25 Years of Guantanamo Bay - Panel Discussion

January 2027 marks 25 years of the use of the Guantánamo Bay naval base as a prison for the War on Terror. This prison, notorious for the torture and indefinite detention its prisoners faced, is a still-standing symbol of the War on Terror. With fifteen of the original 780 prisoners that have passed through its walls still detained, what do we make of the fact that Guantánamo still holds prisoners without charge? What of the fact that the current president has ordered its expansion for the purpose of migrant detention? Is there still hope of closing Guantánamo? These are among the questions this panel will explore. The tragedy of the passing of 25 years of this injustice offers us a chance to reflect on what has changed since then, what remains the same, and what can be done in the future.

Join us at this special panel event, where we reflect on the Guantanamo Bay prison and its evolution at 25 years, the unending campaign for its closure, and the future that lies ahead. Book signing reception to follow.

Panels

Karen J. Greenberg is an historian and expert on national security. She has written and edited numerous books, including Subtle Tools: The Dismantling of American Democracy from the War on Terror to Donald Trump and The Least Worst Place: Guantanamo’s First 100 Days. She is a Future Security Fellow at New America, a non-resident research fellow at the Reiss Center for Law and Security, the co-host of SpyTalk Podcast, and a regular contributor to TomDispatch.

A. Naomi Paik is the author of Bans, Walls, Raids, Sanctuary: Understanding U.S. Immigration for the 21st Century (UC Press, 2020) and Rightlessness: Testimony and Redress in U.S. Prison Camps since World War II (UNC Press, 2016; winner, Best Book in History, AAAS 2018; runner-up, John Hope Franklin prize for best book in American Studies, ASA, 2017), as well as articles in a range of academic and public-facing venues. She has co-edited four special issues of the Radical History Review—“Militarism and Capitalism (Winter 2019), “Radical Histories of Sanctuary” (Fall 2019), “Policing, Justice, and the Radical Imagination” (Spring 2020), and “Alternatives to the Anthropocene” with Ashley Dawson (Winter 2023). With Cat Ramirez, she coedits the “Borderlands” section of Public Books, and with Sam Vong, she coedits “The Politics of Sanctuary” blog of the Smithsonian Institution. She is an associate professor of Criminology, Law, and Justice and Global Asian Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago, a member of the Migration Scholars Collaborative, and Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine, UIC. She is also a founding member of the national Sanctuary Campus Network and Sanctuary for All UIC.

Alka Pradhan is a human rights attorney with a primary practice as senior civilian counsel employed by the U.S. Department of Defense to represent one of the defendants in the "9/11 Case" before the Guantanamo Bay military commissions. She is also an Associate Defense Counsel at the International Criminal Court, most recently in Prosecutor v. Al Hassan. Pradhan is Co-Vice-Chair of the IBA's Rule of Law Forum, a member of the ASIL Executive Council, and an adjunct professor at Penn Carey Law School. In 2025, she was named a Global Ambassador by the Korea Democracy Foundation.

Mansoor Adayfi is a writer, artist, human rights advocate, and former prisoner who spent over 14 years at Guantánamo Bay Prison Camp without charges or trial. He was resettled to Serbia in 2016 as part of an agreement between the US government and Serbia. In 2021, he completed his bachelor's degree in management and wrote his thesis titled "Rehabilitation and Integration of Former Guantanamo Prisoners into Social Life and the Labor Market." His thesis served as the basis of the Guantanamo Survivors Fund, which he co-founded along with American lawyers and US-based NGOs. Now, Mansoor is pursuing his master's degree in Project Management. Mansoor’s first book, titled, Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo, was published by Hachette and met with critical acclaim, with reviews in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and numerous others. It won the 2022 Evelyn Shakir Non-Fiction Award.

 

Sponsored by:
Department of American Studies
Department of History
Franco Family Institute for Liberal Arts and the Public Good
Gallivan Program in Journalism, Ethics, and Democracy
Gender Studies Program
Institute for Latino Studies
Institute for Social Concerns
Klau Institute for Civil & Human Rights
Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies
Literatures of Annihilation, Exile, and Resistance
Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies