Guantanamo Detainee Information

Analysis:

The story is based on an Associated Press request to get government documents declassified on the identity of the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay since the later part of 2001. Hundreds of pages of documents were released on who was being held in the prison under the category of “enemy combatant,” which the US administration says deprives the prisoners of Geneva Convention prisoner of war protections. A US military spokesperson said that “personal information on detainees was withheld solely to protect detainee privacy and their own security.” No one else was cited in this story, just an excerpt from a testimony from one of the prisoners.

As you can see more than half of the original AP story was omitted from the Press version. The major points of that content were that more details on some of the detainees and more commentary from the US military on why they wanted to keep the names classified. There is one sentence in the original AP story that reads “Human-rights monitors say keeping identities of prisoners secret can lead to abuses and deprive their families of information about their fate.” According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, a group that has been providing legal counsel to detainees “The evidence shows the government’s despicable torture of detainees has produced worthless information. Since the majority of detainees are not even affiliated with Al Qaeda, it is no wonder that they have few relevant facts to provide. After four years of illegal detentions and abuse, the government has failed to prove a legal, moral or security rationale for these actions. The new revelations confirm this failure, and it is time for comprehensive scrutiny and accountability of the Guantánamo detentions.” Readers should ask themselves why the issue of prisoner abuse was omitted from the story, especially when the US military claims were to “protect the prisoner privacy and security.”

Story:

Detainee information released
By MIRANDA LEITSINGER and BEN FOX

GUANTÁNAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba — The Pentagon says he had a rocket-propelled grenade launcher in his house.
Zahir Shah says he had only a rifle — for protection against a cousin in a family feud — and the only time he shot anything was when he hunted with a BB gun.

“What are we going to do with RPGs?” he asks, adding: “The only thing I did in Afghanistan was farming. … We grew wheat, corn, vegetables and watermelons.”

Shah’s is one of hundreds of stories contained in thousands of pages of transcripts released Friday by the Pentagon after four years of secrecy about exactly who it was holding in the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay. A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by The Associated Press forced the Pentagon to release the documents, which contain the names, hometowns and other information about detainees that the Bush administration had previously not made public.

A federal judge rejected administration arguments that releasing the identities would violate detainees’ privacy and could endanger them and their families.

The names were scattered throughout 5,000 pages of hearings transcripts, but no complete list was given and it was unclear how many names the documents contained. In most of the transcripts, the person speaking is identified only as “detainee.” Names appear only when court officials or detainees refer to people by name.

The men were mostly captured during the 2001 U.S.-led war that drove the Taliban from power in Afghanistan and sent Osama bin Laden deeper into hiding, and the newly released documents shed light on some of the detainees’ explanations.

Most of the Guantánamo Bay hearings were held to determine whether the detainees were “enemy combatants.”
That classification, Bush administration lawyers say, deprives the detainees of Geneva Conventions prisoner-of-war protections and allows them to be held indefinitely without charges.

“Personal information on detainees was withheld solely to protect detainee privacy and for their own security,” said Lt. Cmdr. Chito Peppler.

Text from the original article ommitted from the Grand Rapids Press version:

Human-rights monitors say keeping identities of prisoners secret can lead to abuses and deprive their families of information about their fate. About 490 prisoners are being held at Guantánamo Bay; only 10 have been charged with a crime.

In some cases, even having the name didn’t clarify the identity. In one document, the tribunal president asks a detainee if his name is Jumma Jan. The detainee responds that no, his name is Zain Ul Abedin.

In another document, a detainee identified as Abdul Hakim Bukhary denies he is a member of al-Qaida but acknowledges he traveled from his native Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan to fight U.S. forces and says he met bin Laden about 15 years ago while fighting Russians in Afghanistan.

He praises his captors for running a good prison. “Prisoners here are in paradise,” he says. “American people are very good. Really. They give us three meals. Fruit juice and everything!” Still, he says, he wants to return to his family.

It was not clear whether Shah and Bukhary are still being held. The documents do not name all current and former Guantánamo Bay detainees. And even when detainees are named, the documents do not make clear whether they have since been released.

The documents contain the names of some former prisoners, such as Moazzam Begg and Feroz Ali Abbasi, both British citizens. A handwritten note shows Abbasi pleading for prisoner-of-war status.

Documents released last year — also because of an Associated Press Freedom of Information Act lawsuit — included transcripts of 317 hearings, but had the detainees’ names and nationalities blacked out. The current documents are the same ones; this time, uncensored.

A U.S. military spokesman at Guantánamo Bay said the Pentagon was uneasy about handing over the transcripts.

He said the Defense Department remains concerned that the disclosure “could result in retribution or harm to the detainees or their families.”

Buz Eisenberg, a lawyer for a detainee, said he hopes the uncensored documents can help clear his client. “We have been trying to litigate a case without ever knowing what the allegations were that the government claimed justified his continued detention,” Eisenberg said.

Eisenberg did not want to name his client because he had not asked the man for permission. The documents could shed light on the scope of an insurgency still battling U.S. troops in Afghanistan, in part by detailing how Muslims from many countries wound up fighting alongside the Taliban there.

Abdul Gappher, an ethnic Uighur, says he traveled from China to Afghanistan, passing through Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan, in June 2001 to “get some training to fight back against the Chinese government.” But he denied doing anything against the United States. He was captured in Pakistan and said Pakistani police officers “sold us to the U.S. government.”

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff of New York ruled in favor of the AP last week, a major development in a protracted legal battle. In the ongoing litigation, the AP has also asked the Pentagon to release a complete list of all detainees ever held at the prison on a U.S. Navy base in eastern Cuba.

Some of the testimony seemed bound to embarrass the military. Abbasi complains that on two occasions, military police officers had sex in front of him, while others tried to feed him “a hot plate of pork,” food banned by the Islamic faith.

Some, he said, misled him into praying north toward the United States rather than toward Mecca as Muslims are required to do. Like the other detainees, Abbasi wasn’t allowed to see classified evidence against him. He repeatedly cited international law in arguing that he was unfairly classified as an enemy combatant.

An Air Force colonel whose identity remains blacked out would have none of it. “Mr. Abbasi, your conduct is unacceptable and this is your absolute final warning. I do not care about international law. I do not want to hear the words international law again. We are not concerned about international law,” the colonel says. Then he has Abbasi removed from the courtroom.

Last year, Judge Rakoff ordered the government to ask each detainee whether he or she wanted personal identifying information to be turned over to the AP as part of the lawsuit.

Of 317 detainees who received the form, 63 said yes, 17 said no, 35 returned the form without answering and 202 declined to return the form.