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For Immediate Release
January, 10 2021, 11:00pm EDT
Contact:
Jen Nessel, Center for Constitutional Rights, (212) 614-6449, jnessel@ccrjustice.org
Guantanamo Advocates Condemn 19th Anniversary of Indefinite Detention
Biden must take swift action on Gitmo before men die.
WASHINGTON
On the 19th anniversary of the transfer of the first Muslim men to Guantanamo, the Center for Constitutional Rights issued the following statement:
Today marks the beginning of the 20th shameful year of Muslim men being unlawfully imprisoned at Guantanamo. Even in a national landscape of brutal and extreme incarceration, the detentions of the men at Guantanamo - all of whom face life imprisonment without charge or fair trial - are unprecedented and yet largely invisible by now. For the 40 Muslim men who remain trapped there, including our six clients - one of whom has been cleared for release for years, another of whom the United States openly acknowledged it tortured, and yet another who cut his wrists out of desperation about his fate - Guantanamo is an active site of trauma and despair. Yet, despite all that our clients have endured, they dare to hope for a life beyond Guantanamo, and we must fight for that. As the country transitions to a new administration, it is more vital than ever that closing Guantanamo once again becomes a policy priority. President Biden can and must take immediate action on the prison: appoint senior officials to carry out the mandate of closure; release the men the government has not charged by now, starting with the six men already cleared for transfer; abandon the military commissions system; and bring existing cases of men who have been charged to federal court. Biden must reaffirm his commitment to closure and take the necessary action to accomplish it before we have to mark the 20th anniversary next year.
The Center for Constitutional Rights represents six men who are still imprisoned, nearly two decades after they were taken into custody: Sufyian Barhoumi, Sharqawi Al Hajj, Mohammed al Qahtani, Abdul Razak Ali, Guled Hassan Duran, and Majid Khan. For more information about the Center for Constitutional Rights' work to close Guantanamo, visit our issue page.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
(212) 614-6464LATEST NEWS
Nationwide General Strike Planned for May 1: No Kings Organizer
"No work, no school, no shopping. We're going to show up and say we're putting workers over billionaires and kings."
Mar 28, 2026
Ezra Levin, co-founder of Indivisible, said on Saturday that a nationwide general strike is being planned for May 1 that will be modeled on the day of action residents of Minnesota organized in January against the brutality carried out by federal immigration enforcement officials.
Appearing at the flagship No Kings rally in Minneapolis, Levin praised the strength shown by the Minnesota protesters in the face of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) siege of their city this year, and said his organization wanted to replicate it across the country.
"The next major national action of this movement is not just going to be another protest," Levin said. "It is a tactical escalation... It is an economic show of force, inspired by Minnesota's own day of truth and action."
Levin then outlined what the event would entail.
"On May 1, on May Day, we are saying, 'No business as usual,'" he said. "No work, no school, no shopping. We're going to show up and say we're putting workers over billionaires and kings."
Levin: This is the largest protest in Minnesota history… The next major national action of this movement is not just gonna be another protest. On May 1st, across the country, we are saying no business as usual. No work, no school, no shopping. We're gonna show up and say we're… pic.twitter.com/bRPR7K5DuP
— Acyn (@Acyn) March 28, 2026
Levin added that "we are going to build on that courage, that sacrifice" that Minnesota residents showed during their day of action in January, and vowed "to demonstrate that regular people are the greatest threat to fascism in this country."
In an interview with Payday Report published Saturday, Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg said that the goal of the nationwide strike action would be to send "a clear message: we demand a government that invests in our communities, not one that enriches billionaires, fuels endless war, or deploys masked agents to intimidate our neighbors.”
The No Kings protests against President Donald Trump's authoritarian government, which Indivisible has been central in organizing, have brought millions of Americans into the streets.
Polling analyst G. Elliott Morris estimated that the previous No Kings event, held in October, drew at least 5 million people nationwide, making it likely "the largest single-day political protest ever."
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"You thought it was bad when Iran throttled the Strait of Hormuz?... The Houthis have already proven they can keep the Red Sea closed despite a year of US Navy skirmishing," said one journalist.
Mar 28, 2026
The Houthis on Saturday took credit for launching a ballistic missile at Israel, opening a new front in the war US President Donald Trump illegally started with Iran nearly one month ago.
As reported by Axios, the attack by the Houthis signals that the Yemen-based militia is joining the conflict to aide Iran, which has been under aerial assault from the US and Israel for the past four weeks.
