US opens new Bagram detention facility

By the end of the month, the U.S. military plans to begin moving the first of its approximately 700 detainees at Bagram air field to a new $60 million holding complex. By the end of the year all the detainees are expected to move from the current Bagram prison to the new facility. The new [...]

Terrorists smuggle fatwas out of secure prisons in Britain

Georgetown SLB reports that some of Britain’s most dangerous Al-Qaeda leaders are promoting jihad from inside high-security prisons by smuggling out propaganda for the internet and finding recruits. In a report, Quilliam, a think tank funded by the Home Office, claims “mismanagement” by the Prison Service is helping Al-Qaeda gain recruits and risks “strengthening jihadist [...]

New HRW report on Chinese secret detention sites

Since 2003, large numbers of Chinese citizens have been held incommunicado for days or months in secret, unlawful detention facilities known as “black jails” by state agents who violate detainees’ rights with impunity, Human Rights Watch said in a new report. Human Rights Watch found that it is usually petitioners who are detained in black [...]

200,000 people remain trapped in Sri Lankan detainee camps

Facing pressure from the Obama administration and the European Union, the Sri Lankan government last month launched a campaign to resettle tens of thousands of the minority Tamil detainees. But interviews in the country’s war-ravaged north reveal that many civilians have merely been shuffled from the large camps to smaller transit ones and are being [...]

Rights group urges US government to reform Afghanistan detainee policy

[JURIST] The US should reform its detention policy at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan in order to combat counterinsurgency, according to a report released Thursday by Human Rights First (HRF). HRF called on the governments of the US and Afghanistan to reach an agreement that “set[s] forth grounds and procedures for detention in accordance with [...]

Report of UN Special Rapporteur on Counterterrorism on his mission to Egypt

An advanced edited version of the UN Special Rapporteur’s report on Egypt is out now. (A/HRC/13/37/Add.2, 14 October 2009). It will be discussed at the Human RIghts Council’s Thirteenth Session in March 2010.

In this report the Special Rapporteur examines the emergency law, criminal law provisions on terrorist crimes, and amended article 179 of the Constitution [...]

al-Marri sentenced on conspiracy charges

[JURIST] Suspected al Qaeda sleeper agent Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri was sentenced Thursday to eight-and-a-half years in prison for conspiracy to help the terrorist organization, including researching potential targets within the US for chemical weapon attacks. The sentence was less than the 15 years sought by federal prosecutors. In handing down the lesser sentence, District [...]

Documents detail conditions found at secret CIA jails

Newly released documents show the FBI interviewed a naked, chained Ramzi Binalshibh back in 2002 as the bureau struggled with the CIA over how to treat high-value prisoners. According to one document, FBI officials told investigators when they arrived at the unidentified CIA site “the detainees were manacled to the ceiling and subjected to blaring [...]

Israeli NGOs release report on security administrative detention in Israel

The Israeli human rights NGOs B’tselem and Hamoked published a detailed report analysing and criticizing the legal regime and practical use of administrative detention on security grounds in Israel. The report calls on the government of Israel to immediately cease using the Internment of Unlawful Combatants Law and to take action to repeal it.

Did the Defense Department Stop Reporting Deaths of Detainees in U.S. Custody?

Dr. Steven Miles, a professor at the University of Minnesota Medical School and faculty member of its Center for Bioethics, for years tried to track the deaths of “war on terror” detainees being held in U.S. custody. The author of the book “Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity and America’s War on Terror,” published in 2006 [...]