October, 17 2016, 02:30pm EDT
Mohamedou Slahi Released from Guantanamo After 14 Years Without Charge or Trial
‘Guantánamo Diary’ Author to Rejoin Family in Mauritania After U.S. Review Board Cleared Way for Release
WASHINGTON
The U.S. government has transferred Mohamedou Ould Slahi to his native Mauritania, where he is to be reunited with his family.
The release comes 14 years after he was first brought by the United States to the prison at Guantanamo Bay. A panel of U.S. national security, intelligence, and other officials cleared Slahi for release in July after determining that he poses no significant threat to the United States.
"I feel grateful and indebted to the people who have stood by me," Slahi said about his release. "I have come to learn that goodness is transnational, transcultural, and trans-ethnic. I'm thrilled to reunite with my family."
Slahi is the author of the best-selling memoir "Guantanamo Diary," which was released to critical acclaim in 2015. The memoir describes an odyssey that began in 2001 when, at the behest of the U.S. government, Mauritanian authorities detained Slahi after he voluntarily went in for questioning. The U.S. transferred him to prisons in Jordan and Afghanistan before Guantanamo, where he was tortured.
"We are thrilled that our client's nightmare is finally ending," said Nancy Hollander, one of Slahi's attorneys. "After all these years, he wants nothing more than to be with his family and rebuild his life. We're so grateful to everyone who helped make this day a reality."
With Slahi's release, 60 prisoners remain in Guantanamo, 19 of whom have been cleared for release.
"We are overjoyed for Mohamedou and his family, and his release brings the U.S. one man closer to ending the travesty that is Guantanamo," said Hina Shamsi, one of Slahi's attorneys and director of the American Civil Liberties Union's National Security Project. "Dozens of other men still remain trapped in Guantanamo. With time running out, President Obama must double down and not just close the prison, but end the unlawful practice of indefinite detention that it represents."
Slahi was cleared for release after a June 2 hearing by the Periodic Review Board, an executive branch panel that regularly reviews the continued detention of Guantanamo detainees. Among the evidence the PRB reviewed was a letter of support submitted by a former U.S. military guard at Guantanamo who was assigned to Slahi for 10 months.
A campaign to free Slahi, spearheaded by the ACLU, has gathered support in both the U.S. and abroad. More than 100,000 people signed petitions by the ACLU, Change.org, and MoveOn calling for his release. His plight gathered high-profile supporters, including Maggie Gyllenhaal, Mark Ruffalo, and Roger Waters. In the U.K., members of Parliament concerned with his case urged the British government to call on the U.S. to release Slahi.
Slahi was born in Mauritania in 1970 and won a scholarship to attend college in Germany. In the early 1990s, Slahi fought with al-Qaida when it was part of the Afghan anti-communist resistance supported by the U.S. The only federal judge to have reviewed all the evidence in his case noted that the group then was very different from the one that later came into existence.
Slahi worked in Germany for several years as an engineer and returned to Mauritania in 2000. The following year he was detained by Mauritanian authorities and rendered by the U.S. to a prison in Jordan. Later the U.S. rendered him again, first to Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan and finally, in August 2002, to the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, where he was subjected to severe torture.
Slahi was one of two so-called "Special Projects" whose brutal treatment Rumsfeld personally approved. The abuse included beatings, extreme isolation, sleep deprivation, frigid rooms, shackling in stress positions, and threats against both Slahi and his mother. In Slahi's habeas challenge, a federal district court judge determined Slahi's detention was unlawful and ordered him released in 2010. The U.S. government successfully appealed that decision, and the habeas case is still pending.
Slahi's book, the first and only memoir by a still-imprisoned Guantanamo prisoner, was published in January 2015 -- with numerous redactions -- from a 466-page handwritten manuscript. It spent several weeks on the New York Times' best-seller list and has since been translated into multiple languages for publication in more than 25 countries.
Excerpts from Slahi's book, along with video and audio content, are here:
https://www.guantanamodiary.com
This statement is here:
https://www.aclu.org/news/mohamedou-slahi-released-guantanamo-after-14-years-without-charge-or-trial
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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"Not a 'Joke.' It's Fascism": Trump Says He Wouldn't Mind Journalists Getting Shot
The Republican nominee also said during the same rally in Pennsylvania that he "shouldn't have left" the White House after losing the 2020 election.
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During a rally on the final Sunday before the presidential election, Republican nominee Donald Trump told an audience gathered in the battleground state of Pennsylvania that he wouldn't mind if a gunman shot through the group of reporters covering the event.
After discussing the protective glass surrounding him, the former president said a would-be assassin "would have to shoot through the fake news" to get to him.
"I don't mind that so much," Trump said, drawing laughter and applause from his supporters. "I don't mind."
Watch:
Trump says he doesn't mind if someone shoots the press.
He repeatedly encourages violence against anyone who challenges his narrative.
That's what a dictator does — and Trump's Supreme Court gave him immunity to do whatever he wants if re-elected.
Votepic.twitter.com/W0dUWro2g9
— Melanie D'Arrigo (@DarrigoMelanie) November 3, 2024
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"It's not a joke," Sharlet wrote. "It's fascism."
Trump has long reveled in attacking members of the press, vilifying them as "the enemy of the people" and directing the ire of his supporters in their direction. Kash Patel, a Trump confidant who's expected to get a senior national security post if the former president wins Tuesday's election, suggested earlier this year that a second Trump administration would go after "the people in the media" with criminal or civil charges, underscoring the threat the Republican nominee poses to press freedom.
Facing backlash over Trump's latest attack on the press, his campaign issued an absurd statement claiming the former president was "actually looking out for [reporters'] welfare" by "stating that the media was in danger."
The Atlantic's Helen Lewis noted Sunday that "journalists are only some of the many 'enemies from within' whom Trump has name-checked at his rallies and on his favored social network, Truth Social."
Lewis continued:
He has suggested that Mark Zuckerberg should face "life in prison" if Facebook's moderation policies penalize right-wingers. He has suggested using the National Guard or the military against "radical-left lunatics" who disrupt the election. He believes people who criticize the Supreme Court "should be put in jail." A recent post on Truth Social stated that if he wins on Tuesday, Trump would hunt down "lawyers, Political Operatives, Donors, Illegal Voters, & Corrupt Election Officials" who had engaged in what he called "rampant Cheating and Skullduggery." Just last week, he fantasized in public about his Republican critic Liz Cheney facing gunfire, and he previously promoted a post calling for her to face a "televised military tribunal" for treason. In all, NPRfound more than 100 examples of Trump threatening to prosecute or persecute his opponents. One of his recent targets was this magazine.
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The newspaper's poll, conducted by pollster J. Ann Selzer, is widely regarded as the "gold standard" survey of voters in the state and has been recognized as "predicting" numerous election results in Iowa and giving a potential preview of how candidates could fare in other Midwestern states with similar demographics.
Progressive advocates cautioned against placing too much faith in a single poll—even a widely respected one—and urged Harris supporters to continue canvassing, phone-banking, and taking action to defeat Trump and the far-right MAGA movement.
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