January, 23 2009, 10:37am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Sharon Singh, Amnesty International, 202.544.0200x302;
Jennifer Nessel, Center for Constitutional Rights: +1.212.614.6449;
Julia Hall, Human Rights Watch: +1.716.884.0001; (mobile) +1.716.432.0140;
Antoine Madelin, FIDH: +32.(0)2.609.4422;
Cori Crider, Reprieve: +44.(0)207.353.4640; (mobile) +44.7962.890.575
Human Rights Groups Urge Europe to Help Close Guantanamo
Offer Humanitarian Protection to Detainees Who Risk Torture or Persecution at Home, Urges Rights Coalition
BRUSSELS
A coalition of human rights organizations today called on E.U. foreign ministers meeting in Brussels next week to help close the Guantanamo Bay prison by offering humanitarian protection to detainees who risk torture or persecution at home.
The attached letter to the ministers attending the General Affairs and External Relations Council meeting on Jan. 26, 2009, is signed by Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, La Federation internationale des ligues droits de l'Homme (FIDH), and Reprieve.
The Obama administration will need the help of European governments to implement any plan to close the prison camp.
Of the 250 detainees still at Guantanamo nearly seven years after the prison camp opened, approximately 60 men could face torture or persecution if returned to their home countries, and at least one is stateless. The United States may decide to admit some of the men to the U.S. mainland, but the remaining detainees need humanitarian protection in other countries where they will be safe.
"Amnesty International hopes that as a result of this meeting E.U. member states will send a common message on their willingness to help close Guantanamo, and - most important - follow it up with concrete action to find homes for detainees who cannot be returned to their countries of origin," said Nicolas Beger, director of Amnesty International's European Union office.
Emi MacLean, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, said: "There is a real opportunity for the new U.S. administration to turn a new leaf, close down Guantanamo Bay and end, once and for all, the appalling era of illegal detentions and human rights abuses. This can only be achieved if E.U. countries step up and offer protection for those men who still languish in Guantanamo simply because there is nowhere safe for them to return."
Julia Hall, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said: "Offering safe haven to some of the most vulnerable detainees would be a significant humanitarian gesture. Europe could help the new administration shut down the unlawful detention facility, a major goal, and be a force in re-establishing the rule of law."
Souhayr Belhassen, president of La Federation internationale des ligues droits de l'Homme (FIDH), said: "Every day adds a toll to the already dire humanitarian nature of the situation. No time should be wasted in releasing these individuals."
Cori Crider, staff attorney with Reprieve, said: "Many of the detainees are marked by seven years of illegal detention and now cannot go home. A 'homecoming' for them stands to be a tragedy, as it has already been for some of Reprieve's clients. The assistance of European governments can prevent this from happening and we hope that Europe will reach out to these men."
text of letter:
22 January 2009
Dear Foreign Ministers:
As members of an international coalition of non-governmental organizations advocating for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, we are writing in advance of the meeting of the General Affairs and External Relations Council (GAERC) to be convened in Brussels on 26 January 2009.
We understand that the question of how the European Union can help the United States meet its goal of closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility will be on the meeting agenda, and respectfully request that EU member states agree to provide humanitarian protection to Guantanamo detainees who could be at risk of torture or persecution in their home countries, or who are stateless.
We recognize that the United States has created the problem of Guantanamo, and therefore carries the primary responsibility for closing it. President Barack Obama has committed unequivocally to closing the facility, and has demonstrated his willingness to act swiftly on the matter, seeking a suspension to military commission proceedings as one of his first acts as President. We will continue to press the new administration to adopt and implement a plan for its closure in accordance with the US's human rights obligations.
President Obama and the United States will need the help of European governments to implement this plan.
Of the 250 detainees still being held at Guantanamo nearly seven years after the opening of the detention facility, approximately 60 detainees could face torture or persecution if returned to their home countries, and at least one is stateless. Those men expressing fears of torture or persecution come from Algeria, Azerbaijan, China, Libya, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Russia, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.
