September, 05 2008, 01:14pm EDT
US: Rice Should Press Algeria on Fate of Returned Guantanamo Detainees
WASHINGTON
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice should press the Algerian
government on the well-being and status of Guantanamo detainees
returned to Algeria when she travels to Algiers on September 6, Human
Rights Watch said today. Four Guantanamo detainees from Algeria have
been returned in the last two months, and Rice is expected to discuss
future Guantanamo returns during her visit.
"We welcome the stepped-up efforts to send Guantanamo detainees home,"
said Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights
Watch. "But the US must also take steps to ensure that detainees are
not being returned to torture or other abuse."
On July 2, 2008, the United States transferred
Abderrahmane Houari (also known as Sofiane Hadarbache), 28, and Mustafa
Ahmed Hamlily, 39, from Guantanamo to Algiers - making them the first
Algerian detainees to be repatriated. Upon arrival, both men were
detained for nearly two weeks without access to family members or a
lawyer. They have since been granted bail pending their court
appearances on September 28 and October 4, respectively, before the
investigative judge on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization
abroad and using forged travel documents.
On August 26, 2008, Mohammed Abd Al Al Qadir (also known as Mohamed Trari), 27, and Abdulli Feghoul,
42, were returned to Algeria after more than six years in Guantanamo.
Algerian authorities took them into custody upon their return, and
there appears to be no information available about their status or
whereabouts.
Another 21 Algerians remain in Guantanamo, including at least five who have expressed serious concerns about their risk of mistreatment if returned home.
Rice,
who is scheduled to meet Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika,
should urge that any Algerian detained after being returned by the
United States be permitted immediate contact with his family and a
medical examination at the end of custody in accordance with Algeria's
Code of Penal Procedure. The United States should also send observers
to attend the trials of any former Guantanamo detainees charged upon
their return, and monitor whether their trials meet international fair
trial standards.
Under Algerian law, persons suspected of crimes relating
to terrorism can be held for up to 12 days in garde a vue (pre-charge)
detention without access to a lawyer. In practice, the police often
hold suspects incommunicado under this law and provide no information
about their whereabouts to their family. Police have reportedly
tortured and abused detainees during this initial period of custody.
In 2007, two Algerians, Benaissa Taleb and Rida Dendani,
deported from the United Kingdom to Algeria, were held for 12 days,
interrogated, and reportedly threatened, beaten, and otherwise abused.
Both were ultimately charged, tried, and convicted of involvement with
a terrorist organization outside Algeria. The confessions made during
this initial 12-day detention period, allegedly under coercion, were
used as evidence against them.
The United States is well aware of these abuses. The State
Department 2007 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices listed
"reports of torture and abuse" as among the "significant human rights
problems" in Algeria. In addition, in May 2008, the United Nations
Committee against Torture expressed strong concerns about reported
torture and other mistreatment of detainees in Algerian custody and
urged Algeria to provide all persons in garde a vue detention with
prompt access to a lawyer and to a doctor.
The State Department has similarly issued concerns about
Algeria's judicial system, listing "lack of judicial independence" and
"denial of fair, public trial" among the significant human rights
problems.
"The United States will not solve the Guantanamo problem
by sending detainees from one unfair system to another," Daskal said.
"Washington should demand that Algeria comply with its own laws by
providing returned detainees immediate access to family members and
giving them a fair trial."
Human Rights Watch also noted that several Algerian
detainees at Guantanamo have expressed serious concerns about torture
or other abuse upon return home. Some of these detainees will be
provided advance notice and a chance to formally contest their return
in US federal court, based on specific court orders in their cases.
Human Rights Watch urged Rice to ensure all detainees are provided
adequate notice and an opportunity to challenge their transfers, as a
way of ensuring that detainees are not sent home to torture or
significant abuse.
"Closing Guantanamo provides the United States one of the
best opportunities to help rebuild its moral standing abroad," said
Daskal. "Washington should not squander that chance by forcibly
repatriating detainees to countries with known records of torture and
abuse."
