human rights

Reuters reports: It’s been dubbed the most expensive prison on Earth and President Barack Obama cited the cost this week as one of many reasons to shut down the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, which burns through some $900,000 (£577,886) per prisoner annually. The Pentagon estimates it spends about $150 million each year to operate [...]

Laura Pitter writes: President Barack Obama finally broke his long silence on Tuesday on the need to close Guantanamo. Echoing comments he made four years ago — when, on his second day in office he promised to close the facility within a year — he said “Guantanamo is not necessary to keep America safe. It [...]

The Guardian reports: The lawyer who first drew up White House policy on lethal drone strikes has accused the Obama administration of overusing them because of its reluctance to capture prisoners that would otherwise have to be sent to Guantánamo Bay. John Bellinger, who was responsible for drafting the legal framework for targeted drone killings [...]

The presidential commentator-in-chief says that Guantánamo is not sustainable — and 100 prisoners on hunger strike seems to reinforce that observation. But Obama used to like to talk about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and say “the status quo is not sustainable”. Both of these sound like the observations of a powerless bystander — someone who can [...]

Jason Leopold reports: Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld once declared that individuals captured by the US military in the aftermath of 9/11 and shipped off to the Guantanamo Bay prison facility represented the “worst of the worst.” During a radio interview in June 2005, Rumsfeld said the detainees at Guantanamo, “all of whom were [...]

The Observer reports: The last British resident being held in Guantánamo Bay may never be allowed to return to his family in London because of an alleged “secret deal” between US authorities, Saudi Arabia and the British security services. Shaker Aamer, 46, has been in the Cuban detention centre for more than 11 years without [...]

The Miami Herald reports: Confronted with claims that a portion of the Pentagon computer system used by defense lawyers is not secure, the chief Guantánamo judge Thursday postponed until June next week’s hearings in an ongoing death penalty trial at the war court in Cuba. Army Col. James L. Pohl, the judge, agreed to delay [...]

New York Times editorial: The hunger strike that has spread since early February among the 166 detainees still at Guantánamo Bay is again exposing the lawlessness of the system that marooned them there. The government claims that around 40 detainees are taking part. Lawyers for detainees report that their clients say around 130 detainees in [...]

Andrew Cohen writes: “It’s a very tricky theme to play out politically,” law professor and longtime Obama devotee Geoffrey Stone is quoted saying without a trace of irony or regret near the end of The Terror Courts: Rough Justice at Guantanamo Bay, Jess Bravin’s excellent new book. The book focuses on the epic and continuing [...]