Offering a glimpse into the top-secret world of Guantanamo Bay, the Pentagon has released the names and home countries of many detainees who have been held at the isolated military prison for up to four years.
A Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by The Associated Press forced the US Department of Defense on Friday afternoon to turn over some 5,000 pages of transcripts from closed-door hearings on the detainees, most of whom were accused of having links to the Taliban or al-Qaeda.
While the Pentagon has not provided the full roster of detainees, the transcripts give the most detailed picture to date of who has been held at the prison on a US base in eastern Cuba, which has become the focus of international criticism in part because of the government's shroud of secrecy.
Jamie Fellner, director of the US program for Human Rights Watch, said the disclosure represents a "major breach" in that secrecy.
"It will add to our understanding of who is there and what are the reasons that the US alleges they are there for," Fellner said.
The Pentagon released the documents after a federal judge rejected arguments by the administration of US President George W. Bush that releasing names, home countries and other information would violate the detainees' privacy and could endanger them and their families.
The names are scattered throughout the transcripts of hearings, and it was unclear how many names the documents contained. In most of the transcripts, the person speaking is identified only as "detainee." Names appear only when court officials or detainees refer to people by name.
In some cases, even having the name did not clarify the identity. In one document, the tribunal president asks a detainee if his name is Jumma Jan. The detainee responds that no, his name instead is Zain Ul Abedin.
Most of the Guantanamo Bay hearings were held to determine whether or not the detainees were "enemy combatants."
That classification, Bush administration lawyers say, deprives the detainees of Geneva Conventions prisoner-of-war protections and allows them to be held indefinitely without charges.
Documents released last year -- also because of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by the AP -- included transcripts of 317 hearings, but had the detainees' names and nationalities blacked out. The current documents are the same ones -- this time, uncensored.
A US military spokesman in Guantanamo Bay said the Pentagon was uneasy about handing over the transcripts.
"Personal information on detainees was withheld solely to protect detainee privacy and for their own security," said Lieutenant Commander Chito Peppler. He said the defense department remains concerned that the disclosure "could result in retribution or harm to the detainees or their families."
About 490 prisoners are being held at Guantanamo Bay, but only 10 of them have been charged with a crime.
EUROPEAN TARGETS: The planned Munich center would support TSMC’s European customers to design high-performance, energy-efficient chips, an executive said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the world’s largest contract chipmaker, yesterday said that it plans to launch a new research-and-development (R&D) center in Munich, Germany, next quarter to assist customers with chip design. TSMC Europe president Paul de Bot made the announcement during a technology symposium in Amsterdam on Tuesday, the chipmaker said. The new Munich center would be the firm’s first chip designing center in Europe, it said. The chipmaker has set up a major R&D center at its base of operations in Hsinchu and plans to create a new one in the US to provide services for major US customers,
The Ministry of Transportation and Communications yesterday said that it would redesign the written portion of the driver’s license exam to make it more rigorous. “We hope that the exam can assess drivers’ understanding of traffic rules, particularly those who take the driver’s license test for the first time. In the past, drivers only needed to cram a book of test questions to pass the written exam,” Minister of Transportation and Communications Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) told a news conference at the Taoyuan Motor Vehicle Office. “In the future, they would not be able to pass the test unless they study traffic regulations
GAINING STEAM: The scheme initially failed to gather much attention, with only 188 cards issued in its first year, but gained popularity amid the COVID-19 pandemic Applications for the Employment Gold Card have increased in the past few years, with the card having been issued to a total of 13,191 people from 101 countries since its introduction in 2018, the National Development Council (NDC) said yesterday. Those who have received the card have included celebrities, such as former NBA star Dwight Howard and Australian-South Korean cheerleader Dahye Lee, the NDC said. The four-in-one Employment Gold Card combines a work permit, resident visa, Alien Resident Certificate (ARC) and re-entry permit. It was first introduced in February 2018 through the Act Governing Recruitment and Employment of Foreign Professionals (外國專業人才延攬及雇用法),
‘A SURVIVAL QUESTION’: US officials have been urging the opposition KMT and TPP not to block defense spending, especially the special defense budget, an official said The US plans to ramp up weapons sales to Taiwan to a level exceeding US President Donald Trump’s first term as part of an effort to deter China as it intensifies military pressure on the nation, two US officials said on condition of anonymity. If US arms sales do accelerate, it could ease worries about the extent of Trump’s commitment to Taiwan. It would also add new friction to the tense US-China relationship. The officials said they expect US approvals for weapons sales to Taiwan over the next four years to surpass those in Trump’s first term, with one of them saying
RSS