FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 24, 2022
CONTACT: Rev. T.C. Morrow, This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  and 202-547-1920

Release of Unlawfully Imprisoned Detainee Assadullah Haroon Gul from Guantanamo

WASHINGTON, DC - Yesterday, Assadullah Haroon Gul, a prisoner of a war that is over, was released from Guantanamo and could soon be repatriated with his wife, daughter, brother and elderly mother in Afghanistan. Held for nearly 15 years in Guantanamo without charges, his release comes in the wake of an October 2021 ruling by a federal judge that his ongoing detention at Guantanamo was illegal, finding that he was not a member of Al Qaeda or any associated force, as the U.S. government alleged for years.

NRCAT celebrates this newest sign of the commitment of President Biden to close the detention center at Guantanamo. The local militia that he was a part of signed a peace deal with the former Afghan government in 2016, and as the federal court ruled, there is simply no longer any basis to detain him at Guantanamo or anywhere else.

Responding to this newest step by the Biden Administration to honor its commitment to close the Guantanamo prison, Rev. Ron Stief, Executive Director of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, said, “That someone like Assadullah Haroon Gul could be held without charges for 15 years, while the U.S. government knew all along that he posed little if any threat to the U.S., shows just how wrong it is that Guantanamo prison is still open. We call on Congress and the Biden Administration to immediately take steps to close Guantanamo and end this travesty of justice.”

The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is a membership organization committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Since its formation in January 2006, more than 300 religious organizations have joined NRCAT, including representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Unitarian Universalist, Quaker, Orthodox Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Baha’i, Buddhist, and Sikh communities. Members include national denominations and faith groups, regional organizations and local congregations.

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