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For Immediate Release
May, 19 2015, 03:15pm EDT
Contact:
Katherine O'Shea of Reprieve at: katherine.oshea@reprieve.org
Rights Groups Send An Open Letter to President Obama and Ashton Carter: Free the 57 Guantanamo Prisoners Approved for Transfer
Together the undersigned organizations call for the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be closed, and we ask President Obama and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to swiftly transfer the 57 prisoners at Guantanamo who have already been cleared for transfer--the majority for over five years--and release or charge in a federal court those who have not been cleared for transfer.
LONDON
Together the undersigned organizations call for the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to be closed, and we ask President Obama and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter to swiftly transfer the 57 prisoners at Guantanamo who have already been cleared for transfer--the majority for over five years--and release or charge in a federal court those who have not been cleared for transfer.
May 23 marks the second anniversary of President Obama's promise to resume releasing prisoners from Guantanamo, after Congress raised legislative obstacles, which he made during remarks at the National Defense University. The President's promise was prompted in particular by a prison-wide hunger strike at Guantanamo, undertaken by men who--according to SOUTHCOM Commander General John Kelly--were "devastated" that the administration had "backed off" closing the prison.
Since that speech, 44 men have been freed. However, 122 men remain at Guantanamo, even though almost all of them have never been charged, let alone tried, for any crime. It is time for President Obama, and Defense Secretary Carter, to take action to transfer the 57 men still held who have already been approved to leave Guantanamo, and to release or charge in federal court those who remain.
Today, just days before the anniversary of President Obama's promise, a delegation of British MPs is visiting Washington, D.C., to discuss the release of Shaker Aamer, one of the 57 and the last British resident in Guantanamo. This follows the creation of a cross-party Parliamentary Group, and a motion passed by the British Parliament in March, calling for his release and return to his family in the U.K., and a similar call made by Prime Minister David Cameron in a meeting with President Obama in January.
As well as calling for the transfer of the 57 men cleared for transfer, including Shaker Aamer, we also call on the administration to speed up the Periodic Review Boards (PRBs), designed to review the cases of the men who have not been cleared for transfer and are not facing trials. Since the PRBs began in November 2013, 14 men have been reviewed and nine have been cleared for transfer. If the process does not speed up, it will take until January 2021 to complete the reviews--19 years after Guantanamo first opened.
The prison at Guantanamo is an expensive mistake that--according to national security officials, and President Obama--harms U.S. security interests. The U.S. government must act to close the prison as quickly as possible.
Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
Close Guantanamo
Code Pink
Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)
National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT)
No More Guantanamos
Reprieve
September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC)
Veterans for Peace
We Stand With Shaker
Witness Against Torture
Reprieve is a UK-based human rights organization that uses the law to enforce the human rights of prisoners, from death row to Guantanamo Bay.
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An estimated 130,000 children under the age of 10 have been trapped in areas of northern Gaza almost entirely cut off from aid assistance, food and medical supplies for 50 days, a major humanitarian group said Monday.
According to Save the Children, life-sustaining aid has largely failed to make it through to any of the people besieged by Israeli forces in northern Gaza since early October, when the IDF declared the territory a "dangerous combat zone" and ordered civilians to evacuate.
Earlier this month, Joyce Msuya, Acting Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations, warned that the Israeli offensive in the area that began in early October was "an intensified, extreme, and accelerated version of the horrors of the past year." Local health officials in Gaza say that the death toll for the entire enclave has surpassed 44,000 since October 7 of 2023.
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Save the Children's warning comes not long after the Famine Review Committee released an alert stating that "there is a strong likelihood that famine is imminent in areas within the northern Gaza Strip."
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A mother of two trapped in northern Gaza, identified by Save the Children as Ruba, testified through the group that she was trapped with her children "under relentless bombs, rockets, and bullets, with nowhere to run. My mother is paralyzed, and I cannot leave her behind. My brother has been killed, my husband was taken, and I don't know if he's alive."
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Harris' death inspired tributes from an array of Democratic politicians and progressives, who remembered the former senator's outspoken support for working people and his championing of Indigenous rights.
Harris was voted into the Senate to replace Sen. Robert Kerr (D-Okla.) in 1964 after Kerr died of a heart attack. He began as a close ally of President Lyndon Johnson, supporting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War and Johnson's Great Society programs aimed at reducing poverty.
