Saturday, October 29: Our Little Secret Prison
An island getaway isn't always the best kind of vacation
The oldest prisoner at the unconstitutional detention center in Guantanamo Bay has finally been released. A 75-year-old Pakistani man named Saifullah Paracha has returned home and been reunited with his family after being illegally detained for more than 17 years, according to the foreign affairs ministry in Islamabad. Paracha had been held since 2003 on suspicion of having links with al-Qaida, but was never charged with a crime. Instead of having his day in court, Paracha sat in a hidden prison for most of the time I’ve been alive, enduring inhumane conditions with no idea if he’d ever return home.
Fast forward almost 18 years and Paracha was notified that his release had been approved having been cleared by the prisoner review board. In keeping with tradition, the notification did not provide detailed reasons for the decision and concluded only that Paracha was “not a continuing threat” to the US, according to his lawyer at the time. In November of 2020, Paracha, who has a heart condition and diabetes among other medical conditions, made his eighth appearance before the prisoner review board. The review board was originally established under President Obama to try to prevent the release of any prisoners who authorities believed might engage in anti-US hostilities upon their release from Guantánamo. Because the last thing this country wants after unjustly imprisoning and torturing someone is for them to go home and be angry about it.
In 2005 a federal court in New York relied on witness testimony to accuse Paracha and his son of providing financial support to terrorism, a charge they both openly denied. In March 2020, a judge threw out those same witness accounts and the US government decided not to seek a new trial, choosing instead to send both Parachas back to Pakistan. True generational trauma.
Side Items
Hammertime for Pelosi: Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul was attacked at their California mansion yesterday, suffering a skull fracture and other serious injuries. The assailant was apparently looking for Nancy, shouting and wielding a hammer, and not to make light of the situation, this is almost exactly how the most recent Batman movie starts. But instead of a psychotic criminal mastermind, this attack was carried out by some guy named David with an addiction to Facebook
Elon “Frees the Bird”: Hours after the richest orca in human history took over the social media giant, hate speech and racist language saw an uptick across Twitter. The very first hours of Musk’s stewardship of the social media platform were dominated by users relishing their ability to employ profane slurs and racial epithets, along with a torrent of racist, antisemitic, Islamophobic, homophobic, and transphobic hate speech. I’m sure this is just a coincidence
Phillies Take Game 1: You wanna know how I’m certain baseball is the most boring sport in modern society? Two teams played well over a hundred games in order to reach this year’s World Series. Now the Phillies are playing the Astros and I can honestly say I’ve never heard of 98% of the players involved. If you paid me a considerable amount of money I still wouldn’t be able to pick out the star players from either team. Anyway, Philly won game 1 yesterday if anyone cares