CCR Senior Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei will participate in a briefing organized by Amnesty International and the Congressional Progressive Caucus on the 17th anniversary of the opening of the US detention center at the Guantánamo Bay military base. The panel will take place in Room 1539 in the Longworth House Office Building.

January 2019 will mark one decade since former USA President Obama signed an Executive Order ordering the closure of Guantánamo before 2010. With the new Congress, there is a fresh opportunity to put Guantánamo back on the agenda. Now is the time to enable Congress to exert its oversight powers to look into human rights violations at the facility and to ultimately defund it and close it down. For too long, Guantánamo has stood as an international symbol of injustice. Today, forty individuals remain held there, all of whom have been in US custody for more than a decade. Most are held without charge, while others are facing unfair trial by military commissions and the possibility of the death penalty.

The panel will examine Guantánamo 17 years after its opening, its status under the Trump administration, and the possibility of working for its closure with the 116th Congress. There will also be an art exhibit featuring printed artwork by Guantánamo detainees. Light refreshments will be served.

Panelists:

Mohamedou Slahi, FormerGuantánamo detainee, human rights activist and author of best-selling book “Guantánamo Diary,” calling in by Skype

Daphne Eviatar, Director, Security with Human Rights, Amnesty International USA

Maha Hilal, Co-Director, DC Justice for Muslims Collective

Pardiss Kebriaei, Senior Staff Attorney, Center for Constitutional Rights