Bahrain Centre for Human Rights – March 2008.
The Kingdom of Bahrain is the first Arab country to have all its detainees released from Guantanamo. They were released as the result of a diplomatic and security agreement between the Bahraini and American authorities, but in reality this would have not taken place without the activity and continued pressure exerted by institutions of civil society, human rights organizations, the US law firm representing Bahraini detainees, a popular movement, and the parliament.
Bahrain Centre for Human Rights – March 2008.
The Kingdom of Bahrain is the first Arab country to have all its detainees released from Guantanamo. They were released as the result of a diplomatic and security agreement between the Bahraini and American authorities, but in reality this would have not taken place without the activity and continued pressure exerted by institutions of civil society, human rights organizations, the US law firm representing Bahraini detainees, a popular movement, and the parliament.
The Bahraini detainees were released on a batch basis; three were returned in November 2005, and the other three were returned individually in October 2006 and July and August 2007.
The fact that the detainees now are with their relatives and loved ones, enjoying the full freedom, away from the Guantanamo prison base, proves that the United States no longer considers them to be ‘terrorists’ or ‘enemy combatants’, and a threat to its security – as it maintained during their detention. This also means that their detention for that period was arbitrary and unjust, and had they been given the opportunity to be tried before a court that applies international standards for fair trials they would have been declared innocent a long time ago.
Most of the Bahraini detainees were caught in Pakistan and not in Afghanistan as the United States has claimed, and this is also the case for many Arab detainees. It seems they were ‘bought’ from some poor Pakistani tribes as a result of generous offers made by American soldiers to buy any foreigners.
At the end of 2001 most of the detainees the Bahraini were sent to Guantanamo prison, where they remained isolated from the outside world for more than three years, until the US Supreme Court’s decision in June 2004 which allowed lawyers to visit them.
The role of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR)
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights’ role was to provide aid and assistance to the families of Arab detainees in Guantanamo, and to act as a coordinating body between the law firms representing the detainees in the USA and the detainees’ families, in order to provide further assistance to the pro-bono American lawyers in defending the Arab detainees.
It is important to note that lawyers could not make a defense for any detainee before American courts until they obtained power of attorney from the detainee himself, or from a member of his family. Since the detainees were not allowed to be visited by lawyers in the Guantanamo prison at the time, securing the power of attorney from their family members was essential in order to begin judicial proceeding in the American courts.
The BCHR’s work began in Yemen (as Yemeni nationals constituted one of the largest percentages of detainees in Guantanamo) but then continued in Bahrain, which became place where legal representation work began for detainees from all the Arab countries.
The BCHR’s role also included the coordination between the American lawyers defending detainees and the detainees’ families, as well as the coordination with institutions within civil society including human rights organizations in detainees’ home countries. We worked towards creating a direct relation between the two actors.
One of the difficulties faced in reaching the families of the detainees in the Arab world was the fact that we did not know the detainees’ names or addresses, since the American administration refused to release their names, addresses and their home countries, or indeed any information that could have guided us to know where they were. What made it even more difficult was the fact that many of the detainees’ families were not prepared to admit that they had relatives in the Guantanamo prison, out of fears of being targeted and harmed by the security authorities in their countries. Furthermore, some families felt shame as a result of the negative public opinion against them at the time as a result of the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks in New York. The families were afraid of being targeted by the US and its allied governments in the Gulf countries as part of the “war on terror”.
Another obstacle was the lack of confidence of the majority of the detainees’ families had in the integrity and independence of the American judicial and administrative system, especially when it came to issues related to Muslims.
Role and importance of the US Lawyers
As the BCHR played the role of a coordinator between the law firms in the USA and the families of the detainees in the Arab world, we believe it is important to highlight the excellent and effective role played by lawyers in the US, and the institutions coordinating with them, as well as the role of the Center for Constitutional Rights. They were invaluable in highlighting the massive violations against detainees, and bringing this issue to the awareness of the public in the United States and throughout the whole world.
The fact that all these cases were legally drawn up and presented in the US courts played an active role in exposing the abuses and violations of the American government, embarrassing them, and applying pressure for change. Their work also exposed the failure of civil society institutions in the Arab states for their reluctance to pursue concrete step towards campaigning for the betterment of the detainees’ situation.
It is also important to note that the lawyers visits were the only means of providing information to the rest of the world, to raise awareness about the violations and abuses committed inside the prison, which were then reported by media and human rights organizations. The letters between detainees and their families were either censored or had large parts erased by American security agencies, making them worthless in providing information about conditions in the prison. Therefore the lawyers visits to detainees were the only means for an exchange of information between the detainees and the outside world.
Ten out of the five hundred American lawyers’ voluntarily represented Bahraini detainees. Between October 2004 and June 2007 the lawyers made 12 visits to the Guantanamo prison base, and five visits to Bahrain. The lawyers’ visits to the region usually aimed to keep the issue alive and popular through media, civil society institutions, Parliament and in meetings with officials in the Bahraini government. They also visited with families of the detainees to inform them of the latest developments.
