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Guantanamo: Yet another failure by Obama

Two years in office and the Obama Administration continues to disappoint and act almost invariably contrary to what was promised during the presidential campaign - or worse still, continue the policies of the Bush Administration, sometimes even more stringently.

Andy Worthington writing in CagePrisoners [reproduced by Information Clearing House]:

"On Christmas Day, I wrote an article reminding readers of the plight of the remaining 174 prisoners in Guantánamo, and specifically focusing on the case of Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a mentally troubled Yemeni prisoner who has attempted to commit suicide on several occasions. Despite being cleared for release in 2007 by the Bush administration, and winning his habeas corpus petition in the District Court in Washington D.C. in July 2010, Latif remains in Guantánamo, as, distressingly, the Obama administration has chosen to appeal against his successful habeas petition.

Even if the Obama administration had not taken this inexplicable -- or deeply cyncial -- step, Latif would still be held, because of a moratorium on releasing any Yemeni prisoners from Guantánamo, which was issued by President Obama last January after a hysterical response to the news that the failed Christmas Day plane bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had been recruited in Yemen. This is unforgivable in and of itself, as it consigns the 58 Yemenis "approved for transfer" by the President's Guantánamo Review Task Force to the status of political prisoners, detained through an unacceptable belief in the collective guilt of the Yemeni people.

With just ten days to go before the 9th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, Latif's attorney, David Remes, has released an unclassified letter from his client, in which Latif expresses his despair at his abandonment by the US justice system -- and by his own country."

Continue reading here.

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