Accolades for The Guantánamo Testimonials Project

The individuals quoted on these pages are speaking only for themselves, not for the organizations they are affiliated with. Affiliations and locations are provided solely for purposes of identification and as indicators of spread.

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What a great site your Guantanamo Testimonials Project is! I thank everyone involved. Jeffrey Kaye, Psychologist and anti-torture researcher/blogger working with torture victims through Survivors International San Francisco, March 20, 2011.
I am a graduate student in creative writing and a poet. I just wanted to say how relevant the Guantanamo Testimonials Project has been to my work. It has helped me push my imagination into terrain I feel is important to explore. I admire your courageous work. Justine el-Khazen, January 18, 2011.
The monumental work of the Guantanamo Testimonials Project is essential to keep the historical record straight and to help us learn lessons for the future. Thank you very much, and keep up the good work! Omar Deghayes, former Guantanamo prisoner and legal director, Guantanamo Justice Center, December 17, 2010.
The Guantánamo Testimonials Project, [t]his extensive collection of valuable data and testimony from many parties involved in detentions and interrogations at Guantánamo, is compiled and maintained by The UC Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA). The CSHRA's director, UC Davis linguistics professor Almerindo Ojeda, also edited an excellent volume on psychological torture entitled The Trauma of Psychological Torture. Alternative Methods (A Play by Patricia Davis), Further Reading (July 2010).
Thank you for the excellent initiative this website represents. Your website and all its testimonials are an important and invaluable resource. David Chocron, Oslo, Norway (June 29, 2010).
Your Center's website is truly amazing--a treasure trove of very important and useful information. Nancy Talanian, No More Guantanamos (June 15, 2009).
Thank you for your impressive collection and analysis of information. I have used it many times in my own research. Michael Peppard, Department of Theology, Fordham University (May 7, 2009).
Congratulations on the excellent work. Your work is invaluable. Marian Houk, writer, journalist, and analyst with experience in the United Nations and the Middle East (February 15, 2009).
Your Guantanamo Testimonials Project is a great success. It creates a record that can be used to make changes and serve as a constant reminder to all Americans that we should be cautious of those who tell us to sacrifice liberty for security. Lt. Col. (ret.) Colby Vokey, Regional Defense Counsel for the Western United States and former lead defense attorney for Guantánamo prisoner Omar Khadr. January 26, 2009.
What an outstanding contribution to the advancement of human rights, and the documentation of the struggle to attain and retain them! Thank you for your noble and successful effort. Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld, Lead Prosecutor assigned to the Military Commissions case against Guantánamo prisoner Mohammed Jawad (January 21, 2009).
Thanks for pulling this much needed endeavor together! Ramzi Kassem, Clinical Lecturer and Teaching Fellow, Yale Law School, attorney for Guantanamo prisoner Ahmed Zaid Zuhair (November 6, 2008).
The Guantánamo Testimonials Projects is an invaluable resource that I’ve referred to many times in the course of my work representing Guantánamo detainees. There is no other site of which I’m aware that provides the same range of documents – including not only NGO reports and news articles, but letters from detainees and international petitions – in one place. Thank you. Pardiss Kebriaei, Attorney, Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative, Center for Constitutional Rights (August 26, 2008).
I heard Almerindo Ojeda speak about the Guantanamo Testimonials Project in August 2006. After the presentation, I went straight to the website and began reading testimonials. As a songwriter, I felt a strong desire to get the message in these stories out to people in my audience. When I had finished writing the song Guantanamo, I showed it to my collaborators, Ray Frank and Katie Henry of the local acoustic trio MudLark, and we chose to include it on our debut CD, Nest, which was released in December 2007. We have performed this sobering song to live audiences from Davis to Juneau, Alaska, and it is now freely available at http://www.mudlarkmusic.com/music-24.html. Thank you for your truth-telling. Every time I sing this song I encourage the audience to go to your website and read the stories themselves. Laura Sandage, Songwriter (May 13, 2008).
The Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas at the University of California at Davis has a wonderful archive, the Guantánamo Testimonials Project, with testimony from many sources on the conditions at the prison. The Project--by typing out many handwritten documents, transforming them into searchable text, and carefully organizing them--is one of the premier sources for such materials as detainee or FBI accounts of abuses there. My colleagues and I use it all the time. Stephen Soldz, Director, Center for Research, Evaluation, and Program Development, Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis (April 28, 2008).
What a fantastic project! I have some hope that if enough weight of testimonial evidence is accumulated, then they won't be able to "manufacture" a history in which Guantanamo (the system and all it represents) never happened. Your project sounds like it's an excellent step in that direction. Stephen J. Gallagher. Contributor to Monthly Review, Free Inquiry, Peace Review, and Journal of Contemporary Thought. He blogs regularly at CrustyPolemicist.blogspot.com (April 3, 2008).
Thank you for organizing the Guantanamo Testimonials Project. Preserving a record of what has been happening at that location is a vitally important service. Joseph McMillan, Perkins Coie LLP (February 10, 2008).
Through the testimonies produced in this project, those who ever doubted the atrocities written about the detention center at Guantánamo are moved to take action, condemning the prison’s existence and immediately feeling a connection and solidarity with all those involved in this shameful institution. While the media tries to convince us that those locked up in Guantánamo are terrorists and therefore non-human, this project reminds us all that everyone involved in the embarrassment that is Guantánamo are people – deserving of the justice that this country thrives upon. Alicia Walters, Field Organizer, ACLU/Northern California (January 11, 2008).