These detainees include a group of Chinese Uighurs that the United States had cleared for release years ago, yet continue to be detained at Guantanamo because there is nowhere for them to go. In October 2008, a US federal court ordered the government to release the Uighurs and admit them to the US mainland because the government had failed to secure places for the men in safe third countries. Although the Bush administration appealed the ruling, and the Uighurs remain detained at Guantanamo, our organizations remain optimistic that the federal court order will be upheld. The United States should likewise offer any other detainees who cannot be returned safely to their own countries the opportunity to be admitted into the United States
Release into the United States, however, may not be a practical solution for all of the detainees who cannot be returned home. The stigma attached to these men because of the rhetoric from US authorities creates a real concern that any detainee released in the United States may be subjected to constant harassment and suspicion.
The long history of action by European governments on behalf of human rights and international protection for vulnerable persons makes it ideally situated to provide safe places for vulnerable Guantanamo Bay detainees who have nowhere else to go.
A significant number of EU member states have well-developed infrastructures to assess the men's needs and provide support, integration, and rehabilitation services to former detainees. Our organizations have long commended the EU's stated commitment to the full rehabilitation of victims of torture and other ill-treatment. Member states' expert social and medical programs make many EU countries particularly well-placed to offer the vital support that some former detainees may require.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, long a partner with the EU and other European countries in the project to offer international protection in Europe to persons who fear persecution, could also provide expertise on the integration and rehabilitation of the former detainees. Most EU member states have significant government services to provide support for recipients of international protection, as well as excellent networks of migrants, human rights, and other civil society organizations to assist with integration and rehabilitation.
Many EU member states have rightly called on the US government to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay. In recognition that some detainees fear torture or persecution at home or have no place to go, EU member states should now offer them refuge and support. In the past year, a number of internationally recognized experts and bodies have called Europe to action on the issue of offering refuge to vulnerable Guantanamo Bay detainees, among them the UN special rapporteur on torture, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, the Council of Europe commissioner for human rights, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe's Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee, the EU counterterrorism coordinator, various committees and members of the European Parliament, and representatives of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
In recent weeks, government officials from a number of EU states--including Germany, Finland, Ireland, Portugal, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom--have taken the important step of agreeing in principle to accept some detainees and offer them refuge on their territories or publicly calling on EU member states to offer such safe haven.
These efforts indicate a growing and welcome acknowledgement that European assistance is needed to achieve the goal of closing the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, along with the recognition that European governments should demonstrate the political will to deal with challenges that may arise with respect to receiving and integrating these men.
Now is the time for European states to take a humane and practical step to help right a terrible wrong. Such a decision would be applauded by the human rights community.
Our organizations sincerely believe that the willingness of European governments to offer humanitarian protection to Guantanamo detainees who cannot be returned home is critical to any successful "close Guantanamo" plan, and we will do everything we can to assist you in this endeavor.
With best wishes for a productive meeting,
LATEST NEWS
Biden National Security Adviser Among Those Crafting 'Project 2029' Policy Agenda for Democrats
"Jake Sullivan's been a critical decision-maker in every Democratic catastrophe of the last decade," said one observer. "Why is he still in the inner circle?"
Jun 30, 2025
Amid the latest battle over the direction the Democratic Party should move in, a number of strategists and political advisers from across the center-left's ideological spectrum are assembling a committee to determine the policy agenda they hope will be taken up by a Democratic successor to President Donald Trump.
Some of the names on the list of people crafting the agenda—named Project 2029, an echo of the far-right Project 2025 blueprint Trump is currently enacting—left progressives with deepened concerns that party insiders have "learnt nothing" and "forgotten nothing" from the president's electoral victories against centrist Democratic candidates over the past decade, as one economist said.
