There are steps President Barack Obama could take right now to expedite the closing of Guantanamo Bay prison camps, where prisoners currently engaged in a major hunger strike continue to be held in detention. Yet, Obama and his defenders insist Congress is solely responsible for why the prison continues to be open and why prisoners [...]

Considering the way the military has handled the situation at Guantanamo — forbidding reporters at the island, making nice to the ICRC only to conduct violent raids on detainees as soon as Red Cross officials leave, force-feeding hunger-striking detainees against all medical ethics and protocols — you’d think the Pentagon thought they had another Koje-Ko prison camp rebellion on their hands.

Apparently the White House was notified in advance of the nighttime raids on the debilitated hunger strikers, who according to military accounts (which one must take with maximum suspicion), fought back with mop and broom handles and plastic water bottles.

Whatever military police met in terms of opposition, what they certainly encountered were emaciated prisoners, worn down by years of interrogation, isolation, brutality, and now hunger, as they wield the only real weapons they know, their very bodies, choosing death over the hopelessness and torture that is indefinite detention.

President Barack Obama signed the intelligence authorization bill—the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). Included in the bill were restrictions that would make it harder for his administration to transfer detainees from Guantanamo Bay prison and the Bagram prison in Afghanistan. Human rights groups, which had opposed the restrictions and urged the president to veto the [...]

A military judge has ruled that statements made by defendants on trial for their involvement in the September 11th attacks could be censored if they make statements about how they were tortured or abused. Judge Col. James Pohl ruled the government had “submitted declarations…from representatives of the CIA, [Department of Defense], and FBI invoking the [...]

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terror suspects had a pre-trial hearing before the Guantanamo Bay commission just over two weeks ago. And, yesterday, The Nation published a dispatch on the proceedings that is well worth reading and I wrote about how the government maintains the Guantanamo defendants’ thoughts and memories of torture at the hands of CIA [...]

Just over two weeks ago, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 terror suspects had a pre-trial hearing before the Guantanamo Bay commission. The judge presiding over the commission is Army Colonel James L. Pohl. Key issues argued were whether a forty-second daly between the press and courtroom was constitutional and whether the suspects could testify about [...]

(update below) Five individuals accused of being involved in the September 11th attacks were arraigned and formally charged by a military commission at Guantanamo Bay over the weekend. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam Al-Hawsawi, as required by the Constitution and the Military [...]

Five individuals suspected of being involved in plotting the September 11th attacks are due for arraignment on May 5. They are to be formally charged with “terrorism-related crimes that could bring the death penalty if the defendants are convicted.” And, as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reports, the government under the Obama administration is [...]

A new report published by the United Kingdom-based new organization The Guardian highlights the rendition and torture of a Libyan militant, who led the fight against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, and his pregnant wife. Making use of documents uncovered in Tripoli after Gaddafi was defeated by coalition and rebel forces last year, the report pays particular [...]

The military commissions system, a system that many civil liberties groups consider to be a second-class system of justice, will be used to prosecute Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others, who are accused of being involved in the September 11th attacks. The Defense Department also may give Mohammed and the four others the death penalty [...]