Human Rights Watch is one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights. By focusing international attention where human rights are violated, we give voice to the oppressed and hold oppressors accountable for their crimes. Our rigorous, objective investigations and strategic, targeted advocacy build intense pressure for action and raise the cost of human rights abuse. For 30 years, Human Rights Watch has worked tenaciously to lay the legal and moral groundwork for deep-rooted change and has fought to bring greater justice and security to people around the world.
LATEST NEWS
‘Pretty Explicit White Nationalism’: Trump National Security Strategy Document Leaves Critics Aghast
One critic described the document as "a pretty explicit defense of using the state as a means of enforcing white supremacy."
Dec 05, 2025
The Trump administration on Thursday released its official National Security Strategy, and many critics noted that it was loaded with rhetoric frequently used by white nationalists.
Some of the most inflammatory rhetoric in the document is aimed at US-allied European countries that supposedly face "the real and more stark prospect of civilizational erasure" within the next 20 years.
In particular, the document accuses the European Union of enacting policies "that undermine political liberty and sovereignty, migration policies that are transforming the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence."
The document goes on to claim that "should present trends continue, the continent will be unrecognizable in 20 years or less," while emphasizing that US policy is to help "Europe to remain European, to regain its civilizational self-confidence, and to abandon its failed focus on regulatory suffocation."
Jon Henley, Europe correspondent for the Guardian, noted in a Friday report that the document "appears to espouse the racist 'great replacement' conspiracy theory, saying several countries risk becoming 'majority non-European.'" Henley added that the document "underscores the Trump administration's clear alignment with Europe’s far-right nationalist parties, whose policies centre on attacking supposed EU overreach and excessive non-EU migration."
Scott Horton, legal affairs and national security contributor to Harper's and an adjunct professor at Columbia Law School, wrote on Bluesky that the document "reads like something written by Vladimir Putin," given its depiction of Europe as being "degenerate and... racially adulterated through the in-migration of dark-skinned people."
Progressive activist Max Berger argued that the document "contains some pretty explicit white nationalism." He pointed to the document's support for dismantling diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives as a way to restore "a culture of competence."
Berger also flagged a section in the document that named "ending mass migration" as the top US national security priority, which he described as "a pretty explicit defense of using the state as a means of enforcing white supremacy."
Edmund Luce, a columnist for the Financial Times, also took note of the administration's emphasis on "competence and merit" in the document. This is ironic, Luce continued, because "this administration personifies the opposites" of those traits.
Journalist Michael Weiss argued in a post on X that the document shows that it is now official US policy to promote and assist far-right parties in Europe.
"[US Vice President] JD Vance's intervention in Germany's election, on behalf of [far-right party Alternative für Deutschland], was not a one-off," he wrote. "It is now ingrained in the U.S. National Security Strategy... Europe is be treated as enemy terrain to be destabilized by America's enabling of far-right parties."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Global System 'Rigged for the Wealthy' Delivers World With 'More Billionaires Than Ever'
New annual report on "ambitions" of billionaires by wealth management giant UBS shows just 2,919 individuals have a combined wealth of $15.8 trillion.
Dec 05, 2025
A new assessment by the international wealth management giant UBS this week shows that the number of billionaires in the world has reached new heights and that the acceleration of inherited wealth represents a new chapter for the ultra-rich in the 21st Century.
The latest UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report, unveiled Thursday, details how just 2,919 individual billionaires have a combined wealth of $15.8 trillion. The number of billionaires in the world is up nearly 9 percent from the previous year. In the United States—where nearly a third of those on the list reside—924 billionaires hold a collective $6.9 trillion in wealth.
The assessment by UBS—which surveyed its own billionaire clients as part of the survey, now its eleventh edition—emphasizes a surge of inherited wealth among the billionaire class. According to the report:
In 2025, 91 heirs (64 of them male and 27 female) inherited a record USD 297.8 billion. That’s 36% more than in 2024, despite fewer people inheriting overall. Globally, inheritance bolstered the number of multigenerational billionaires, with some 860 multi-generational billionaires now overseeing total assets of USD 4.7 trillion. That’s up from 805 with USD 4.2 trillion in 2024.