The project is being assembled by former Democratic speechwriter Andrei Cherny, now co-founder of the policy journal Democracy: A Journal of Ideas, and includes Jake Sullivan, a former national security adviser under the Biden administration; Jim Kessler, founder of the centrist think tank Third Way; and Neera Tanden, president of the Center for American Progress and longtime adviser to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Progressives on the advisory board for the project include economist Justin Wolfers and former Roosevelt Institute president Felicia Wong, but antitrust expert Hal Singer said any policy agenda aimed at securing a Democratic victory in the 2028 election "needs way more progressives."
As The New York Times noted in its reporting on Project 2029, the panel is being convened amid extensive infighting regarding how the Democratic Party can win back control of the White House and Congress.
After democratic socialist and state Assemblymember Zohran Mamdani's (D-36) surprise win against former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo last week in New York City's mayoral primary election—following a campaign with a clear-eyed focus on making childcare, rent, public transit, and groceries more affordable—New York City has emerged as a battleground in the fight. Influential Democrats including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have so far refused to endorse him and attacked him for his unequivocal support for Palestinian rights.
Progressives have called on party leaders to back Mamdani, pointing to his popularity with young voters, and accept that his clear message about making life more affordable for working families resonated with Democratic constituents.
But speaking to the Times, Democratic pollster Celinda Lake exemplified how many of the party's strategists have insisted that candidates only need to package their messages to voters differently—not change the messages to match the political priorities of Mamdani and other popular progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.).
"We didn't lack policies," Lake told the Times of recent national elections. "But we lacked a functioning narrative to communicate those policies."
Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez have drawn crowds of thousands in red districts this year at Sanders' Fighting Oligarchy rallies—another sign, progressives say, that voters are responding to politicians who focus on billionaires' outsized control over the U.S. political system and on economic justice.
Project 2029's inclusion of strategists like Kessler, who declared economic populism "a dead end for Democrats" in 2013, demonstrates "the whole problem [with Democratic leadership] in a nutshell," said Jonathan Cohn of Progressive Mass—as does Sullivan's seat on the advisory board.
As national security adviser to President Joe Biden, Sullivan played a key role in the administration's defense and funding of Israel's assault on Gaza, which international experts and human rights groups have said is a genocide.
"Jake Sullivan's been a critical decision-maker in every Democratic catastrophe of the last decade: Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Israel/Gaza War, and the 2024 Joe Biden campaign," said Nick Field of the Pennsylvania Capital-Star. "Why is he still in the inner circle?"
"Jake Sullivan is shaping domestic policy for the next Democratic administration," he added. "Who is happy with the Biden foreign policy legacy?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Rick Scott Pushes Amendment to GOP Budget Bill That Could Kick Millions More Off Medicaid
Scott's proposal for more draconian cuts has renewed scrutiny regarding his past as a hospital executive, where he oversaw the "largest government fraud settlement ever," which included stealing from Medicaid.
Jun 30, 2025
Sen. Rick Scott has introduced an amendment to the Republican budget bill that would slash another $313 million from Medicaid and kick off millions more recipients.
The latest analysis by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that 17 million people could lose their health insurance by 2034 as the result of the bill as it already exists.
According to a preliminary estimate by the Democrats on the Joint Congressional Economic Committee, that number could balloon up to anywhere from 20 to 29 million if Scott's (R-Fla.) amendment passes.
The amendment will be voted on as part of the Senate's vote-a-rama, which is expected to run deep into Monday night and possibly into Tuesday morning.
"If Sen. Rick Scott's amendment gets put forward, this would be a self-inflicted healthcare crisis," said Tahra Hoops, director of economic analysis at Chamber of Progress.
The existing GOP reconciliation package contains onerous new restrictions, including new work requirements and administrative hurdles, that will make it harder for poor recipients to claim Medicaid benefits.
Scott's amendment targets funding for the program by ending the federal government's 90% cost sharing for recipients who join Medicaid after 2030. Those who enroll after that date would have their medical care reimbursed by the federal government at a lower rate of 50%.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced the increased rate in 2010 to incentivize states to expand Medicaid, allowing more people to be covered.
Scott has said his program would "grandfather" in those who had already been receiving the 90% reimbursement rate.
