Life After Guantanamo

Barack Obama, the US president, still has not made good on the promise to close Guantanamo Bay prison that he signed on his first full day in office.

Since then, US Congress has raised the political price of transferring detainees — even those held without charge and already cleared for release. And the president has refused to pay it.

In this episode of Fault Lines, we travel to Yemen to meet men formerly detained at Guantanamo Bay.

Have they been tempted to “return to the battlefield”, as Congress warns? Did years of detention, isolation and torture make them want to seek revenge against the US? And how are they rebuilding their lives?

We also meet the families of some of the men still detained and on hunger strike as they continue their fight for a life after Guantanamo.

Fault Lines asks why US government officials have kept these men imprisoned for years, knowing that most of them could not be charged with a crime against the US. And we find out what the consequences of the US’ policy of indefinite detention have been.