"A growing feeling here that death is the road out of Guantanamo"

"What would you do if your brother or uncle was kidnapped, sold, and beaten in a prison for 11 years without charge?"

So says the question prominently posted at a Facebook site ("Free Fayiz and Fawzi") dedicated to the two remaining Kuwaiti prisoners at Guantanamo, 36-year-old Fayiz Al-Kandari and 35-year-old Fawzi Al-Odah. Both men have been in Guantanamo for over ten years. Neither of them have ever been charged in any court with any wrongdoing. Both men were doing charitable work in Afghanistan when they were caught up in the chaos after 9/11 and the subsequent U.S. attack there.

Both men are on a hunger strike, reportedly along with many others at Guantanamo. Both have endured harsh interrogation and torture during their years in U.S. custody.

Air Force JAG, Lt. Col. Barry Wingard, military attorney for Fayiz, has been in Guantanamo for the past week or so, and has seen first hand the effects of the hunger strike on his client. Wingard, who understandably is quite concerned for his clients, told The Dissenter al Kandari has lost "substantial weight," over 23 pounds in the last three to four weeks, or since the hunger strike began. He said Fayiz is now down to 120 pounds, and Fawzi weighs 123.

March 4, Kevin Gosztola explained in The Dissenter the details surrounding the current hunger strike at Guantanamo, the biggest in years.

The news of the hunger strike has hit the mainstream media, as exemplified by this report in The Atlantic. According to a story by Carol Rosenberg in the Miami Herald, military authorities state six of 166 prisoners are on hunger strike currently. Five are being force-fed. DoD spokespeople deny any widespread strike.

According to a March 5 article by Reuters, United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez reports "the Obama administration showed no sign of reversing its position and allowing him access to terrorism suspects in long-term detention at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp." In this, the Obama administration follows the policy of its predecessor, George W. Bush.

Meanwhile, Rosenberg in a new story yesterday describes a previously unreported incident of a non-lethal shooting of a detainee last January.

As a March 4 letter from Center for Constitutional Rights and numerous Guantanamo detainee attorneys to Rear Admiral John W. Smith, Jr., Commander, Joint Task Force Guantánamo and Gitmo's Staff Judge Advocate Captain Thomas J. Welsh states, the hunger strike began after prison authorities began confiscating detainees’ personal items, restricting exercise, and "searching the men’s Qur’ans in ways that constitute desecration according to their religious beliefs." The letter also charges "guards have been disrespectful during prayer times."

DoD denies any Qur'ans have been treated disrespectfully, or for that matter, any differently than they have been for years.

"Stress, Fear, and Despair"

Besides the alleged search of Qur'ans by guards, according to one entry at the Facebook page for Al-Kandari and Al-Odah, guards -- whether under orders or not -- were up to other shenanigans as well: "In response to the hunger strike, soldiers opened containers of food so the smell could fill the prison. The prisoners were then asked if they wanted one or two servings of food. The response with a big smile: 'Do you really think the smell of your food is stronger than our religion?'"

The CCR letter noted, "The practices occurring today threaten to turn back the clock to the worst moments of Guantánamo’s history, and return the prison to conditions that caused great suffering to our clients and were condemned by the public at large. If prior experience serves as any guide, the current practices risk dire consequences and will only invite outside scrutiny."

The letter detailed "reports of men coughing up blood, being hospitalized, losing consciousness, becoming weak and fatigued, and being moved to Camp V for observation. Detainees have also expressed feeling increased stress, fear, and despair."

Wingard told The Dissenter, "A larger issue is that there is a growing feeling here that death is the road out of GTMO."

Certainly Wingard is cognizant of the fate of another hunger striking detainee, Adnan Latif, who was found dead in his cell last September. Latif's death was quite mysterious, and the government has ruled it a "suicide" by drug overdose, complicated by pneumonia. However, Latif was "medically cleared" and returned to his cell less than 48 hours before he died. No authority has yet explained how he could have hidden drugs in a facility under constant surveillance and as a prisoner privy to numerous searches.

Wingard continued:

The last releases of any size occurred under the Bush administration. I think the prisoners correctly note that less than 20 will ever get trials. For those without evidence, President Obama in March of 2011 announced many will be indefinitely detained without ever having stepped into a courtroom.

For my Kuwaitis its especially bitter since the Kuwait has demanded the return of its sons, built a rehabilitation center at the behest of the Bush administration, currently hosts 13k US troops in Kuwait and purchases billions in military from the US. Certainly if Kuwait is not getting it two remaining sons Fayiz al Kandari and Fawzi al Ohda, then what country will?

