Judge Blocks Guantanamo Transfer to Tunisia

In an unprecedented step forward, a federal judge blocked the Pentagon from returning a Tunisian national being held at Guantanamo on the grounds that he could face grave harm if sent back to Tunisia. The judge pointed to the types of abuses documented in our September 2007 report, which exposed severe mistreatment of two other Guantanamo detainees who were transferred back to Tunisia this year, despite diplomatic assurances by the Tunisian government that the two would not be harmed. As the US government steps up its efforts to move men out of Guantanamo and close the facility, we have urged Washington not to send detainees to countries where they face torture or abuse on the basis of unenforceable diplomatic assurances. Earlier this year, we exposed the torture and mistreatment faced by seven Guantanamo detainees who were returned to Russia by the United States in 2004. We will continue to press US authorities to give detainees who fear torture in their home countries the opportunity to contest their transfer in a federal court.