Welcome

Add your signature to a Close Guantanamo petition here.

The petition by Morris Davis, first Chief Prosecutor for Guantanamo Bay military commissions, on Change.org, has garnered more than 200,000 signatures and is on the way toward a goal of 300,000.

Obama says Gitmo needs to close; call him now!

At a 4/30/13 White House news conference, President Obama said:

"Guantánamo is not necessary to keep America safe. It is expensive. It is inefficient. It hurts us in terms of our international standing. It lessens cooperation with our allies on counterterrorism efforts. It is a recruitment tool for extremists. It needs to be closed."

If this is what you've wanted to hear, don't let this day pass without calling the president and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel!

Wikileaks releases US DOD detainee policies

Find them here.

Guantánamo prisoner Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif died at the prison

On September 8, Adnan Latif of Yemen was found dead in his cell.  Latif had spent 11 years in the prison despite having been cleared in 2004 by the Bush administration and in 2009 by a judge reviewing Latif's habeas petition.

Here is a poem Latif wrote in the prison.  The poem was published in the book Poems from Guantánamo:

They are artists of torture,
They are artists of pain and fatigue,
They are artists of insults and humiliation.

Where is the world to save us from torture?
Where is the world to save us from the fire and sadness?
Where is the world to save the hunger strikers?

Read more.

Another Guantánamo prisoner repatriated, but not those who are cleared

In 2010, Ibrahim al Qosi pled guilty to being an Al Qaeda foot soldier and driver to Osama bin Laden.  This week, he returned to his native Sudan.  Of the 168 prisoners who remain in Guantánamo, nearly 100 have been cleared unanimously by the U.S. government because they pose no danger to the U.S. or its allies.  However, they are going nowhere, either because they have no country to return to or because their country is Yemen.  Give these men a place to go.

Berkeley (CA) City Council passes a resolution supporting Guantanamo closure, justice for detainees 

Read the October 25, 2011, resolution here; news release here.  Berkeley is now the third municipality, and the first city, to welcome cleared detainees who cannot safely return to their home countries.

The situation

The Bush administration created the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, a prison at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, and other offshore prisons as "law-free zones" that it believed were exempt from U.S. and international law, including the Geneva Conventions and the nearly 800-year-old writ of habeas corpus. The U.S. Supreme Court disagrees.

Be part of the solution

• Engage the public in a fact-based dialogue about the planned closure of Guantánamo Bay prison and U.S. detainee policy
• Transform prisoners’ images in the U.S. from faceless, nameless “terrorists” to human beings who deserve human rights and a presumption of innocence until proven guilty
• Use prisoners’ stories to overcome unfounded fears of prisoners in your community

New!

• New videos include a March 30 conversation on U.S. detention policies featuring Pardiss Kebriaei of the Center for Constitutional Rights and Michael Sullivan of Ashcroft Sullivan, and weekly vigils of the Des Moines Anti-Torture Collective.
• Show the remaining prisoners that the world has not forgotten them.  Write a letter or send a card today.

• Updated toolkit to support grassroots public education about the planned closure of  Guantánamo Bay prison, using prisoners' stories to overcome musunderstandings about the prisoners.
• Bagram Prison annotated list of prisoners compiled by Andy Worthington. 

Newest resolution

• Read the resolution here.
• Read news release here.
• Watch a 20-minute video of a public forum supporting the resolution here.