NEW ACTION & UPDATES: "Catch-Up" On GITMO Detainees and Related

Still Time for US Citizens to Sign On:

Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC) is now submitting Letters Demanding Prosecution to Attorney General for Criminal Prosecution and Accountability

In a series of sign-on letters initiated by the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), more than 4,000 individuals from all 50 states called on Attorney General Holder to restore the rule of law in the United States by appointing a special prosecutor to independently investigate—and if warranted, prosecute—former officials responsible for torture. The letters, submitted this week to the AG and members of the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary Committees, help echo calls to end torture and ensure accountability in the days preceding grassroots events and actions around the country on Torture Accountability Action Day (June 25) and the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture (June 26). Individuals are still invited to sign on.
If you do so soon, your signature will be added to the June 26th UN Int. Day event...if later, I'm sure the BORDC will have other ways and means to use list!

ACTION here


This very small sample doesn't begin to touch how many events, concerns and how great the momentum

UPDATES: (Keep Watching for more)

Items also on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui not only says a lot that needs to be heard by many more Americans. but also is telling about American-Pakistan and American-Muslim relationships as well as figures of missing Pakistanis (reportedly most or many via bounty) and recent incarceration due to the simple act of giving charity to Palestinians! Please put Aafia in the search on the site - then go to date for "Dr. Afia's defense..." ( Just after posting this UPDATE, I found a new post which speaks to the same: here PLEASE READ! )

and more SEE CagePrisoners dot com and find many more relevant items on this site including these titles below:

• Ex-Detainees Allege Bagram Abuse
• Official: Detainee Trials Could Limit Other Cases
• Judge Orders Syrian Guantanamo Inmate Freed
• Ottawa Appeals Khadr Court Ruling
• Canada Says Done Enough For Guantanamo Inmate
• Human Rights Watch in Gujarat To Investigate Sabarmati Jail Beatings
[More...]

Articles
• Guantánamo Detainee, Considered An Enemy By Both Sides, is Ordered Freed
• Reprieve: Bagram is the New Guantanamo Bay
• Judge Orders Release of Guantanamo Prisoner After Seven Years, Saying Government Position “Defies Common Sense”
• Mohammed El Gharani Update
• The Lies Told About The Saudi Hunger Striker Released From Guantánamo
• Compensation Nation
• The Ghailani Terrorism Case: Military Lawyers in Federal Court?
• Moazzam Begg, Former Guantanamo Bay Prisoner: Talk Review and Interview


BOB HERBERT OP Ed NYTimes WHO ARE WE? here

Judge Orders Release of Guantanamo Prisoner After Seven Years, Saying Government Position “Defies Common Sense” here
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. [includes rush transcript]

BE SURE TO GO TO CAGE PRISONERS here and Bill of Rights Defense Committee here for most if not many of the most current related updates!

So far find samples for : Andy Worthington, Candace Gorman and to be added soon:
Cage Prisoners or go there on your own -it's REALLY hoppin' there:here

GTMO - DETAINEE "LOG" For All the items below this section Go here

See Andy Worthington's Daily Work (and SUPPORT HIM!)
Europe agrees to accept cleared Guantánamo prisoners (and I talk to the BBC)
17.6.09

On Monday, the European Union and the United States made a joint statement in Luxembourg “on the Closure of the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility and Future Counterterrorism Operations, based on Shared Values, International Law, and Respect for the Rule of Law and Human Rights” (PDF), which, as the Guardian put it, “cleared the last hurdles:

Empty Evidence: The Stories Of The Saudis Released From Guantánamo
16.6.09
At the end of a hectic week at Guantánamo, which saw the Obama administration overcome its previous inability to release prisoners (just two were released from January to May), it was announced that, following the release of four Uighurs to Bermuda, the return of Guantánamo’s youngest prisoner, Mohammed El-Gharani, to Chad...

Obama’s Confusion Over Guantánamo Terror Trials
16.6.09
Since sweeping into office pledging to undo all the malign results of the Bush administration’s brutal and ill-conceived “War on Terror,” Barack Obama has struggled to make as decisive a point as he did on that first day, when he pledged to close Guantánamo within a year, to ban the use of torture, and to [...]

