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Posts tagged: detainees

detainees

American politics grounded in fear, ignorance and fantasy: New special report on Afghans in Guantanamo, as US prepares to withdraw troops

Kate Clark •

President Joe Biden has announced that American troops will leave Afghanistan before 11 September 2021, a day that will mark twenty years since al-Qaeda attacked the United States and drew US forces to Afghanistan. Another anniversary is also looming: it will soon be twenty years since President George Bush opened the Guantanamo Bay detention camp […]

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New Special Report from AAN: “Kafka in Cuba, a Follow-Up Report: Afghans Still in Detention Limbo as Biden Decides What to do with Guantanamo”

Kate Clark •

As newly-elected United States President Joe Biden considers what to do with the almost two-decades-old ‘war on terror’ detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, we publish a special report on the last Afghans held there. Two Nangraharis, Asadullah Harun Gul and Mohammad Rahim, have both been detained since 2007. We also trace the fates […]

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Police and NDS Torture: One in three security detainees tortured, despite long-term downward trend

Kate Clark •

UNAMA and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have released their latest report on the treatment of conflict-related detainees in Afghanistan. They found only the slightest reduction in the reporting of torture and ill-treatment since 2017-18, with torture still being used against 30 per cent – or one in […]

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Freed at Last: Three Afghans sent to Guantanamo in 2002 and 2003 are finally home

Kate Clark •

Three Afghans, who were detained and rendered to the US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and 2003, and then transferred to the United Arab Emirates 2016 and what turned out to be further incarceration, have been released. Obaidullah and Mohammed Karim from Khost and Hamidullah from Kabul have also been allowed to return […]

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Afghanistan’s Foreign Security Detainees: How many are there and what to do with them?

Kate Clark •

Afghanistan remains an attractive place for international jihadists to come and fight, despite the competing appeal of Syria, Iraq and elsewhere. Since the post-2001 insurgency broke out, foreign fighters have come from Pakistan, Central Asia and the Arab world, some bringing their families. An unknown number have ended up in Afghan detention. More information about […]

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Abdul Zahir was detained by the US from his home in 2002 after a false tip-off that he had weapons of mass destruction. He has had successive "major depressive episodes” in Guantanamo. In July 2016, he was cleared for transfer, but is still waiting to get out. (Photo: New York Times)

Waiting for Release: Will Afghans cleared to leave Guantanamo get out before Trump gets in?

Kate Clark •

American president-elect Donald Trump has said that no more detainees should be transferred out of America’s war on terror detention camp in Guantanamo Bay. He takes office on 20 January 2017, which leaves the Obama administration just a few days to get men cleared for transfer out of Cuba. Among those waiting to see if […]

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Afghan detainees at Guantanamo Bay (Left to Right): Hamidullah, Bostan Karim, Abdul Zahir, Haji Wali Mohammed and Obaidullah. Photo: New York Times

Kafka in Cuba: New AAN report on the Afghan experience in Guantánamo

Kate Clark •

A major new report from AAN’s Kate Clark looks at the Afghan experience in Guantanamo, where a quarter of the total number of detainees held were Afghan, the largest national group. The report takes a ‘deep dive’ into the cases of eight of the longest-serving Afghan detainees. Five are still in Cuba, while three were […]

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Detainee assessment report cover

From Guantanamo to the UAE: A scrutiny of the three Afghan transfer cases

Kate Clark •

Three of the eight remaining Afghans detained by the United States in Guantanamo have been transferred to the United Arab Emirates. The three had each spent 13 or 14 years in detention. None were captured on the battlefield, but detained after tip-offs or were handed over to the US by Afghan forces. Their files reveal […]

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There are no known pictures of Mohammed Kamin, now cleared for release from Guantanamo. Even the US military’s intelligence Assessment of him has only a blacked out face.

Kafka in Cuba 3: Afghan who wore the wrong type of watch to be released from Guantanamo

Kate Clark •

One of the eight Afghans still detained at Guantanamo Bay, Mohammad Kamin, has been cleared for release after a new review board assessed it was no longer necessary to detain him. Kamin, now in his late 30s and from Khost, has been incarcerated for 12 years, a third of his life. The United States believed […]

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The remainders of the US' foreign detainees in Bagram: two Tunisians, two Tajiks, one Egyptian, and one Uzbek. (The photo shows other prisoners.) Photo: Khaama Press

The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (13): What should Afghanistan do with America’s foreign detainees?

Kate Clark •

The United States bequeathed Afghanistan a huge problem when it finally and completely transferred its detention facility at Bagram to the Afghan government in December 2014. For the previous 12 months, it had been urgently trying to get rid of all of the 50 or so foreigners it held there. In the end, it failed […]

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AAN’s Kate Clark on closure of Bagram Detention Facility in Afghanistan, and the fate of the detainees.

Kate Clark •

In conversation with AAN’s country director Kate Clark on closure of the Bagram Detention Facility in Afghanistan, and what will be the fate of the detainees?

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The ‘Other Guantanamo’ (10): Bagram closing: Lawyers worried about ‘ghost detainees’ (an update)

Kate Clark •

Pakistani lawyers have told AAN they fear that when the United States closes its detention facility at Bagram at the end of the year, there may still be ‘ghost detainees’, men whose names, identities – and fate – remains unknown to the outside world. Since the earliest days of the war, the United States has […]

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