo.
These records are still largely secret, and lawyers representing detainees must sign confidentiality agreements to prevent them from publicly describing the torture suffered by their clients.
In June, for the first time, a military judge publicly agreed to allow information obtained through torture to be used in military cases Abdul Rahim Nasiri, A Saudi was accused of planning a bomb attack on the USS Cole in 2000, killing 17 U.S. Navy sailors.
Hina Shamsey, director of the U.S. Civil Liberties National Security Program, said: “The Military Commission was established from the beginning to accommodate the fact that men, especially former CIA detainees, were tortured and to conceal these abuses.” .
The U.S. government admitted to torture in a number of cases, including Abu zubaida, A Palestinian man who was captured by the United States in Pakistan and tortured for many years in a series of secret CIA prisons, as a detailed explanation U.S. Senate Report.
the other is Mohamed Qatani, A Saudi whose military charges were dismissed because he was tortured in Guantanamo, but was still imprisoned despite suffering from a mental illness.
What measures can Biden take to close Guantanamo Bay?
Lawyers for human rights advocates and detainees said the Biden administration will face increasing pressure to close Guantanamo.
J Wells Dixon, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said: “The Biden administration’s argument that the US intervention in Afghanistan has ended but it continues to have the right to detain men in Guantanamo indefinitely will be unsustainable.” In New York.
“You can’t have the best of both worlds,” said Dixon, who has represented many Guantanamo prisoners, including Majid Shukat Khan, A Pakistani who endured torture by the Central Intelligence Agency and later admitted to being an al-Qaeda messenger.
The White House announced in February that it was conducting an internal review of how to close Guantanamo. Advocates say that one of the important steps is to abolish military courts and allow the US Department of Justice to try to reach plea agreements with 9/11 suspects and other people accused of crimes.
Biden can ask Congress to abolish the ban on Guantanamo detainees entering the United States for the purpose of serving their sentences.
Biden is considering appointing a special envoy to shut down Guantanamo in the US State Department. The position was created by Obama but was cancelled during the Trump administration.
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