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In 1968 Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. In 1972 she launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, breaking another political barrier.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
| Ali Ahmad Muhammad Al Rahizi علي أحمد محمد أل رهيز | |
|---|---|
 Al Rahizi's official Guantanamo identity portrait, showing him wearing the white uniform issued to compliant individuals | |
| Born | October 13, 1979[1][2] Taiz, Yemen |
| Released | 27 October 2021 Mukalla, Yemen |
| Detained at | Guantanamo |
| ISN | 45 |
| Charge | N/A (extrajudicial detention) |
| Status | Released |
Ali Ahmad Muhammad Al Rahizi (Arabic: علي أحمد محمد أل رهيز) is a Yemeni prisoner who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.[3] His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 45. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts reports he was born on October 13, 1979, in Taiz, Yemen.
He was one of the first twenty Guantanamo captives, sent there on January 11, 2002, and called "the worst of the worst".[4] Guantanamo analysts characterized him as one of the "Dirty Thirty".[5] In 2009, he was classified as a "forever prisoner"—an individual for whom there was no evidence they had committed a war crime, who, nevertheless, was considered too dangerous to release.[6] A Periodic Review Board hearing, in April 2014, reversed this determination. He was transferred to the United Arab Emirates on November 16, 2015, with four other Yemenis.[7] He was repatriated to Yemen on 27 October 2021.[8]
Originally the Bush Presidency asserted that captives apprehended in the "war on terror" were not covered by the Geneva Conventions, and could be held indefinitely, without charge, and without an open and transparent review of the justifications for their detention.[9] In 2004, the United States Supreme Court ruled, in Rasul v. Bush, that Guantanamo captives were entitled to being informed of the allegations justifying their detention, and were entitled to try to refute them.
Following the Supreme Court's ruling the Department of Defense set up the Office for the Administrative Review of Detained Enemy Combatants.[9][12]
Scholars at the Brookings Institution, led by Benjamin Wittes, listed the captives still held in Guantanamo in December 2008, according to whether their detention was justified by certain common allegations:[13]
A writ of habeas corpus, Ali Ahmed Mohammed Al Rezehi v. George W. Bush, was submitted on Ali Ahmed Mohammed Al Rezehi's behalf.[14] In response, on October 14, 2004, the Department of Defense released 26 pages of unclassified documents related to his Combatant Status Review Tribunal.
According to the study entitled, No-hearing hearings, there was an anomaly in Al Rahizi's record.[15] Al Rahizi's Personal Representative met with him for twenty minutes on September 23, 2004. Al Rahizi's Tribunal convened on September 28, 2004, without Al Rahizi being present.
The study quoted from the Summary of the Basis for Tribunal Decision:[15]
The detainee understood the Tribunal Proceedings, but chose not to participate . . . The Tribunal questioned the personal representative closely on this matter and was satisfied that the personal representative had made every effort to ensure that the detainee had made an informed decision.
The study then commented:[15]
The Tribunal’s close questioning of the personal representative is problematic because the form the personal representative presented to the Tribunal stated that the he had neither read nor left a written copy of the procedures with the detainee.
On April 25, 2011, whistleblower organization WikiLeaks published formerly secret assessments drafted by Joint Task Force Guantanamo analysts.[16][17] His Joint Task Force Guantanamo assessment was nine pages long, and was drafted on June 20, 2008.[18] It was signed by camp commandant Rear Admiral David M. Thomas Jr. He recommended continued detention.
Guantanamo analysts characterized him as one of the "Dirty Thirty".[5] In 2009, he was classified as a "forever prisoner" as an individual for whom there was no evidence he had committed a war crime but still was considered too dangerous to release.[6] A Periodic Review Board hearing, held in April 2014, reversed this determination. He was transferred to the United Arab Emirates on November 16, 2015, along with four other Yemenis.[7]
Al Rahizi was repatriated to Yemen and released on 27 October 2021.[19]
Works related to List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006 at Wikisource
Thirteen years ago today, a U.S. Air Force C-131 Starlifter cargo plane set down at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, dislodged 20 men in orange jumpsuits brought from Afghanistan and started the Pentagon's experiment in offshore detention.
Works related to List of Individuals Detained by the Department of Defense at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba from January 2002 through May 15, 2006 at Wikisource
Last month, 34-year-old Ali Ahmed al-Rahizi, appeared before the Periodic Review Board (PRB), which said he no longer posed a threat to the US.
Critics called it an overdue acknowledgment that the so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunals are unfairly geared toward labeling detainees the enemy, even when they pose little danger. Simply redoing the tribunals won't fix the problem, they said, because the system still allows coerced evidence and denies detainees legal representation.
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The Daily Telegraph, along with other newspapers including The Washington Post, today exposes America's own analysis of almost ten years of controversial interrogations on the world's most dangerous terrorists. This newspaper has been shown thousands of pages of top-secret files obtained by the WikiLeaks website.
Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Ali Ahmad Muhammad Al Rahizi (Arabic: علي أحمد محمد أل رهيز) is a Yemeni prisoner who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number is 45. Joint Task Force Guantanamo counter-terrorism analysts reports he was born on October 13, 1979, in Taiz, Yemen. He was one of the first twenty Guantanamo captives, sent there on January 11, 2002, and called "the worst of the worst". Guantanamo analysts characterized him as one of the "Dirty Thirty". In 2009, he was classified as a "forever prisoner"—an individual for whom there was no evidence they had committed a war crime, who, nevertheless, was considered too dangerous to release. A Periodic Review Board hearing, in April 2014, reversed this determination. He was transferred to the United Arab Emirates on November 16, 2015, with four other Yemenis. He was repatriated to Yemen on 27 October 2021.
The United States Department of Defense acknowledges holding Tunisian detainees in Guantanamo. A total of 779 detainees have been held in extrajudicial detention in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba since the camps opened on January 11, 2002 The camp population peaked in 2004 at approximately 660. Only nineteen new detainees, all "high value detainees" have been transferred there since the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Rasul v. Bush. As of January 6, 2025, 15 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay. By July 2012 the camp held 168 captives. On February 24, 2010, Carol Rosenberg, of the Miami Herald, reported that Albania accepted the transfer of three former detainees, a Tunisian, Saleh Bin Hadi Asasi and Sharif Fati Ali al Mishad and Rauf Omar Mohammad Abu al Qusin, an Egyptian, and a Libyan. The men will not be allowed to leave Albania. On July 27, 2012, Tunisia Live asserted the five remaining Tunisian captives would be repatriated by the end of 2012. Previously, the risk of torture under the Ben Ali regime meant the five Tunisian detainees could not safely return home. Now, with Tunisia's democratic transition in full effect, there is nothing to prevent these Tunisian citizens returning to their country.
Factual returns are documents a government has to file in response to habeas corpus petitions. Habeas corpus is a legal tool in the English tradition of justice, dating back to Magna Carta, prohibiting arbitrary arrest and detention. Captives are entitled to file a writ of habeas corpus before a judge, requiring the state to offer a justification for his or her detention.
Mustafa Ahmed Adam al-Hawsawi (Arabic: مصطفى احمد ادم الهوساوي; born August 5, 1968) is a Saudi Arabian citizen. He is alleged to have acted as a key financial facilitator for the September 11 attacks in the United States. Mustafa al-Hawsawi was captured in Pakistan by Pakistani agents in March 2003 and was transferred to the custody of the United States. He was held in secret CIA black sites until September 2006, when he was transferred to Guantánamo Bay and U.S. officials finally acknowledged his imprisonment. It detained him at the Salt Pit, a secret black site in Afghanistan. It was reported in August 2010 that, after months of interrogation, the CIA transferred al-Hawsawi and three other high-value detainees to Guantanamo Bay detention camp on September 24, 2003, for indefinite detention. Fearing that Rasul v. Bush, a pending Supreme Court case about detainees' habeas corpus rights, might result in having to provide the men with access to counsel, the CIA took back custody on March 27, 2004, and transported the four men to one of their black sites. It has long been known that, during al-Hawsawi's CIA captivity, his captors injured him, causing him to suffer from anal fissures, chronic hemorrhoids and, most seriously, symptomatic rectal prolapse. When the United States Senate Intelligence Committee published a 600-page unclassified summary of its 6,000-page report on the CIA's use of torture, the world learned that the CIA routinely punished its captives by sodomizing them, claiming the sodomy was the long abandoned medical technique of rectal feeding. The United States Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation of the CIA's Torture Program revealed that detainees were routinely subjected to unnecessary rectal exams without evidence of medical necessity for purposes of behavioral control. CIA leadership, including General Counsel Scott Muller and DDO James Pavitt, were alerted to allegations that rectal exams were conducted with "excessive force" on two detainees at the Salt Pit detention site. CIA records indicate that one of the detainees, Mustafa al-Hawsawi, was later diagnosed with chronic hemorrhoids, an anal fissure, and symptomatic rectal prolapse. Al-Hawsawi was transferred from CIA custody to military custody at Guantanamo on September 6, 2006. The Bush administration was then confident of the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which restricted detainee use of habeas corpus, and prohibited them from using the federal court system (this provision was, however, ruled unconstitutional in Boumediene v. Bush (2008), and numerous habeas corpus petitions were refiled in the federal courts). Al-Hawsawi remains incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay. On July 31, 2024, Al-Hawsawi agreed to plead guilty to avoid the death penalty. His plea deal was revoked by Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin two days later.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →The Greenwood District.