However, Medicaid is run through the states, which will have to spend more money to keep covering those who need the program after 2030.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimated that this provision "would shift an additional $93 billion in federal Medicaid funding to states from 2031 through 2034 on top of the cuts already in the Senate bill."
This will almost certainly result in states having to cut back, by introducing their stricter requirements or paperwork hurdles.
Additionally, nine states have "trigger laws" that are set to end the program immediately if the federal matching rate is reduced: Arizona, Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Montana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Utah, and Virginia.
The Joint Congressional Economic Committee estimated Tuesday that around 2.5 million more people will lose their insurance as a result of those cuts.
If all the states with statutory Medicaid expansion ended it as a result of Scott's cuts, as many as 12.5 million could lose their insurance. Combined with the rest of the bill, that's potentially 29 million people losing health insurance coverage, the committee said.
A chart shows how many people are estimated to lose healthcare coverage with each possible version of the GOP bill.(Chart: Congressional Joint Economic Committee Democrats)
There are enough Republicans in the Senate to pass the bill with Scott's amendment. However, they can afford no more than three defections. According to Politico, Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) have signaled they will vote against the amendment.
Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.) also said he'd "have a hard time" voting yes on the bill if Scott's amendment passed. His state of West Virginia has the second-highest rate of people using federal medical assistance of any state in the country, behind only Mississippi.
Critics have called out Scott for lying to justify this line of cuts. In a recent Fox News appearance, Scott claimed that his new restrictions were necessary to stop Democrats who want to "give illegal aliens Medicaid benefits," even though they are not eligible for the program.
Scott's proposal has also brought renewed scrutiny to his past as a healthcare executive.
"Ironically enough, some of the claims against Scott's old hospital company revolved around exploiting Medicaid, and billing for services that patients didn't need," wrote Andrew Perez in Rolling Stone Monday.
In 2000, Scott's hospital company, HCA, was forced to pay $840 million in fines, penalties, and damages to resolve claims of unlawful billing practices in what was called the "largest government fraud settlement ever." Among the charges were that during Scott's tenure, the company overbilled Medicare and Medicaid by pretending patients were sicker than they actually were.
The company entered an additional settlement in 2003, paying out another $631 million to compensate for the money stolen from these and other government programs.
Scott himself was never criminally charged, but resigned in 1997 as the Department of Justice began to probe his company's activities. Despite the scandal, Scott not only became a U.S. senator, but is the wealthiest man in Congress, with a net worth of more than half a billion dollars.
The irony of this was not lost on Perez, who wrote: "A few decades later, Scott is now trying to extract a huge amount of money from state Medicaid funds to help finance Trump's latest round of tax cuts for the rich."
Keep ReadingShow Less
As Historic Heatwave Grips Europe, Coalition Says 'No to a Climate Law for Polluters'
"Will the European Commission propose a climate law that ends fossil fuel use and reflects the E.U.'s fair share of climate responsibility? Or will it choose political convenience?"
Jun 30, 2025
As yet another dangerous heatwave pushes temperatures well into the triple digits across much of Europe, climate defenders on Monday renewed calls for stronger action to combat the planetary emergency—including by ensuring that the impending European Climate Law ends fossil fuel use and eschews false solutions including international carbon offsetting.
Croatia, France, Italy, Portugal, and Spain are among the countries where near- or record-high temperatures have been recorded. Portugal and Spain both recorded their hottest-ever June days over the weekend. El Granado in southwestern Spain saw the mercury soar to nearly 115°C (46°C) on Saturday. The heatwave is expected to continue into the middle of the week, with authorities warning of elevated wildfire risk and potential severe health impacts.
"Extreme heat is no longer a rare event—it has become the new normal," United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Sunday on social media. "I'm experiencing it firsthand in Spain during the Financing for Development Conference. The planet is getting hotter and more dangerous—no country is immune. We need more ambitious #ClimateAction now."