I commend you on the wonderful work you are doing on the Testimonials Project--giving a voice to the detainees is extremely important and your project will be a significant record in our history so that we may remember the detainees and their humanity. Kristine A. Huskey, Clinical Professor and Director, National Security & Human Rights Clinic, University of Texas School of Law (January 8, 2008).
A number of organizations are interested in exploring the effects of the United States' war on terror, and many of these groups have focused in on the situation at the detention facilities at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. One organization that is intimately involved with documenting the situation is the University of California-Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas (CSHRA) The goal of The Guantanamo Testimonials Project is "to gather testimonials of prisoner abuse in Guantanamo." They have done a fine job, and visitors can examine a wide range of testimonials organized into categories that include prisoners, FBI agents, prosecution lawyers, the Red Cross, and interrogators. It's a very compelling project and website, and for anyone interested in human rights and various aspects of the law, it will certain warrant multiple visits. Internet Scout Project, University of Wisconsin at Madison (September 28, 2007).
This is an important project, and is shaping up to become an invaluable resource for the growing number of concerned citizens - both in the US and elsewhere - who are questioning what has been done in their name. I wish you the best of luck with it. Andy Worthington, Author, The Guantanamo Files (October 18, 2007).
Thank you for your excellent work on Guantanamo. I have just now received the web link and was terribly dismayed at the testimonies you have amassed so far. Robert Press, Political Science Department, University of Southern Mississippi (September 30, 2007).
As counsel to the Boumediene petitioners in Boumediene v. Bush, we are most appreciative of the work of the Guantanamo Testimonials Project in helping to make our clients' plight better known. The issue of habeas corpus relief for the Guantanamo detainees is of great public importance for many reasons and the GTP's work in helping to explain this issue is significant. On behalf of our six clients, held without charge or trial at Guantanamo since January 20, 2002, let me extend thanks and appreciation for this public undertaking. Stephen Oleskey, WilmerHale (August 27, 2007).
This project is an important counterweight to the Administration’s disinformation campaign about Guantanamo. It was conceived in the best tradition of our fundamental American values – respect for human rights and support for the rule of law. Thank you for keeping these testimonies available to the public. Marc Falkoff, Assistant Professor, Northern Illinois University College of Law, and Editor, Poems from Guantanamo: The Detainees Speak (July 15, 2007).
Thanks! I was not aware of your impressive project at all, and will pass it on to all of my co-counsel. Keep up the good work. Richard Wilson. Director, International Human Rights Law Clinic, American University. Washington College of Law. Washington, D.C. (Februart 20, 2007).
Thanks so much for compiling the information. It's a great resource. Joshua Colangelo-Bryan. Dorsey and Whitney LLP. New York, New York (February 23, 2007).
Prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay has damaged our reputation in the Moslem world, and that, in turn, has hurt our national security. Yet we still have not had a national debate about prisoner abuse. When that debate occurs, your site will be a valuable resource for those looking for the facts. James Dorsey. Fredrikson & Byron P.A. Minneapolis, Minnesota (February 23, 2007).
Good for you for doing this—an excellent idea and a great source of primary documents. Good luck with it. Joseph Margulies. Northwestern University Law School & Author, Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (February 23, 2007).
Thank you. Good work. I will visit your web site and determine if I can add to it. We do need to return to a rule of law. Jan K. Kitchel. Schwabe, Williamson & Wyatt. Portland, Oregon (February 23, 2007).
Thank you! I will visit your website and encourage others to do the same. Nancy   Hollander. Freedman Boyd Daniels Hollander Goldberg & Ives. Albuquerque, New Mexico (February 23, 2007).
The Guantanamo Testimonials Project is a massive endeavor bent on collecting personal testimony from Guantanamo, showing how this presidential prison, created beyond the bounds of any law, national or international, has damaged the humanity and integrity of all involved--prisoners, prison guards, interrogators, prosecutors, and their commanders. The website is a treasure trove for information about conditions at this latter-day Devil's Island. Alfred McCoy, J.R.W. Smail Professor of History, University of Wisconsin at Madison & Author, A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation From the Cold War to the War on Terror (May 14, 2007).
Thanks for this. Very impressive. Clive A. Stafford Smith. Legal Director, Reprieve. London, UK (February 23, 2007).
The website is enormously helpful, and very timely. I know this was a lot of work to put together, and I thank you for your dedication to this important human rights initiative. I will spread the word about this great resource. Pat A. Bronte. Jenner & Block LLP. Chicago, Illinois (February 23, 2007).
This is wonderful. Have you considered translating any parts of it into Arabic? I know many people in the Middle East who would love to be able to read some of the information on your site. Anant Raut. Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. Washington, D.C (February 22, 2007).
With respect to the human rights and legal atrocity that is the prison at Guantanamo Bay, people of reason and conscience will desire ready access to scholarly resources such as the website of the UCDavis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, which is user-friendly, thorough, informative, and focused. The website is an awareness tool, and my hope is that increased awareness among the American populace will help bring this sad chapter of American history to a close. Ismail Alsheik. Schiff Hardin LLP. Chicago, Illinois (February 23, 2007).
Congratulations on all your hard work! [The website]'s looking great, and will be a great resource for scholars and activists. Camille Crittenden. Executive Director, Human Rights Center, University of California at Berkeley. Berkeley, California (February 26, 2007).
What a terrific project! Bridget McCormack, University of Michigan Law School (March 14 2007).
Your website has been very valuable and informative. Juda Strawczynski, Physicians for Human Rights (March 26, 2007).
An invaluable website for people deeply interested in the subject of Guantánamo. Jamie O'Connell, Program Officer, International Human Rights Law Clinic, Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California at Berkeley (April 7, 2007).