Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman

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Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman is a citizen of China, held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detainment camps, in Cuba.^[1] Rahman's Guantanamo detainee ID number is 281. The Department of Defense reports that Rahman was born on March 15, 1973, in Kucha, Xingiang Province, China.

Rahman is one of approximately two dozen detainees from the Uighur ethnic group.^[2]

Main article: Uighur detainees in Guantanamo

1 Combatant Status Review Tribunal
2 References

[edit] Combatant Status Review Tribunal

Combatant Status Review Tribunals were held in a small trailer, the same width, but shorter, than a mobile home. The Tribunal's President sat in the big chair. The detainee sat with their hands and feet shackled to a bolt in the floor in the white, plastic garden chair. A one way mirror behind the Tribunal President allowed observers to observe clandestinely. In theory the open sessions of the Tribunals were open to the press. Three chairs were reserved for them. In practice the Tribunal only intermittently told the press that Tribunals were being held. And when they did they kept the detainee's identities secret. In practice almost all Tribunals went unobserved.

Initially the Bush administration asserted that they could withhold all the protections of the Geneva Conventions to captives from the war on terror. This policy was challenged before the Judicial branch. Critics argued that the USA could not evade its obligation to conduct competent tribunals to determine whether captives are, or are not, entitled to the protections of prisoner of war status.

Subsequently the Department of Defense instituted the Combatant Status Review Tribunal. The Tribunals, however, were not authorized to determine whether the captives were lawful combatants -- rather they were merely empowered to make a recommendation as to whether the captive had previously been correctly determined to match the Bush administration's definition of an enemy combatant.

To comply with a Freedom of Information Act request, during the winter and spring of 2005, the Department of Defense released 507 memoranda. Those 507 memoranda each contained the allegations against a single detainee, prepared for their Combatant Status Review Tribunals. The detainee's name and ID numbers were redacted from all but one of the memoranda. However 169 of the memoranda had the detainee's ID hand-written on the top right hand of the first page corner. When the Department of Defense complied with a court order, and released official lists of the detainee's names and ID numbers it was possible to identify who those 169 were written about. Abdul Ghappar Abdul Rahman was one of those 169 detainees.^[3]

[edit] Allegations

a. The detainee is associated with the Taliban and supported hostilities against the United States and its coalition partners:

The detainee traveled to Afghanistan because he heard Uigher people could receive military training there.
The detainee arrived in Afghanistan from China via Pakistan and Kyrgyzstan in June 2001.
The detainee stayed at a Uighur guesthouse in Pakistan.
The detainee attended a Uighur training camp in Afghanistan.
The detainee received training in the use of the Kalishnikov rifle and a type of pistol.
The detainee decided to travel to Afghanistan and join the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan is a terrorist organization.
The detainee was captured in Pakistan after crossing the border from Afghanistan.

b. The detainee supported military operations against the coalition.

The detainee was injured during U.S. air strikes.
The detainee worked construction [sic] and improvement of the ###### training camp while in Afghanistan.
The detainee was in the Tora Bora mountains during the U.S. air campaign.