On Monday, Real Zero Europe—"a campaign calling on the European Union to deliver real emissions reductions and real solutions to the climate crisis, instead of corporate greenwashed 'net zero' targets"—published a call for an E.U. Climate Law that does not contain provisions for international carbon offsetting, in which countries or corporations compensate for their greenhouse gas emissions by funding projects that reduce emissions in other nations.
🔴 OUT NOW📢 69 NGOs call on the EU to deliver a Climate Law that rejects international carbon offsetting & Carbon Dioxide Removals (#CDR), commits to a full fossil fuel phase-out, and reflects Europe’s fair share of climate responsibility!Read the statement👇www.realzeroeurope.org/resources/st...
[image or embed]
— Real Zero Europe (@realzeroeurope.bsky.social) June 30, 2025 at 2:40 AM
A draft proposal of the legislation published Monday by Politico revealed that the European Commission will allow E.U. member states to outsource climate efforts to Global South nations staring in 2036, despite opposition from the 27-nation bloc's independent scientific advisory board. The outsourcing will enable the E.U. to fund emissions-reducing projects in developing nations and apply those reductions to Europe's own 2040 target—which is a 90% net decrease in greenhouse gas emissions from 1990 levels.
The proposal also embraces carbon dioxide removal (CDR) technologies like carbon capture and storage, whose scalability is unproven. Climate groups call them false solutions that prolong the fossil fuel era.
"E.U. climate policy stands at a crossroads: Will the European Commission propose a climate law that ends fossil fuel use and reflects the E.U.'s fair share of climate responsibility?" the Real Zero Europe letter says. "Or will it choose political convenience—abandoning that goal under pressure from corporate and populist interests, and turning to risky, unjust carbon offsetting and other false solutions?"
"Taking responsibility for the E.U.'s past and present role in causing the climate crisis means doubling down on a just and full fossil fuel phaseout not hiding behind false solutions as currently proposed," the letter continues. "The law as planned will send a dangerous signal far beyond E.U. borders. The climate and biodiversity crises are already harming people, especially vulnerable communities and populations largely in the Global South, who have least contributed to the climate crisis."
The 69 groups stress that international carbon offsetting "is a smokescreen for giving license to fossil fuel use beyond 2050" that diverts critical resources and public funds from real climate solutions and climate finance."
"Given the scale of climate catastrophe, for the E.U. to allow international offsets and technological CDR gives a lifeline to polluting industries such as the fossil fuel, agribusiness, plastics, and petrochemical industries," the letter states.
"We say no to an E.U. Climate Law that puts polluting industries over people and climate by embracing the use of international offsets and CDR approaches," the letter's signers said. "We call on the Commission to deliver an E.U. Climate Law and its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) to the U.N. climate negotiations that clearly reflects the bloc's responsibility for the climate crisis. That means a full fossil fuel phaseout and a just transition."
This heatwave is brutal. Temperatures above 40°C in June across France, Spain, Italy...We still hear from right-wing politicians that “it’s just summer.” It’s not. This is the climate crisis courtesy of the fossil fuels industry. It’s not normal.
[image or embed]
— European Greens (@europeangreens.eu) June 30, 2025 at 7:01 AM
U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk also addressed the European heatwave on Monday, saying that "the climate crisis is a human rights crisis."
"Rising temperatures, rising seas, floods, droughts, and wildfires threaten our rights to life, to health, to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment, and much more," he continued. "The heatwave we are currently experiencing here shows us the importance of adaptation measures, without which human rights would be severely impacted."
"It is equally clear that our current production and consumption patterns are unsustainable, and that renewables are the energy source of the future," Türk asserted. "Production capacity for renewables increased five-fold between 2011 and 2023. What we need now is a roadmap that shows us how to rethink our societies, economies and politics in ways that are equitable and sustainable. That is, a just transition."
"This shift requires an end to the production and use of fossil fuels and other environmentally destructive activities across all sectors—from energy to farming to finance to construction and beyond," he added. "This will be one of the greatest transformations our world has ever seen."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular