23 years since the capture of torture victim and “forever prisoner” Abu Zubaydah
Remembering the first victim of the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program, never charged or put on trial, and still held at Guantánamo.
Today, March 28, marks a grim milestone in the "war on terror", and its last bastion at Guantánamo — 23 years since the capture of Abu Zubaydah, gravely wounded after a firefight during a house raid by the CIA, FBI and Pakistani intelligence operatives in Faisalabad, Pakistan on March 28, 2002.
I mark this milestone in my latest article for the Close Guantánamo website, which I co-founded with the US attorney Tom Wilner in 2012 — Today Marks 23 Years Since the Capture of Torture Victim and Guantánamo “Forever Prisoner” Abu Zubaydah, which I hope you have time to read.
The first victim of the CIA's post-9/11 torture program, held for four and a half years in CIA "black sites", and waterboarded 83 times, Abu Zubaydah arrived at Guantánamo in September 2006, with 13 other "black site" prisoners, and has been held ever since as a "forever prisoner" — never charged and never tried, because there was never any evidence that, as alleged, he was the No 3 in Al-Qaeda, but not approved for release either.
Nearly two years ago, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention condemned his imprisonment as arbitrary, and ordered his release. They were, however, ignored by the Biden administration, as were a number of UN Rapporteurs and other UN experts in January this year, just before President Biden left office.
As I note, "Under Donald Trump, of course, it is impossible to imagine that there will be any progress made towards either approving Abu Zubaydah for release, or freeing him as requested by the UN Rapporteurs and other UN experts, but his case has always been one of the most shocking in the whole of the 'war on terror', and I felt that it was important to remember him today."
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On Wednesday April 2, the next monthly global vigils for Guantánamo’s closure, which I initiated over two years ago, are taking place at eleven locations across the US and around the world, as shown in the poster below.
At the vigils, as well as calling for freedom and justice for the 15 men still held, we’ll also be calling for Donald Trump to definitively stop send migrants to Guantánamo.
Please do join us if you can! My report about, and photos from last month’s vigils can be found here.
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The image at the top of this article, by the way, was created by Brigid Barrett for an article in Wired in July 2013.