Periodic Review Secretariat
The Periodic Review Secretariat is a body authorized by President Barack Obama in Executive Order 13567, on March 7, 2011.[1] The Secretariat oversees Periodic Review Boards. The Boards convene hearings to make recommendations about selected individuals held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
In January 2009 Obama authorized another body, the Guantanamo Review Task Force, to review the files on all the remaining individuals being held in Guantanamo. That body's mandate was to recommend classifying the men into three different groups: individuals who should face charges; individuals who it would be safe to release; and individuals for whom there was no evidence to justify charges, who nevertheless should be held indefinitely, because it was too dangerous to release them. The Guantanamo Review Task Force recommended splitting the remaining captives into three groups of approximately eighty men each. The men who faced indefinite detention without charge were the ones whose files were to be periodically reviewed.
Some press reports compared the Periodic Review Boards to parole boards in the criminal justice system.[2][3]
References
- ↑ Periodic Review Secretariat, U.S. Department of Defense.
- ↑ 71 Gitmo inmates to get parole-style hearings - Pentagon, Russia Today, 2013-07-22. “The messages informed the lawyers that the government has finally started preparations to hold the so-called Periodic Review Boards, which were ordered by President Barack Obama in March 2011. It was not specified when the panels will take place or which detainees will see their cases reviewed first.”
- ↑ Jason Leopold. Panel to review Guantanamo detainees: A new governmental process will review whether specific detainees should be freed, Al Jazeera, 2013-07-24. “Two years after President Obama signed an executive order establishing a parole board of sorts to review whether any of Guantanamo's 48 "indefinite detainees" can be released, the panel is finally getting to work, with an eye towards reducing the population, Al Jazeera has learned.”