Some of the lawyers who handled these cases were subject to internal pressure in the US, threats, and harassment, for defending persons accused by their government for carrying out terrorist attacks on their territory, or planning to do so. On the other hand lawyers initially also faced great difficulties in dealing with the detainees themselves, who suspected them of being intelligence agents working for the US government. The detainees feared that lawyers were at their disposal in order to push them into admitting things that they had not done which would subsequently convict them; for these reasons many of those lawyers were even rejected by the detainees.
Relationships between US pro-bono Lawyers and Gulf Governments
The nature of the relationship that has developed between the American law firms and each of the Governments of Gulf states varies between countries. Kuwait was the first Arab country to act in favor of its detained nationals by pressing charges at the Federal court in May 2002, hiring a well-known law firm in the United States. Kuwait is considered a rare case given that it is the only Arab state that paid large amounts of money to return its own citizens from the Guantanamo.
Bahrain’s government preferred to engage in diplomatic dialogue with the American administration rather than going through long and complicated judicial proceedings. It has therefore ignored for quite long time the work of the American lawyers who volunteered to defend the Bahraini detainees, but was later forced to consider them due to the pressure brought by the institutions of civil society, the press, and families of detainees as well as the Parliament. However, the relationship remained weak, aiming at quelling public pressure rather than real coordination.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia preferred direct security and diplomatic negotiations between the two countries rather than the judicial proceedings, and totally ignored the issues related to the US courts and the lawyers, refusing to receive any of the lawyers in Saudi Arabia. It even refused to provide lawyers representing Saudi detainees with an entry visa to meet the detainees’ families. Based on the above reasons, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights organized several individual and collective meetings between the Saudi detainees’ families and the American lawyers in Bahrain given that Bahrain is the closest state to Saudi Arabia.
How did the Gulf Governments deal with the detainees who returned from Guantanamo?
The way Gulf governments treated the detainees returned from Guantanamo differed between states. Bahrain, which has received all its detainees, investigated them for few hours upon their arrival and then released them after taking their residence details, and saved their case at the Public Prosecutors’ office.
As for Saudi Arabia, which has now received most of its detainees, it imprisoned them at the prison for up to two months and then shifted them to a rehabilitation program for six months in a location similar to a touristic resort, with swimming pools and different sports and leisure equipment. It then released them after giving each one a car, a life long monthly salary in addition to an amount of money for marriage purposes and a housing allocation.
In Kuwait, which has received eight of its twelve detainees at different times, detainees were held in custody for a period of three to six months, and were then presented to the court, were they were declared innocent. The Kuwaiti government provided each detainee with a monthly salary upon his arrival to Kuwait.
Their situation upon arrival
Almost all the detainees who returned from Guantanamo were able to re-integrate into their societies, and those who surrounded them tried to help them as well. Some detainees kept rejecting all that is American, doubting even the lawyers who defended them, the Human Rights Organizations and the International Red Cross, considering them all working for a United States agenda.
Several representatives from American and Western research or media institutions visited Gulf recently and tried to meet with the released detainees, but most detainees refused the meetings because they doubted their intentions or background. Other detainees did not meet them as an attempt to forget the painful past, and even boycott anything which might remind them of this past.
The positive outcome
Despite the tough conditions in dealing with the violations that took place in the Guantanamo, some positive sides should be highlighted.
Thanks to all the efforts, especially those of the international non governmental Human Rights institutions and the Civil Society institutions around the world, that made the detainees in Guantanamo no longer be seen as terrorists and murders, detained by the American justice system, but as victims of an unfair and illegal arrests, detained in prisons with conditions well below the minimum standards for human rights and dignity.
The other positive outcome was primarily the participation of actors within the movement related to this case. In Bahrain for instance, advocacy work on the Guantanamo issue strengthened cooperation between the Sunnis and the Shiites, considering that most of those who worked with us in defending the detainees in Guantanamo at the Bahrain Center for Human Rights were from the Shiite sect while all the detainees were from the Sunni sect. This strengthened the relations between the different sects at a time when sectarian tension was at its peak due to several incidents following the invasion of Iraq.
This also applies to the religious tolerance between the Muslims and other religions. The lawyers who volunteered to defend the detainees in the United Stated were Christians or Jewish, and this had a positive impact on the conservative Muslim societies in the Gulf States. It changed the negative perception many had about these two religions, and about the American people, because the lawyers presented a positive image of their citizens by working on this case and defending the human rights of others – against their own government’s policies.
The last point worth mentioning is the management of the negative relationship between Human Rights Activists in the Arab world and the Islamic movements. The Human rights movement in the Arab Gulf won the respect of the political Islamic groups after a period of tension and boycott.
This fruitful experience remains one of many experiences of cooperation between the activists and the institutions of civil societies and the governments overcoming all the geographic, ethnic and religious obstacles. It also strengthens the confidence in the work of the Human Rights organizations that played a major role and gives hope for a better future.
