AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

After more than 20 years of being imprisoned without charge or trial at Guantánamo Bay, the Pentagon has transferred 11 Yemeni men to Oman to restart their lives. These men had been approved for transfer for years but remained behind bars because of political or diplomatic obstacles. Before arriving at Guantánamo, four of the men transferred to Oman on Monday had been held at secret overseas CIA prisons known as black sites, where torture was common. In recent weeks, the U.S. has transferred four other Guantánamo prisoners.

This latest push at the end of the Biden administration brings the total number of men detained at Guantánamo down to 15, the fewest since the George W. Bush administration turned Guantánamo into a military prison for mostly Muslim men taken into custody around the world during the so-called war on terror. A total of 780 men have been detained at Guantánamo since 2002. Rights groups are calling on the Biden administration to resettle Guantánamo’s last 15 prisoners and close the notorious prison once and for all. Six of those remaining have never been charged with a crime. Three have already been cleared for transfer by the Biden administration. The government spends half a billion dollars a year keeping the prison and the court at Guantánamo open for this small number of men.

For more on this story, we’re joined here in New York by two guests. Ramzi Kassem is with us, professor of law at CUNY, City University of New York, represented Guantánamo prisoners Moath al-Alwi and Sanad al-Kazimi, who have just been released and flown to Oman. Pardiss Kebriaei is senior staff attorney with Center for Constitutional Rights. Her last client, Sharqawi Al Hajj, was among the 11 Yemeni prisoners just transferred.

We welcome you both back to Democracy Now! Pardiss, let’s begin with you. The significance of this move by President Biden?

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: You know, Amy, I’ll start with the men and their families. Twenty-three years, they’ve been in prison, in the most extreme deprivation. It’s prison. Guantánamo is prison, and it’s then some, for 23 years. So, the release of these people and their freedom for the first time after all of this time, the chance to reunify with their families and begin to recover and rebuild, is — you know, it’s hard to overstate the enormity of that for them.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about Sharqawi.

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: Sharqawi is 51. He’s been inside since — I think he was captured when he was 28, 29.

AMY GOODMAN: Where?

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: Abroad in Pakistan. You know, it’s been 23 years in Guantánamo. He’s gone through his entire thirties and forties there. He’s lost both of his parents in prison. He is among the men you mentioned who was held in CIA sites before he was brought to Guantánamo in 2004. He was held in those sites for over two years and experienced —

AMY GOODMAN: What was he charged with?

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: Nothing. Nothing. He wasn’t charged with anything. None of the men — the vast majority, most of the men at Guantánamo have never been charged with anything. There are nine people in the system now who have been charged or convicted.

AMY GOODMAN: And explain why Guantánamo exists. Precisely for that reason, right? So you can engage in extrajudicial — explain what extrajudicial laws are, that you can be held for 23 years and never charged.

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: I mean, Guantánamo was set up as the place to — it was an intelligence-gathering operation. The point of it was to establish a place offshore where people could be held outside the bounds of the law, without access to courts, incommunicado, and where they could be interrogated. That was the — it was an intelligence-gathering operation from the beginning. That’s why the site was chosen. And they were held without charge, without access to lawyers or courts for two years into their detention. The treatment they suffered was largely — was for the purpose of breaking them down. I mean, Guantánamo has such a long history, that we’ve forgotten. It’s been documented in scores. But the things that these people have been through — and Sharqawi, you know, speaks on his behalf — in CIA sites is the worst, the worst of what we do. So, in terms of the significance, you know, it is the end of that acuteness, the acuteness of that, and a chance to, you know, start —

AMY GOODMAN: Will they be imprisoned in Oman, or will they be free?

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: They will not. They will not. They have landed as free people. Oman has taken people in before. There are over — there are about 30 people who were taken in, in 2015 to 2017. Oman provided them support and rehabilitation. It’s been a relatively good resettlement. There are questions about the group that was — the Yemenis who were sent there before were sent back, against their will in some cases, to Yemen, after years of being in Oman. And there is a question about that. And it’s important to say that by deciding to take these men in, Oman has an obligation of protection and support.