Another pointed entry at the Free Fayiz and Fawzi Facebook page quotes Wingard: "Fayiz and Fawzi are on a hunger strike with other prisoners. I request a Kuwaiti delegation to immediately visit Guantánamo Bay. It is not enough to have secret delegations between two allies."

Another attorney for Fayiz, Adel Abdul Hadi said, "I blame the Government of Kuwait for not taking genuine steps to have the boys released. The unanimous recommendations of the Kuwait parliament ratified in 2012, condemning GTMO and demanding the return of the boys have been ignored by the government."

The "last Egyptian detained" at Guantanamo

The hunger strikers are not the only detainees whose lives are reportedly in danger. Fifty-five year old Tariq al-Sawah, "the last Egyptian detained in the US Guantanamo Bay facility," is in very poor and "deteriorating" health, "morbidly obese."

According to a June 3 story in the Egyptian Independent, Sawah's "military-appointed lawyer, Lieutenant Colonel Sean Gleason, has said three former Guantanamo commanders have provided letters indicating that he 'is not a threat and recommending he should be released'.... Beset with respiratory and heart complications, he is 'at significant risk' of death, according to a doctor. Authorities have refused him appropriate treatment, according to his doctor and lawyers, and continue to withhold his medical records."

In May 2011, another middle-aged obese detainee, Awal Gul, collapsed and died of a heart attack at Guantanamo. Questions have arisen about his death recently, as Jason Leopold at Truthout reports.


One could also ask how it is in such a controlled environment as Guantanamo that a prisoner could become "morbidly obese," having reportedly doubled his weight while imprisoned.


ICRC Rebukes Obama on Detainee Review

Along with Obama's March 2011 announcement of holding detainees indefinitely, the President also issued and executive order regarding a new review process for detainees held at Guantanamo. Obama said, referring to detainees that he indicated "in effect, remain at war with the United States," "We must have a thorough process of periodic review, so that any prolonged detention is carefully evaluated and justified."

But according to an article late last year at the Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration has failed in the past two years to institute any "process of periodic review." Article authors Julian E. Barnes and Evan Perez wrote, “The Obama administration has failed to re-evaluate the threat posed by dozens of prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, putting it at increasing odds with political allies who are angry with the president’s lack of action on the US terrorism-detention system.”

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) recently raised the issue of the lack of a review process "senior US officials at recent meetings in the US and in Geneva." According to Barnes and Perez, the ICRC "also has acknowledged its concerns publicly, a rare rebuke from an agency that usually works under strict neutrality and in confidence.”

As Andy Worthington pointed out in an article on February 28, "an unnamed senior official added, 'The detainees likely to be held long-term without trial pose a significant risk, and the threat they pose isn’t likely to have diminished since the initial review by the administration, meaning the delay in beginning the reviews hasn’t been consequential.'"

Worthington commented, "That is particularly disgraceful, because it indicates an acceptance, within the administration, of information that is fundamentally unreliable."

In fact, the Obama administration has shown that it has zero interest in administering justice for detainees at Guantanamo. It has publicly justified the indefinite detention of prisoners on hearsay evidence. It retired its Guantanamo special envoy, Daniel Fried, and then announced it had no intention to replace him. It continues to pursue deeply flawed military commissions trials, the laughing stock of the world, where even the judge in charge doesn't know who is in control of his courtroom, as the sudden suspension of audio feed to the press proved some weeks ago.

Disturbingly, last month, according to a report by Josh Wirtshafter at The Public Record, "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and two of his co-defendants, had returned to their cells after yesterday’s session to find their attorney-client mail ransacked— and much of it seized."

Detainee's Father: "this is illegal and against human rights"

A few months before the crackdown on prisoners at Guantanamo and the subsequent hunger strike, Fayiz told Al Jazeera what it was like for him at the U.S.-based Cuban prison camp: "I pray, I read the Qur’an, I work out two hours every day, and I socialize with other prisoners. Because of the insignificant medical care in Guantanamo Bay, I cannot afford being ill. I am already plagued with serious medical conditions such as permanent damage in my cervical spine. Therefore, I regularly practice physical exercise to boost my immune system and to prevent the onset of any disease. The International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] has done a poor job in effectively helping the prisoners. For example, the ICRC provides each prisoner with a phone call to their parents once every six to eight weeks instead of once every four weeks."

