Counter Terror with Justice
The "war on terror" conducted by the U.S. government following 9/11 resulted in many serious violations of international human rights laws. Amnesty International's Counter Terror With Justice Campaign works to:
- Stop torture and ill treatment
- Close Guantánamo the right way--with detainees either tried fairly in U.S. federal courts or released
- End illegal detentions at Bagram and other U.S. facilities
- Stop rendition, and ensure that human rights abuses are investigated and prosecuted
Take action:
Sign a petition to Attorney General Eric H. Holder asking him to counter terror with justice. Click here.
Learn more:
Fawzi al-Odah, Guantánamo detainee
Kuwaiti National:
Fawzi Khaled Abdullah Fahad al-Odah
ISN#: 232
Age: 32
Occupation: Teacher
Fawzi al-Odah, one of two Kuwaiti detainees who remain held at Guantánamo, is currently awaiting trial. AIUSA is asking that both prisoners, Fawzi Al Odah and Fayiz Al Kandari, be returned to Kuwait expeditiously. The government of Kuwait is prepared and eager to receive them. Seven years in prison without being charged is incompatible with US laws and ideals and undermines the aspirations of the US to be a leader on human rights. The United Nations Committee Against Torture has held that indefinite detention without charges is, per se, a violation of the Convention Against Torture, to which the United States is a party.
History
According to his family, he traveled to Pakistan in August 2001 and later worked in Afghanistan until the US invasion, when he fled to the Pakistan border to escape the bombing. He was captured, along with four other Kuwaiti nationals, on the Pakistani side of the border in January 2002, jailed, and later handed over to US forces who held him in Kandahar, Afghanistan, before transferring him to Guantánamo.
Hunger Strike
Fawzi al-Odah began participating in a hunger strike at Guantánamo on August 8, 2005. In mid-November his lawyers visited him and found that his weight had dropped dramatically despite the fact that he was being force-fed. At the time, doctors advised that Fawzi al-Odah was in imminent danger of death or at least permanent organ damage. After Fawzi al-Odah ended the hunger strike, his lawyer stated that " … it is clear that the government has ended the hunger strike through the use of force and through the most brutal and inhumane types of treatment."
Supreme Court Case
al-Odah was one of the plaintiffs in the case, al-Odah v. United States, which was decided by the Supreme Court on June 12, 2008. The ruling that foreign prisoners held at Guantánamo may challenge their detention before a federal judge was a historic decision that rebuffs the Bush administration’s years-long effort to curtail the legal rights of terrorism suspects and reaffirmed the right to habeas corpus, the right of the accused to go before an impartial judge and challenge the rationale behind the denial of his/her liberty.
Learn more and take action:
Sign a petition or download letters to appeal to US officials to return Fawzi al-Odah to Kuwait: Click here.
