Guantanamo

Articles

• After Guantanamo : The case against preventive detention

  28 April 2008, by Roth Kenneth
  The U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become a stain on the United States’ reputation. Shutting it down will cause new problems. Rather than hold terrorism suspects in preventive detention, the United States should turn them over to its criminal justice system.

• Portuguese involvement in renditions to Guantanamo

  5 February 2008, by Reprieve
  UK charity Reprieve have today released a report – the ‘Journey of Death’ – which conclusively shows that Portuguese territory and airspace has been used to transfer over 700 prisoners to torture and illegal imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay

• US Court blocks transfer of Guantanamo detainee to Tunisia for threat of torture

  22 October 2007, by United States District Court for the District of Columbia
  On 2nd October the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction blocking the transfer of a Guantanamo Bay detainee to Tunisia. The petitioner has been detained in Guantanamo Bay since an undisclosed date. On 15th May 2007 the US Government intended to transfer him out of Guantanamo Bay and to release him to the Government of Tunisia.

• Guantánamo: violation of human rights and international law?

  3 October 2007, by Conseil de l’Europe
  What are the rights of the prisoners held by the United States at the base in Guantánamo Bay? Is their imprisonment lawful? Should we be thinking about strengthening the Geneva Conventions and changing international law? The Parliamentary Assembly, and hence the 47 member states of the Council of Europe, has spoken with one voice, condemning this flagrant violation of human rights and demanding the closure of the Guantánamo detention centre.

• Guantánamo : une violation des droits de l’homme et du droit international ?

  3 octobre 2007, par Conseil de l’Europe
  Quels sont les droits des personnes détenues par les Etats-Unis sur la base de Guantánamo Bay ? Quelle est la légalité de leur détention ? Faut-il s’interroger sur un développement des conventions de Genève et une évolution du droit international ? L’Assemblée parlementaire, et à travers elle les 47 Etats membres du Conseil de l’Europe, a parlé d’une seule voix, dénonçant la violation flagrante des droits de l’homme et demandant la fermeture du centre de détention de Guantánamo.

• Guantánamo. Amnesty International regrette la décision de la Cour d’appel relative à la Loi sur les commissions militaires

  26 février 2007, par Amnesty International
  Amnesty International déplore la décision de la Cour d’appel des États-Unis, qui a statué ce mardi 20 février que les tribunaux fédéraux n’avaient pas compétence pour entendre les requêtes en habeas corpus (procédure permettant la comparution immédiate d’un détenu devant une autorité judiciaire, afin de contester la légalité de la détention, et de permettre ainsi une éventuelle remise en liberté)des détenus de Guantánamo. Bien que d’un avis partagé, la Cour a maintenu que la Loi sur les commissions militaires, signée par le Président Bush en octobre de l’année dernière, avait rétroactivement ôté aux tribunaux toute compétence pour entendre de telles requêtes.

• Desafío(s) 2 : TORTURAS Y ABUSO DE PODER

  21 de febrero de 2007, por Observatorio del sistema Penal y los Derechos Humanos
  Torture and abuse of power can not be considered nowadays inappropriate or meaningless references. Torture has always constituted an abuse of power of any kind: physical, economical, authoritarian, political. Even if these subjects have been of great importance for the construction of the juridical and political culture in Occident since the beginning of Modernity, it is also essential to continue talking about them today. Nowadays we talk about all these behaviors worldwide, and this is why we have considered important to face this subject on this publication, specially when we know torture still exists in every corner of this world through the most horrible abuses of power.

• Internments: CPT and other camps

  19 February 2007, by Conflitti globali
  This issue of Conflitti globali is introduced by a map – the one produced by the research collective Migreurop – which effectively suggests the idea of the European Union as a big cage: almost two hundreds facilities dedicated to internment, control, and identification of migrants and displaced people. The visual effect of the map is therefore of a «chicken pox», whose spots are mainly concentrated within the current EU border, extending nonetheless their propagation to the EU candidates countries or to particular «mandatory» states – Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia –, as well as to countries with which Europe keeps uncertain and ambivalent relations, like Putin’s Russia or Gheddafi’s Libya.

• Internamenti cpt e altri campi

  5 febbraio 2007, di Conflitti globali
  Se guardate attentamente la cartina riprodotta nell’apertura di questo numero, potete farvi un’idea dell’Europa in gabbia. Circa duecento strutture dedicate all’internamento, al controllo e all’identificazione dei migranti. Non solo in Europa, ma anche nei paesi candidati e aspiranti all’ingresso nella Ue, nei tributari, come Marocco, Algeria e Tunisia, e in quelli con cui l’Europa intrattiene relazioni complesse, oscillanti tra la connivenza e il sospetto, come la Russia di Putin. La cartina ricorda irresistibilmente la dislocazione delle legioni e delle guarnigioni all’epoca in cui l’impero romano, ancora unificato, cominciava a mettersi sulla difensiva, diciamo da Marco Aurelio in poi.

• Human Rights Watch : World Report 2007

  5 February 2007, by Human Rights Watch
  What government is today’s champion of human rights? Washington’s potentially powerful voice no longer resonates after the US government’s use of detention without trial and interrogation by torture. The administration of President George W. Bush can still promote «democracy»—the word it uses to avoid raising the thorny subject of human rights—but it cannot credibly advocate rights that it flouts.