Fawzi’s father, Khalid Al-Odah, is the head of the Kuwaiti Family Committee, an organization formed by relatives of the detainees to advocate for their just treatment under the U.S. judicial system. The elder Al-Odah is a former member of the Kuwaiti Air Force, who trained with American servicemen in the United States and flew missions with them as an ally in the Persian Gulf War of 1991.

Last April, Khalid spoke about his son and Fayiz to Kuwati Times:

"We want the detainees back to be judged here. We fulfilled all the conditions and demands set by the US administration. We prepared the rehabilitation center for them to stay in when they return. We also agreed to apply security measures and observation on them, like the travel ban and other conditions, yet we didn’t notice any positive act from the US government... In fact, during Bush’s regime most detainees were released, but now only a few were released and they were even sent to a third nation and not their home country. Obama only talks much, but he is not practically helpful....

“Our lawyer there is still working on the case, but there is no result yet. The American government won’t allow a fair trial for them, and this is illegal and against human rights. We are also dealing and meeting with different NGOs and international organizations to help us in this injustice. We need support from the public, as the Kuwaiti government is not active."

It's been nearly a year since Fawzi's father spoke out. How long must this man wait to see his son?

Fawsi wrote to his father in 2002, while held by the Americans, "I will be established as innocent soon, and then I will return back to you..."

Meanwhile, Fayiz's attorney posted the following in a February 2013 Facebook entry: "We promised Fayiz we would not forget his brother, [British resident interned without charge at Guantanamo] Shaker Aamer. Fayiz would say, 'Shaker has four children, get him home first.' Then with humor he would add, 'don't think I don't want to go home' with a big smile."

Crossposted at The Dissenter/FDL

Chat Online with Military Attorneys Representing Guantanamo Prisoners

Virtually Speaking with Jay Ackroyd is hosting a an online discussion with two military attorneys who have represented detainees held at Guantanamo's prison. According to the website:

Lt. Col. Barry Wingard and Lt. Cmdr. Kevin Bogucki, the U.S. military attorneys for Kuwaiti Guantanamo Bay detainee Fayiz Al Kandari, will hold a virtual town hall meeting at Virtually Speaking Studios. The attorneys will share Fayiz’s story, discuss legal developments in his case, provide their views on the Obama administration’s detention policies and take questions from the audience.

Lt. Col. Wingard, a Judge Advocate General (JAG) in the Air Force, has served 26 years in the U.S. military and is a veteran of both the Bosnia and Iraq conflicts. Lt. Cmdr. Bogucki, a Judge Advocate General (JAG) in the Navy, previously represented former Kuwaiti detainee Fouad Al Rabiah, an innocent man who was released from Guantanamo Bay in December 2009.

Fayiz Al Kandari, who was sold into U.S. custody in 2001, has been imprisoned for more than eight years.

Time: April 26, 2010 from 6pm to 7pm
Location: http://slurl.com/secondlife/Virtually%20Speaking/158/138/32
Event Type: jsb
Organized By: BookemJackson Streeter for Jackson Street Books

Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed al-Kandari. Al-Kandari is a Kuwaiti citizen, who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since 2002. Al-Kandari's case has been championed by well-known blogger GottaLaff at The Political Carnival.

As I wrote last December:

Like a number of idealistic Muslims, Fayiz al-Kandari was caught up at a young age by the suffering of Muslims in the war in Bosnia. He became very active in charity work, and this work led him to Afghanistan....

But Fayiz became one of a number of Arabs (he is originally from a well-to-do Kuwaiti family) who was sold to the Americans for bounty money.

Andy Worthington describes what happened next:

In Guantánamo, Fayiz al-Kandari’s refusal to accept that “there is no innocent person here” has marked him out as a particularly resistant prisoner — and resistant prisoners are given a particularly hard time. Over the years, he has been subjected to a vast array of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which, as Lt. Col. Wingard described them, “have included but are not limited to sleep deprivation, physical and verbal assaults, attempts at sexual humiliation through the use of female interrogators, the “frequent flier program,” the prolonged use of stress positions, the use of dogs, the use of loud music and strobe lights, and the use of extreme heat and cold.”

Despite all this, he has not been “broken,” and has been able, unlike Fouad al-Rabiah and numerous other prisoners, to resist making false confessions about his own activities. He has also refused to make false confessions about the activities of other prisoners, despite being offered many opportunities to do so, and despite being told about others who have made false allegations against him.

Al Kandari's attorney, Major Barry Wingard, has made clear that the evidence against his client is based on far-fetched hearsay evidence. Wingard has been outspoken in his criticism of the Guantanamo military commissions and the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and other inhumane types of treatment.