AMY GOODMAN: Let me ask Ramzi Kassem about the two men that you represented, and that you in the last two years have served as senior policy adviser at the White House and also with your students have represented 15 prisoners at Guantánamo, at Bagram Air Base, other secret or U.S. — disclosed U.S. facilities worldwide. Tell us about the two men.

RAMZI KASSEM: Moath al-Alwi is also a Yemeni national. He’s one of the very first prisoners who arrived at Guantánamo almost. I mean, the prison was opened on January 11th, 2002. He was on the second or the third plane. You could tell by his low internment serial number, 028. He was never charged with any crime. He was, like the majority of prisoners at Guantánamo, sold for a bounty, $5,000 to $15,000, that the U.S. government was paying to tribes in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region for so-called Arabs out of place. And, you know, by the government’s own allegations, Mr. al-Alwi never so much as fired a shot at U.S. forces or their allies. Still, he spent 23 years, over half of his life, at Guantánamo. He became an accomplished artist at that time.

Sanad al-Kazimi, like Pardiss’s client, Sanad al-Kazimi survived the CIA black sites. He was disappeared in the United Arab Emirates, survived severe forms of physical and psychological torture at a prison that the prisoners who survived it called “the prison of darkness” or “the dark prison.” The CIA called it the “Salt Pit” or “Cobalt” in the Senate’s report about the torture that happened there. And he was brought to Guantánamo in 2004. He was also never charged with a crime. He has four kids that he hasn’t seen for the better part of their lives. And, you know, he was looking forward to, as much as possible, try to rebuild and try to reintegrate these roles as a father.

AMY GOODMAN: Tell me about the art that al-Alwi — I mean, he is a real — I mean, the level of artistry here. What was Trump’s response when The New York Times did a profile of him as an artist?

RAMZI KASSEM: Yeah, the Trump administration at the time and the Department of Defense under President Trump at the time declared that — basically, banned Guantánamo art, declared that the prisoners could no longer export their art from the island prison to the outside world, all of that because there was a show displaying the art, not just of Mr. al-Alwi but many of the other prisoners, at John Jay College, which is part of the City University of New York. And so, the Department of Defense decided to impose a ban on Guantánamo art, declaring that the art was literally the property of the U.S. government. We had officials threaten some of our clients that their art would be seized and destroyed. Now, thankfully, you know, our understanding is that Mr. al-Alwi was able to take much of his art with him to Oman, and he looks forward to continuing with that skill set to express himself.

AMY GOODMAN: We just have about a minute. What does Biden need to do? He has what? Just over a week left.

RAMZI KASSEM: Guantánamo has always been a question of political will. Biden actually has an opportunity to do more than he has already done. Perhaps the single most remarkable thing about the transfer of the 11 prisoners this week is that there has been complete silence from the Republican camp. And that’s because Guantánamo is no longer as politically valuable as it once was. The Republicans — and this may be the depressing way of looking at it — the Republicans have so thoroughly won on every front, including with the last election, that they no longer need to beat up the Democrats over Guantánamo. And in that lies an opportunity for President Biden.

AMY GOODMAN: And even with DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, the half a billion dollars spent on a prison — for what? It’s now 15 men, Pardiss? Your final comment?

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: And concretely, there are six of the 15 men have never been charged, will never be charged. Three of those men have been cleared for transfer and are awaiting transfer. Those men should be transferred, at a minimum, and that includes a CCR client who remains, Guled Duran Hassan from Somalia. At a minimum, the DOJ, this DOJ, should drop its opposition to their habeas cases, to habeas cases to anyone who will remain.

AMY GOODMAN: And are you calling for the prison to be closed?

PARDISS KEBRIAEI: We are calling for the end of the system of indefinite detention to close. And they are very, very close to doing that. That can be done.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to leave it there. Pardiss Kebriaei is a senior staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, and attorney Ramzi Kassem is a professor CUNY Law School. Their clients are Yemeni prisoners just transferred to Oman. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.