September 16, 2013: The trial of five men alleged of aiding the September 11 attacks re-opens at GTMO. Officially known as United States v. Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, Walid Muhammad Salih Mubarak Bin ‘Attash, Ramzi Binalshibh, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, and Mustafa Ahmed Adam al Hawsawi, this military commission has proceeded spasmodically since charges were first…

Earlier this year, we heard an incredible story about a circus troupe that had visited the base at Guantánamo to entertain the families stationed there. Members of the troupe had filmed much of what they encountered at GTMO, and this footage had become the basis of a documentary film. The producers of this film, Christina…

The itinerary for our traveling exhibit crisscrosses the country, from Providence, Rhode Island to Riverside, California; from St. Paul, Minnesota to Phoenix, Arizona. Each stop on the itinerary brings a distinct set of local considerations and concerns to the exhibit. In New York the exhibit was displayed right on Washington Square, an important site of…

August 10 & 12, 2013: Bestselling author John Grisham condemns the ongoing incarceration of detainees that have been cleared for release from Guantánamo. In an op-ed published by The New York Times and The Guardian, Grisham highlights the story of Nabil Hadjarab, claiming that Hadjarab’s detention has been one of many “mistakes” in the war…

Enemy combatants. Enhanced interrogation techniques. Indefinite detention. The language we use to communicate Guantánamo’s recent history is both legally precise and frustratingly indirect. It also comes loaded with politicized connotations. Given the confusing and high-stakes nature of Guantánamo’s language, students at the University of California, Riverside, felt it was important to create a linguistic “intervention”…

July 26, 2013: The U.S. Department of Defense informs Congress that it intends to repatriate two detainees from Guantánamo to Algeria. This will be the first release of detainees in over a year, and the first repatriation in three years. July 30, 1994: The number of Cuban balseros (rafters) rescued from the sea increases dramatically.…

Each new host institution brings its own style to our traveling exhibit. Having so many collaborating students and universities means that new ideas and ways of engaging the public are constantly being generated. Rutgers held a poetry reading. UC Riverside offered screenings of ‘Zero Dark Thirty.’ Various forms of media – from an interactive map…

Our traveling exhibit was launched at New York University in December, 2012. Since then it has been hosted by partner institutions across the country, and will continue traveling for the rest of the year and deep into 2014. Originally produced by student teams at twelve universities, the exhibit schedule has now expanded beyond these founding…

July 18, 2013: A federal appeals court reinstated the legal use of genital searches as a security precaution at GTMO. SOUTHCOM commander Marine General John Kelly explained the necessity of such searches by referring to the death of detainee Adnan Latif, who allegedly committed suicide after secretly stockpiling a lethal dose of medication. July 20,…

As Guantánamo Public Memory Project Director Liz Sevcenko and journalist Garry Pierre-Pierre noted in a recent op-ed, the current detainee hunger strikes at GTMO are not unprecedented. In 1993, Haitian political refugees who had received clearance for asylum were barred from entering the US after they, or a family member, tested positive for HIV –…