Across the world, multi-generational billionaires are slowly extending down the generations, with the number of second-generation billionaires growing by 4.6% in the 2025 report, the number of third generation
by 12.3%, and the number of fourth generation and beyond by 10%.
The growing number of billionaires, including a rapidly increasing share who inherited their wealth rather than generating it themselves, says UBS, "heralds a new era" for the ultra-rich as "the great wealth transfer is intensifying as heirs inherit more than ever before.
The coming decades, the report notes, "will see growing numbers of billionaires and centi-millionaires as the Great Wealth Transfer continues to accelerate. Billionaires are estimated to transfer approximately USD 6.9 trillion of wealth globally by 2040, with at least USD 5.9 trillion set to be passed to children—either directly or indirectly through spouses."
Of the $6.9 trillion currently held by US billionaires, the report estimates that $2.8 trillion of that wealth will be passed down to heirs over the next 15 years.
"The world has more billionaires than ever because of a system that’s broken for workers and rigged for the wealthy and CEOs who already make 285 times what workers do," said the AFL-CIO in response to the report.
The union federation says that organized workers winning better collective bargaining is the first step needed to "level the playing field" for working people, while others see the surging fortunes of the ultra-wealthy as just more evidence that taxing the rich must remain at the top of the economic and political agenda both at the national level and internationally.
With the UBS report showing that 91 of the new billionaires created this year arrived at their financial status through inheritance, Hal Singer, economics professor at the University of Utah, said, "That's 91 additional reasons for a wealth tax."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Outrage Grows as Trump Admin Quietly Weighs New 'Tax Windfall for the Biggest Corporations'
"Apparently the Trump administration thinks the trillions they spent on tax cuts for the wealthy wasn't enough."
Dec 05, 2025
The Trump administration's quiet effort to deliver billions more in tax breaks to some of the largest companies in the United States drew fresh scrutiny and outrage this week, with Democratic members of Congress warning that a series of obscure regulatory changes could further undermine efforts to rein in corporate tax dodging.
In a letter to the US Treasury Department unveiled Thursday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) led a group of lawmakers in denouncing the Trump administration's assault on the corporate alternative minimum tax (CAMT), a Biden-era measure that requires highly profitable US corporations to pay a tax of at least 15% on their book profits—the numbers reported to shareholders.
"The Trump administration has consistently chipped away at CAMT to further corporate interests," the lawmakers wrote, pointing to rules issued in recent months exempting many corporations from the tax.
"But these massive giveaways apparently aren’t enough for billionaire corporations and their lobbyists, which are trying to further undermine CAMT," the lawmakers continued.
The Democratic lawmakers, who were joined by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), specifically warned against an ongoing corporate push for a carveout to a research and experimentation (R&E) tax break included in the Trump-GOP budget law enacted over the summer.
Corporations supported the R&E tax break. But as the Wall Street Journal reported last month, the giveaway is driving some companies' "regular taxes down so far that they are pushed into CAMT."
"This is exactly what CAMT was designed to do, the tax’s defenders say," the Journal noted. "Companies are pressing the Treasury Department for relief, particularly on the way that CAMT limits the deduction for research expenses. The National Association of Manufacturers, the R&D Coalition, and the National Foreign Trade Council sent letters urging the administration to write rules that would be favorable to companies."
The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service are reportedly considering the corporate proposal.
Such a change, Democratic lawmakers warned in their new letter, "egregiously circumvents Congress' intent to set a floor on corporations’ tax liabilities regardless of deductions."
But the Trump administration's hostility to the CAMT, cozy relationship with powerful corporations, and willingness to trample existing law have fueled concerns that it will readily bow to industry demands.
"Apparently the Trump administration thinks the trillions they spent on tax cuts for the wealthy wasn't enough now they're planning another huge tax windfall for the biggest corporations in the country," Beyer said Thursday.
In a social media post, Warren wrote that "giant corporations are lobbying Donald Trump for yet another tax handout—this time for research they've ALREADY DONE."
"Give me a break," Warren added. "The last thing American families need is a tax code rigged even more for billionaires and billionaire corporations."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular