Eleven Yemeni men imprisoned without charge or trial at the Guantánamo Bay detention center for more than two decades have just been released to Oman to restart their lives. This latest transfer brings the total number of men detained at Guantánamo down to 15. Civil rights lawyers Ramzi Kassem and Pardiss Kebriaei, who have each represented many Guantánamo detainees, including some of the men just released, say closing the notorious detention center “has always been a question of political will,” and that the Biden administration must take action to free the remaining prisoners and “end of the system of indefinite detention” as soon as possible.

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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........

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