Fayiz al-Kandari, along with over a hundred other Guantanamo prisoners, deserve their fair day in court. The prisoners who have been granted release via habeas petitions or other legal remedy, but who are still held in Guantanamo for an indefinite confinement, should be released immediately. Let them be allowed to live freely in the country that incarcerated and held them illegally, and tortured them. If there is some chargeable crime, and evidence of such crime, let them be tried as anyone would be, in a court of law, not a bogus military kangaroo court.

Free Fayiz Al Kandari: New MSNBC Interview with Major Barry Wingard

Crooks and Liars has posted a recent interview with Major Barry Lingard, the Guantanamo attorney defending Fayiz Mohammed Ahmed al-Kandari. Al-Kandari is a Kuwaiti citizen, imprisoned at Guantanamo since 2002. Al-Kandari's case has been championed by well-known blogger GottaLaff at The Political Carnival.

Like a number of idealistic Muslims, Fayiz al-Kandari was caught up at a young age by the suffering of Muslims in the war in Bosnia. He became very active in charity work, and this work led him to Afghanistan. As Andy Worthington told it in a recent essay:

After realizing that Afghanistan was one of the poorest countries in the Islamic world, and that its people might benefit from his assistance, [Fayiz] decided to visit, to provide assistance to the Afghan people, but was shocked to discover, on the ground, that “those people had less than anyone I had ever met.”

In a village, he met up with local officials, and agreed to provide work for some of the local people, building two wells and repairing a mosque. Life was peaceful and productive for two months — and the dreadful events of September 11, 2001 were far away, and of little import in this remote location — but in October, after the US-led invasion began, he recalls hearing the sounds of explosions in the distance and was surprised when the village erupted in celebration, as the locals were overcome with joy that they were again at war.

The reason was not to do with fighting, but with the opportunity to make money from the war’s fallout. As al-Kandari explained to Lt. Col. Wingard, in the days that followed, the local people clambered onto trucks and drove towards the places where bombs had dropped the day before, hoping to gather shrapnel to sell as scrap metal before rival villages beat them to it. Because they were short of manpower, the villagers sometimes took their children and sent them out to watch for explosions across the mountains, and al-Kandari recalls the children demonstrating how they would handle metal that was still hot by bouncing it between their hands.

But Fayiz became one of a number of Arabs (he is originally from a well-to-do Kuwaiti family) who was sold to the Americans for bounty money.

Andy Worthington describes what happened next:

In Guantánamo, Fayiz al-Kandari’s refusal to accept that “there is no innocent person here” has marked him out as a particularly resistant prisoner — and resistant prisoners are given a particularly hard time. Over the years, he has been subjected to a vast array of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” which, as Lt. Col. Wingard described them, “have included but are not limited to sleep deprivation, physical and verbal assaults, attempts at sexual humiliation through the use of female interrogators, the “frequent flier program,” the prolonged use of stress positions, the use of dogs, the use of loud music and strobe lights, and the use of extreme heat and cold.”

Despite all this, he has not been “broken,” and has been able, unlike Fouad al-Rabiah and numerous other prisoners, to resist making false confessions about his own activities. He has also refused to make false confessions about the activities of other prisoners, despite being offered many opportunities to do so, and despite being told about others who have made false allegations against him.

Al Kandari's attorney, Major Barry Wingard, has made clear that the evidence against his client is based on far-fetched hearsay evidence. Wingard has been outspoken in his criticism of the Guantanamo military commissions and the use of "enhanced interrogation techniques" and other inhumane types of treatment.

Fayiz al-Kandari, along with over a hundred other Guantanamo prisoners, deserve their fair day in court. The prisoners who have been granted release via habeas petitions or other legal remedy, but who are still held in Guantanamo for an indefinite confinement, should be released immediately. Let them be allowed to live freely in the country that incarcerated and held them illegally, and tortured them. If there is some chargeable crime, and evidence of such crime, let them be tried as anyone would be, in a court of law, not a bogus military kangaroo court.

From a Washington Post op-ed by then Lt. Col. Wingard, last July 1:

Guantanamo has become a dark symbol of the standard of justice the United States has meted out in the "global war on terror." Protecting American lives is paramount, but it is not true that we can be safe only by ignoring our country's values and imprisoning people for the better part of a decade without their legal rights.

Each time I travel to Guantanamo Bay to visit Fayiz, his first question is, "Have you found justice for me today?" This leads to an awkward hesitation.

"Unfortunately, Fayiz," I tell him, "I have no justice today."

(H/T Tosfm)