Although the Houthi missile was intercepted by Israeli defenses, it is likely just the opening salvo in an expanding conflict throughout the Middle East.
Axios noted that while the Houthis entered the war by launching an attack on Israel, they could inflict the most damage on the US and its allies in the region by shutting down the strait of Bab al-Mandeb in the Red Sea.
"Doing that," Axios explained, "would dramatically increase the global economic crisis that has been created due to the war with Iran" and its closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which has sent global energy prices skyrocketing.
Sky News international correspondent John Sparks reported on Saturday that the Houthis' entrance into the war shows that "this crisis is expanding, it is escalating."
'This crisis is expanding and escalating.'
Houthi rebels in Yemen have confirmed they launched a missile at Israel, marking the Iran-backed group's first involvement in the war.
@sparkomat reports live from Jerusalem
https://t.co/Leuc4SnGfG
📺 Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/TmlyFHkCZN
— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 28, 2026
Sparks argued that the Houthis' decision to fire a missile at Israel signals that "the geographical spread of this conflict is expanding," adding that "the Houthis have shown the ability to attack shipping in the Red Sea and the waters around the Arabian Peninsula."
Sparks said that even though Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio "have been projecting confidence" about having the war under control, "it's not playing out that way... on the ground."
Danny Citrinowicz, senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies, argued that the Houthis' main value to Iran isn't launching strikes on Israel, but their ability to increase economic pressure on the US.
Citrinowicz also outlined ways the Houthis could further drive up the global price of energy.
"This raises a key question: whether the Houthis will escalate further by targeting Saudi infrastructure and shipping lanes more directly, or whether they will preserve this capability as an additional lever of pressure as the conflict evolves," he wrote. "With each passing day of the conflict, particularly in light of its expanding scope against Iran, the likelihood of this scenario materializing continues to grow. It is increasingly not a question of if, but when."
Journalist Spencer Ackerman similarly pointed to the Houthis' ability to cause economic havoc as the biggest concern about their entrance into the conflict.
"You thought it was bad when Iran throttled the Strait of Hormuz?" he asked rhetorically. "The Houthis have already proven they can keep the Red Sea closed despite a year of US Navy skirmishing."
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"Messiah complexes, talk of revenge, and the use of force against journalists are just symptoms of what's been happening to the army over the past three years," said one Israeli journalist.
Mar 28, 2026
Soldiers in the Israel Defense Forces on Friday were caught on camera assaulting and detaining a crew of CNN journalists while they were reporting from the occupied West Bank.
A video of the incident posted on social media by CNN Jerusalem correspondent Jeremy Diamond shows the CNN crew walking near the Palestinian village of Tayasir, which in recent days has come under assault from Israeli settlers who established an illegal outpost in the area.
The crew are then accosted by armed members of the IDF, who order them to sit down. After the crew complies with their commands, the soldiers come to seize the journalists' cameras and phones that are being used to record the incident.
A soldier then puts CNN photojournalist Cyril Theophilos in a chokehold and forces him to the ground. Writing about the assault later, Theophilos said that the soldier "pushed and strangled me," adding that this kind of violence "is just a symptom of the IDF's actions in the West Bank."
According to Diamond, the CNN crew were subsequently detained for two hours. During that time, Diamond wrote, it became clear that the ideology of the Israeli settlers movement was "motivating many of the soldiers who operate in the occupied West Bank" and that the Israeli military regularly acts "in service of the settler movement."
For instance, one IDF soldier acknowledged during conversations with the CNN crew that the settler outpost near Tayasir was unlawful under both international and Israeli law, but insisted "this will be a legal settlement... slowly, slowly."
The soldier also said he wanted to exact "revenge" on local Palestinians for the death of 18-year-old Israeli settler Yehuda Sherman, who was killed last week by a Palestinian driver. Palestinians who witnessed Sherman's killing have said that the driver was trying to stop Sherman from stealing sheep.
The IDF issued an apology to CNN over the incident, insisting that "the actions and behavior of the soldiers in the incident are incompatible with what is expected of IDF soldiers."
However, this apology was deemed insufficient by Barak Ravid, global affairs correspondent for Axios.
"Apologies are not enough," he wrote on social media. "There is a need for clear accountability. 99.9% of the time there is zero accountability."
The soldiers' actions also drew condemnation from Haaretz reporter Bar Peleg, who argued that problems in the IDF have only grown worse under the far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
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Palestinian human rights activist Ihab Hassan argued that incidents like the one captured by CNN are all too common for the IDF.
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