Changes are coming to Guantanamo and closure isn't one of them yet. The detainees will be provided culture classes for intellectual stimulation, movie nights and more.

Prison camp staff will soon start offering art and geology classes to long-held war-on-terrorism detainees....Plans include hand-held Game Boy-like electronic games to circulate through the cells, newspapers from Cairo, more ''movie nights'' featuring videotaped sports and expanded lessons in English as a second language.

....''We want to keep their brains stimulated. We're not here to give degrees,'' says Zak, an Arab American who serves as the prison camps' cultural advisor, a secular job. ``Once they are engaged and busy, they leave the guards alone.''

U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon today ordered the release of five of the six habeas defendants in Boumediene v. Bush/Al Odah v. U.S (pdf). The opinion will be out later today.

In the first case of its kind, U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon said the government's evidence linking the five Algerians to al-Qaida was not credible as it came from a single, unidentified source. Therefore, he said the five could not be held indefinitely as enemy combatants, and should be released immediately.

"To allow enemy combatancy to rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with the court's obligation," Leon told the crowded courtroom.

[More....]

The Washington Post has more on President-Elect Barack Obama's Guantanamo plans. Shorter version: We'll study the matter and get back to you. [Warning, this is a very long post.]

The Obama administration will launch a review of the classified files of the approximately 250 detainees at Guantanamo Bay immediately after taking office, as part of an intensive effort to close the U.S. prison in Cuba, according to people who advised the campaign on detainee issues.

....Although as a candidate Obama publicly expressed his desire to close the detention facility, his transition team stressed this week that the president-elect has not assembled his national security and legal team and that no decisions have been made "about where and how to try the detainees," Denis McDonough, an Obama foreign policy adviser, said in a statement issued Monday.

[More...]

It may have been too good to be true. Earlier today the news reported that Obama planned to close Guantanamo and try the detainees facing criminal charges in U.S. criminal courts or courts using the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Or, in a curious statement, in some kind of new court.

Not so fast. After the reports, Obama released a statement denying he was considering a new kind of court for the detainees, but that also said:

"....There is absolutely no truth to reports that a decision has been made about how and where to try the detainees, and there is no process in place to make that decision until his national security and legal teams are assembled," said Denis McDonough, a senior foreign policy adviser for the transition team, in a statement.

So, the good news is Obama's not planning on creating a new kind of court. The hiccup is he is not prepared to say today "how and where" the detainees will be tried. [More..]

The ACLU and Brave New Founation launched their Close Guantanamo campaign today. They also took out this full page ad in today's New York Times, calling on Barack Obama to close Gitmo. The website for Close Gitmo is here. A page of resources is here.

As President, I will close Guantánamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions” – Barack Obama, 8/1/07

As TalkLeft noted here, the government dropped charges against Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed. That hasn't stopped the Bush administration from continuing to detain him, but it has raised a judicial eyebrow.

The Justice Department told Judge Emmet Sullivan that it no longer relied upon the claim that Mohamed assisted Jose Padilla in planning the detonation of a "dirty bomb" in the United States -- a charge that was never pursued against Padilla.

At the Thursday hearing, Judge Sullivan asked why, after more than six years, the government had stepped away from its claims about a dirty-bomb plot. “That raises a question as to whether or not the allegations were ever true,” the judge said.

It certainly does. [more ...]

The Bush administration is gamely proceeding with another military tribunal hearing for a Guantanamo detainee. The first trial resulted in an acquittal of the most serious charge and a sentence that amounted to "we're sorry, you can go home now." Unafraid of a second colossal embarrassment, the administration is bringing a second detainee to trial. This one should be an easier win since the defense isn't participating.

Ali Hamza al-Bahlul does not want to be represented by an American military officer. He wants to represent himself. The judge rejected that request and rejected his lawyer's motion to withdraw. The trial was moving forward. Bahlul announced his intent to boycott the proceedings. The judge said Bahlul's interests would be represented by his counsel even if Bahlul chose not to participate. And then Bahlul's lawyer made a gutsy move:

"I will be joining Mr. Al Bahlul's boycott, sitting silently at the table," said Maj. Frakt, who then refused to respond to several questions from the judge.

[more ...]

By a 2 to 1 vote, a three judge panel of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has granted the Government's motion for a stay of the District Court's order directing the Bush Administration to release the 17 Uighur detainees held at Guantanamo into the U.S. (Background here and here.)

The government has been trying to find new homes for the Uighurs for years. It no longer considers them enemy combatants and provided no evidence in court that they posed a security risk. The men cannot be returned to their homeland because they face the prospect of being tortured and killed. China considers the men terrorists.

Judge Judith Rogers dissented. Her reasoning: [More...]

President Bush says the U.S. does not torture. That's not the truth according to new documents obtained by the Associated Press.

The 91 pages of new documents detail concerns raised by military officials over the treatment of Yasier Hamdi and Jose Padilla, both U.S. citizens, and Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a legal U.S. resident. The documents were provided by the U.S. Fleet Forces Command which is in charge of the military brigs in Norfolk, Va., and Charleston, S.C where the three were held.

The officials said the conditions of confinement had driven the three to the brink of insanity.

"These documents are the first clear confirmation of what we've suspected all along, that the brig was run as a prison beyond the law. There was an effort to create a Gitmo inside the United States," Jonathan Hafetz of the ACLU's National Security Project in New York said, using the slang word for the U.S. naval facility in Cuba.

More...

On Sunday I wrote a long post on the plight of the Uighur Chinese Muslim detainees at Guantanamo and the court hearing that would be held today.

The Center for Constitutional Rights and the ACLU reports (link will be available here) the Judge did in fact order their release into the U.S.

U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina in Washington, D.C. rejected the Bush administration’s position of indefinitely holding the detainees, known as Uighurs, since they are not considered enemy combatants. The Uighurs have been held in Guantánamo for seven years.

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In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the detainees at Guantanamo have the right to challenge their detention as enemy combatants and to have their challenges heard quickly.

Also in June, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Huzaifa Parhat, one of the Uighur Chinese Muslims held at Gitmo, was not an enemy combatant and therefore entitled to seek his freedom.

Four months later, The New York Times reports, no hearings have been held. The Bush Administration now argues that the judiciary cannot order the release of detainees because only military officials have the authority to end wartime detentions.

On Tuesday, the detained Uighurs, whom the Government is no longer claiming are enemy combatants, will get another hearing in Court. [more...]

The ACLU today requested the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals to reinstate its lawsuit against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan. (Press release will be available here shortly.) The lawsuit charged:

Jeppesen knowingly provided direct flight services to the CIA that enabled the clandestine transportation of the men to secret overseas locations, where they were tortured and subjected to other "forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" under the agency's "extraordinary rendition" program.

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