NGO calls on ECtHR to intervene in military commissions case of Al Nashiri

The Open Society Justice Initiative is calling on the European Court of Human Rights to intervene urgently in the first death penalty case to be tried by US military commissions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, involving Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. In an application to the Court, OSI argues that Poland violated al-Nashiri’s rights under articles 2, 3 [...]

In which detention schemes do the 172 remaining Guantanamo Bay detainees fit?

After President Obama signed his Executive Order on Periodic Review, I didn’t find immediately a handy breakdown of the number of detainees which fitted into the new detention schemes introduced by this order. These numbers are derived from a public presentation of the US Department of State I recently attended: 59 detainees are currently approved [...]

AP offers details about prolonged confinement about detainees at classified detention sites in Afghanistan

The Associated Press reported yesterday on the existence of “classified detention sites” being run by the Joint Special Operations Command in Afghanistan, where detainees are held for “weeks” in secret for the purposes of interrogation. Daphne Eviatar, a senior associate at Human Rights First, recently interviewed several former detainees who had been held at these [...]

Testimony from Bagram’s black jail

As reported on the Afghanistan Analysts Network: After our arrest we were first taken to Tor Jail, or the Black Jail. It was terrible. They didn’t treat us like humans at all. They didn’t allow us to sleep. There was nothing to cover ourselves with. They insulted the Quran. Whenever we were taken to the [...]

Pakistani government and ICRC at odds over access to detainees and applicablity of Geneva Conventions

Dawn reports that the Pakistani government has refused to allow the ICRC to visit jails in Khyber Paktunkhwa and Balochistan in order to visit hundreds of prisoners under charges of militancy and insurgency in Khyber and FATA. According to the ICRC and armed conflict exists in Pakistan’s north-West area, while Pakistan denies this and says [...]

MI5 short of surveillance officers says minister

The BBC reports that the UK government has revealed MI5 does not have enough spies to allow it to abolish control orders immediately. Security Minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones said the  Security Service needed to recruit and train more surveillance officers. Ministers want to introduce a lighter touch regime, which depends on more surveillance, by the [...]

CCR sues ‘Guantanamo North’ detention facilities in Aref et al v. Holder

NPR has a story about the “Communications Management Units” in Terre Haute, Ind., and Marion, Ill. The special detention unit in Terre Haute contains 50 cells housing some of the people the U.S. describes as the “country’s biggest security threats”, including John Walker Lindh. The units’ population has included men convicted in well-known post-Sept. 11 [...]

US Supreme Court to Hear Material Witness Case Ashcroft vs. al-Kidd

The Supreme Court will hear arguments on March 2 in Mr. Kidd’s lawsuit against John Ashcroft, who was President George W. Bush’s first attorney general. It is this term’s only major national security case, and it will give the court an opportunity to weigh in on an issue that has divided Western democracies: when may [...]

UK draft detention of terrorist suspects (temporary extension) bill

The UK Home Secretary’s recent review of counter terrorism and security powers recommended a reduction in the maximum period of pre charge detention for terrorist suspects from 28 to 14 days. To deal with any exceptional circumstances the review also recommended the publication of draft emergency legislation which could be introduced where more than 14 [...]

George Bush calls off trip to Switzerland amid fear of violence at demonstration… or an arrest warrant

The Guardian reports that George W Bush has had to call off a trip to Switzerland next weekend amid planned protests by human rights groups over the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay and the threat of a warrant for his arrest. The visit would have been Bush’s first to Europe since he admitted in [...]