But he "underwent a dramatic passage from moderate-conservative to liberal ideas," as The New York Times reported, embracing a "new populism" that was centered on promoting racial equality and a redistribution of economic and political power and fighting against the exploitation of workers. He also gradually changed his stance on Vietnam, calling for troop reductions and eventually a full withdrawal of the U.S. military in the region.
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He was also credited with sponsoring a bill that pushed President Richard Nixon to return Blue Lake, a site that was sacred to the people of the Taos Pueblo tribe, to them.
"In Senator Harris, Oklahoma sent a public servant to Washington, D.C. who gave voice to those in need, lifted up those the economy left behind, was a champion of civil rights, and was a friend to Indian Country," said Chief Chuck Hoskin, Jr. of the Cherokee Nation.
"His story is one that too few people know—the story of an Oklahoman who championed working families and fought for justice and equity at every turn."
Running for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1976, Harris called for higher taxes on the richest Americans and lower taxes for the rest of the country, stricter regulations on large corporations, a "moral" foreign policy, abortion rights, and "community control" of police forces.
Columnist John Nichols of The Nation said Harris adopted the slogan "No More Bullshit" during his presidential campaign.
Harris' presidential bid, said journalist Ryan Grim of Drop Site News, "was a road-not-taken that would have led to a much better world than we have now."
Harris told the Times in 1975 that the issue he was most concerned with was "privilege."
"The fundamental problem is that too few people have all the money and power, and everybody else has too little of either," he said. "The widespread diffusion of economic and political power ought to be the express goal—the stated goal—of government."
Harris' campaign garnered enthusiastic support from many voters, with the former senator taking aim at "the superrich, giant corporations" and leading efforts to gain the confidence of blue-collar workers, farmers, poor Black and white voters, and unemployed people.
"Those in the coalition don't have to love one another," Harris said. "All they have to do is recognize that they are commonly exploited, and that if they get themselves together they are a popular majority and can take back the government."
After his presidential run, Harris became a political science professor at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque and left politics to raise chickens on a farm in Corrales, New Mexico.
In conversations with Axios reporter Russell Contreras in his later years, Harris expressed frustration with the Democratic Party, saying leaders didn't discuss poverty as much as they should.
"It's harder to get out of poverty today than it was back then," he told Contreras.
He added that showing a commitment to fight for working-class and low-income people would motivate people in Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, and on Native American reservations across the country.
"We are grateful to see national media highlighting the life and legacy of former Senator Fred Harris," said the Oklahoma Democratic Party. "His story is one that too few people know—the story of an Oklahoman who championed working families and fought for justice and equity at every turn."
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A cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah appeared to be within reach on Monday amid reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has repeatedly scuttled diplomatic efforts in recent months—has broadly accepted the proposed terms of a truce after months of devastating bombing that has ramped up in recent days.
Citing an unnamed senior U.S. official, Axiosreported Monday that "Israel and Lebanon have agreed to the terms of a cease-fire agreement to end the Israel-Hezbollah conflict."
The proposed agreement could still collapse: Netanyahu sparked fury within the Biden White House by publicly dismissing a U.S.-led cease-fire push in late September, and the far-right prime minister has been an obstacle to diplomatic attempts to end Israel's assault on the Gaza Strip.
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The Israeli outlet Channel 12reported Monday that the Biden administration has signaled U.S. support if Israel decides to attack Lebanon again "whenever it sees an immediate threat."
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Ceasefire for the children of Lebanon NOW. pic.twitter.com/4krwuf1A6N
— UNICEF (@UNICEF) November 19, 2024
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Israel's military launched fresh attacks across Lebanon on Monday, killing at least a dozen people.
"Israeli strikes hit commercial and residential buildings in Beirut as well as in the port city of Tyre," APreported. "Military officials said they targeted areas known as Hezbollah strongholds. They issued evacuation orders for Beirut's southern suburbs, and strikes landed across the city, including meters from a Lebanese police base and the city's largest public park."
Humanitarian organizations and United Nations officials have been pleading for a cease-fire in Lebanon for weeks amid the surging death toll and intensifying humanitarian emergency sparked by Israel's assault.
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