The Last Iraqi In Guantánamo, Cleared Six Years Ago, Returns Home
15.6.09
Last Thursday, while all eyes were focused on the arrival of four Uighurs from Guantánamo on Bermuda’s balmy shores — and while a few other commentators, myself included, noted that Guantánamo’s youngest prisoner, Mohammed El-Gharani, had been released to his family’s home country of Chad — only one journalist, James Warren of the Atlantic noticed [...]

Guantánamo’s Uighurs In Bermuda: Interviews And New Photos (these are JOYFUL, HOPEFUL PHOTOS!)
15.6.09
As representatives of the world’s media descended on Bermuda to meet the four Uighurs (Muslims from China’s oppressed Xinjiang province) who had just arrived in the capital, Hamilton, after being freed from Guantánamo and given a new home by Bermuda’s Premier Ewart Brown, they gave their first interview to Bermuda’s Royal Gazette, reveling in their [...]


Andy Worthington discusses Guantánamo on the BBC and al-Jazeera
14.6.09
On Friday, al-Jazeera English’s “Listening Post” ran a feature on the New York Times’ now-notorious May 21 cover story, “1 In 7 Detainees Rejoined Jihad, Pentagon Finds,” which quoted uncritically from a Pentagon report alleging that 74 ex-prisoners had “returned to the battlefield.” I discussed the many problems with this story in a recent article...

Law Lords Condemn UK’s Use of Secret Evidence And Control Orders
13.6.09
Four years late, the Law Lords finally put the British government’s anti-terror policies under the spotlight on Wednesday by delivering a resounding repudiation of the government’s use of secret evidence to impose control orders on alleged terror suspects (the full judgment is here).
An unjustified stranglehold on liberty: the control orders
Introduced in March 2005...

And of course, MUCH more - for all items in the Section Go here

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GITMO BLOG

here

Candace Gorman is a US Lawyer who works with Gitmo Prisoners
and discusses relevant events & issues

Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Government of Transparency
Yes, our new government of transparency is threatening to take me before one of the judges for publicly disclosing information I received from a non government source. Oh well.... hopefully our constitution is still somewhat in effect.

Al-Ghizzawi is Cleared For Release
Well good news, maybe.... we shall see. I learned a few days ago that Al-Ghizzawi has been cleared for release.

Sunday, June 14, 2009
Oh man, We cannot do this to people...Urgent request
As I mentioned, I have been holed up at the secret place for the last while....it is a miserable experience.... but I smiled as I watched the reports about the four Uighers finally finding a home in Bermuda (click on the title for one of the stories).... now the Bermudians (?) are getting whipped up into a frenzy and threatening to call a no-confidence vote on the current administration for allowing these men, who have been accused of nothing and found to be totally innocent....into the country. Please write letters (to the editor) to your local papers speaking as loudly as possible in praise of the humanitarian decency shown by the Bermuda government. Statements should praise in particular premier Dr. Ewart Brown.
I guess I should not have to mention this but this request goes beyond the Uighers. If Brown gets a no confidence vote for doing the right thing...how many countries do you think will be willing to help us close Guantanamo by taking the innocent men that have long been held?

Saturday, June 13, 2009
chipping away at the torture lawyers....
Speaking of Torture...
Check out this from the emptywheel.... and this second post that followed.
Sign on for torture accountability!

The Attorney General's reluctance to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate potential crimes by former officials involved in torturing detainees is endangering our nation's fundamental values and our credibility as a worldwide human rights leader.

Take a stand today by signing BORDC's letter to Attorney General Eric Holder and the Senate Intelligence Committee demanding accountability for torture. We will be sending a series of letters, including some on behalf of individuals practicing particular professions, reflecting the unique challenges they face.

• Letter open to all signers

• Letter signed by legal professionals

• Letter signed by education professionals

• Letter signed by clergy and religious lay-leaders

Interesting Torture Timeline with Links
From Roger Fitch and Our Friends Down Under at Justinian
Roger Fitch Esq • June 9, 2009

Our Man in Washington
President Obama says he wants to close Guantánamo Bay … This Konzentrationslager was flawed from the start … There was no law to support the “enemy combatant” regime … Roger Fitch tracks the fate of some of the better known detainees

For all the items on Gitmo Blog Go here