• Guantánamo – Dossier d’information pour le cinquième anniversaire

  26 décembre 2006, par Amnesty International
  À la veille du cinquième anniversaire des premiers transferts vers le centre de détention des États-Unis à Guantánamo (Cuba) – le 11 janvier 2007 – Amnesty International rend public un dossier qui contient des informations importantes et des analyses sur la situation des droits humains dans ce centre de détention.

• Joint statement by PACE President René van der Linden and Dick Marty, rapporteur on alleged secret detentions and illegal transfer of detainees

  9 October 2006, by Conseil de l’Europe
  René van der Linden, President of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE), and Senator Dick Marty, Chair of its Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights and rapporteur on alleged secret detentions and illegal transfers of detainees, at a meeting of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights in Strasbourg, reaffirmed the Assembly’s determination to uncover the whole truth on this matter, in particular as regards the role played by European countries in aiding and abetting abuses committed by the CIA. Putting the whole truth on the table is important as a matter of principle, and in order to deter future violations.

• Dick Marty, rapporteur de l’APCE sur les détentions secrètes, compte se rendre à Guantanamo Bay

  9 October 2006, by Conseil de l’Europe
  Dick Marty (Suisse, ADLE), qui enquête sur les allégations de détentions secrètes et de transferts illégaux de détenus pour l’Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l’Europe (APCE), a annoncé qu’il avait l’intention de se rendre à Guantanamo Bay en compagnie de Manfred Nowak, Rapporteur spécial des Nations Unies sur la torture.

• Dick Marty dévoile une « toile d’araignée » mondiale de détentions et transferts pratiqués par les Etats-Unis, et évoque la collusion active de certains Etats membres du Conseil de l’Europe

  11 septembre 2006, par Conseil de l’Europe, Marty Dick
  Dick Marty, rapporteur de l’Assemblée parlementaire du Conseil de l’Europe, a dévoilé aujourd’hui ce qu’il appelle une « toile d’araignée » mondiale des détentions et des transferts de la CIA. Il a cité sept Etats membres du Conseil de l’Europe qui, par collusion, peuvent être tenus pour responsables, à des degrés divers, de violations des droits de personnes nommément désignées.

• Combattre le terrorisme, ou comment les Etats s’éloignent du chemin des droits de l’Homme

  11 September 2006, by Fédération internationale des ligues des droits de l’Homme (FIDH)
  A la veille du cinquième anniversaire des attentats du 11 septembre, Georges W. Bush a admis l’existence d’un programme de détention au secret de la CIA dans une allocution concernant le transfert de 14 terroristes présumés de ces centres vers celui de Guantanamo.

• Sentence of the Spanish Supreme Court about a Muslim Spanish citizen

  26 July 2006, by Spanish Supreme Court
  The Spanish Supreme Court declared null yesterday the sentence of conviction against a Muslim Spanish citizen by the Audiencia Nacional (the highest Spanish court on criminal matters).That sentence (of the AN) considered true that the accused was a member of a yihadist group and that he was in favor of international terrorism, despite the lack of evidences and of the declaration of the accused against Al Qaeda and against the death of innocents caused by terrorist actions.

• Pentagon Breaks with Bush on Detentions

  12 July 2006, by The Guardian
  In a memo yesterday, the Pentagon said that Article 3 of the Geneva Convention would apply to the Guantanamo detainees. The memo was the result of the US Supreme Court Decision which ruled that military tribunals for the Guantanamo detainees are illegal. However, the White House spokesperson, Tony Snow, indicated that any policy changes would need to be consistent with national security.

• Beyond and Before the Law at Guantanamo

  12 July 2006, by Cutler Schershow Scott , Michaelson Scott
  The article explores the status of the Guantanamo detainees and argues that the category of ‘unlawful combatant’ has always been foundational to the laws of war, being applied to ‘spies’ or other irregular participants in an armed conflict. Thus, the predicament of the Guantanamo detainees is ‘the very manifestation of the existing state system and its corollary values’. Critics of Guantanmo cannot rely on international law or in the exercise of sovereignty. The authors’ suggestion is that sovereignty itself must be torqued in a strange reversal, and made to work against itself. Sovereignty must be ‘expended without reserve in the name, not of law, but of justice, to the point where the territory and its boundary tremble’.

• An Interview with Giorgio Agamben

  12 July 2006, by Raulff Ulrich
  In this interview, Agamben discusses his latest book, The State of Exception, in relation to the latest developments in the ‘war on terror’. Methodologically, he makes a distinction between the camp as a ‘paradigm’ compared to other forms of sociological investigation. A ‘paradigm’, he argues, can be used to understand large historical structures. He also indicates that the ‘absence of law’ entailed by the state of exception is not the absence of governance. A double structure of the system, governance through law and governance through management, needs therefore to be considered.

• Guantanamo Limbo

  12 July 2006, by Butler Judith
  Judith Butler discusses the ‘exception’ of naming the detainees at Guantanamo as ‘illegal combatants’ rather than POWs from a different perspective than Giorgio Agamben’s. For Butler, the exception is an exception to the universality of human rights. At the same time, Butler acknowledges that the Geneva Conventions display their own exceptions to the universal. The Geneva Conventions only refer to state-centred conflict taking place in ‘already established and recognizable forms’. According to Butler, the Conventions also concede that there are ‘uncivilized people’ who create ‘unique situations’ that require unique measures.

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