Paintings by Guantanamo inmates are not theirs to keep: Pentagon.
NOT THE PRISONERS WHO PAINT THEM, THE PENTAGON SAYS
If a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay paints a picture of a teapot or a stormy sea, does the art belong to him?
After an ocean-themed art exhibition in New York made waves that reached the Pentagon, the answer would seem to be no.
Ode to the Sea, an exhibition at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in Manhattan, features 36 paintings, drawings and sculptures made by eight men who were being held at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre in Cuba. (Of those, four have been released from the prison.)
The exhibition received international news coverage after it went up in October. Now, the Pentagon is reviewing the way it handles prisoners’ art, and lawyers say they have not been able to transport detainees’ paintings out of Guantánamo Bay in recent weeks.
“My clients were told that their art would no longer be processed for release,” said Ramzi Kassem, a professor at the City University of New York School of Law whose legal clinic represents three men being held at Guantanamo Bay. “And then one of my clients was told that, even if he were ever to be released, that he would not be able to take his art with him, and that it would be incinerated.”
The 41 men still held at Guantanamo Bay have been accused of having links to terrorists or of participating in terrorist plots, including the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Only 10 have been charged or convicted in the military commissions system.
Maj. Ben Sakrisson, a Pentagon spokesman, said in an email t hat “i t ems produced by detainees at Guantanamo Bay remain the property of the U. S. government.” He added that the Defense Department had suspended transfers of art from the prison, pending a policy review, but did not intend to pursue art that already was released.
Asked why the policy came up for review and whether it had anything to do with the exhibition at John Jay College, Sakrisson said that “media reporting brought it to the attention of the Department of Defense.” He also told The Miami Herald that “questions remain on where the money for the sales was going,” apparently referring to a line on the exhibition’s website that says the detainees’ art is available for purchase.
Erin Thompson, a curator of the exhibition, which is on display through Jan. 26, said the only paintings for sale were the ones whose artists had been cleared and released from Guantanamo.
“The idea of trying to dispirit someone by destroying what they’ve made, even if the subject is, on its surface, innocuous, is very common in warfare,” added Thompson, a professor of art crime at John Jay College. She said she would be distressed if U. S. officials destroyed art created by their prisoners.
At Guantanamo Bay, art classes have been available for nearly a decade. The detainees were allowed to give their creations to their lawyers, often as thank you gifts or for safekeeping.
One lawyer, Beth Jacob, said her client showed her his paintings when they first met. “I was impressed by it, and he told me that the art teacher there had complimented him,” she said. So last year, she reached out to Thompson about putting them on display. Several other Guantanamo detainees agreed to participate, and the exhibition was unveiled in October.
It includes a piece called “Vertigo at Guantanamo,” a series of colourful dots in concentric circles that call to mind a gaping hole. That one was by Abd al Aziz Ali, a citizen of Pakistan who also goes by Ammar al- Baluchi and was charged with helping to orchestrate the Sept. 11 attacks.
The exhibition also includes a painting of the Statue of Liberty in front of an electric-blue sea. That work is by Jacob’s client, Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah al Ansi, a Yemeni citizen. U. S. officials suspected him of working as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, but he was cleared by a tribunal last year and transferred to Oman in January.
Also on display are intricate models of ships, their white sails stamped with the words “APPROVED BY U. S. FORCES” to show that they were inspected by military officials on their way out of the prison. Those are by Moath Hamza Ahmed al Alwi, a prisoner at Guantanamo Bay who has been accused of associating with al- Qaida operatives, but has not been charged with any crime.
Each piece of art was subject to a rigorous security check on the way out of Guantanamo, and the review process took weeks, said Kassem, whose legal clinic represents Alwi. Kassem added that he was never given a reason for the apparent change, and formally sought an explanation from the joint task force at Guantanamo Bay this month. That was denied, he said.
Shelby Sullivan- Bennis, a lawyer with Reprieve, a human rights advocacy group whose l awyers represent several detainees at Guantanamo Bay, also said news of the rule change came from clients, not from the Defense Department.