Three men freed from Guantánamo; today is Biden’s last chance to free more

15 men have long been approved for release, but today is the last day to finalize their release before Trump takes over.

This week, three men were released from Guantánamo, the first releases for 20 months — the second longest period in Guantánamo’s long and sordid history that no prisoners have been freed.

The catalyst for the releases was, it is now clear, unpublicized activity behind the scenes by State Department and Defense Department officials, lawyers for the men, and their home governments, although it is also clear that 20 months of campaigning on my part, and on the part of other dedicated campaigners in the US, the UK and around the world also contributed, keeping Guantánamo on the radar when it had otherwise been engulfed by an almost all-pervading amnesia or indifference, particularly in the US mainstream media.

I’m hoping that you’ll click through and read my two articles about these releases, Guantánamo’s Sole Kenyan Prisoner Is Freed; 15 Other Men Long Approved for Release Must Now Be Freed Too and Guantánamo: Two Malaysians Convicted of Terrorism Repatriated to Serve Out the Rest of Their Sentences; 18 Men Never Charged Are Still Held, because, as much as I appreciate my new Substack community, my purpose in setting up this account was, primarily, to direct new readers to my website, the repository of more information about Guantánamo, the men held there and the crimes committed there by the US government than is available anywhere else, written and published over the last 17 years.

With these releases, just 27 men are still held at Guantánamo, and today is an absolutely critical day for 15 of these men, who have all been approved for release by high-level US government processes. Mostly Yemenis, they cannot be sent home because US law prevents their repatriation, and, as a result they must be resettled in another country — or countries. Today, however, if Congress isn’t notified of the intention to free them, they will remain as prisoners of Donald Trump on January 20, because, by law, Congress must be given 30 days’ notice before any prisoners are freed.

We can only hope that arrangements have already been made for the resettlement of these men, because, as well as being held for between 17 and 22 years without charge or trial, they have also been specifically waiting to be freed for between two and four years — and in three outlying cases for nearly 15 years — since the decisions to approve them for release were first taken.

This ought to be a source of profound shame for the Biden administration, which has only been able to continue holding them for so long because the review processes are purely administrative, meaning that no legal mechanism exists to compel the government to free them if they find it inconvenient.

14 months ago, plans were put in place to resettle most of these men in Oman, but those plans were cancelled at the last minute, when a plane was already on the runway at Guantánamo, because of the perceived negative “political optics” of freeing men from Guantánamo after the October 7 attacks in southern Israel.

The Biden administration has had 14 months to either revisit this plan, or to locate another amenable country for resettlement, and, as the clock ticks, anyone concerned with justice can only fervently hope that, as with the men released in the last few days, plans for the restoration of these men’s long-delayed and long-deserved freedom are also underway.

If not, Biden’s already tarnished legacy — one soaked in the blood of Palestinian children — will be tarnished still further, as a president who prioritized genocide, and pardoning his own son, over the monstrous injustice of approving men for release from Guantánamo, but then not bothering to actually free them.

For anyone keeping count, the situation of the 12 men still held who have not been approved for release also does nothing to show the government in a good light.

Three are "forever prisoners", never charged with a crime, but not approved for release either, six have active cases in the military commission trial system, one was convicted via a plea deal, one is of unknown status after being ruled "unfit to stand trial" through his mental derangement, and one other is a lifetime convict in solitary confinement.

America: that “shining hill” you boast about is, sadly, haunted by the ghosts of men hidden away on your naval base on stolen Cuban land, tortured, subjected to a broken trial system, or imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial.

You should have healed this scar on your collective soul years ago.