Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mohammed Nasim (Guantanamo captive 849)

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was No consensus as to Abdul Hafiz (Guantanamo detainee), delete the rest.. Courcelles 05:45, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Mohammed Nasim (Guantanamo captive 849)[edit]

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The article fails WP:BIO as the sources are either primary documents dealing with the subject in an insignificant and routine fashion or secondary sources dealing with the subject in a routine fashion. Not notable other than be for being a detainee at Guantanamo, and fails WP:MILMOS/N for lack of significant independent coverage in reliable sources. Anotherclown (talk) 10:41, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I am also nominating the following related pages for the same reason:

Comment - similar articles have already been deleted, please see: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Esmatulla (Guantanamo detainee 888) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Faizullah (Guantanamo detainee 919) for two such examples. Anotherclown (talk) 10:45, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. —Anotherclown (talk) 11:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. —Anotherclown (talk) 11:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Afghanistan-related deletion discussions. —Anotherclown (talk) 11:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Guantanamo Bay detainment camp-related deletion discussions. —Anotherclown (talk) 11:24, 22 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: these subjects don't seem independently notable beyond being a detainee at Guantanamo and ultimately I don't believe that in itself is notable enough for each individual to warrant an article. There is a list of detainees, but is there really a need for each detainee to have an article? This seems excessive, particularly when most of the articles seem to share the same information (Combatant Status Review, Admin Review Board, etc.) and many have very little biographical information. AustralianRupert (talk) 05:47, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep -- I am mystified by the assertions in this nomination that these individuals lack coverage in non-DoD references. Further I am very concerned by the way this nomination merges former captives who are apparently recidivists with those who were apparently US allies, or innocent bystanders. Geo Swan (talk) 14:06, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Mohammed Hashim, faced charges before a Guantanamo military commission, and was reportedly "the first about-face in a military commissions prosecution that was not mandated by a federal judge."
- Bismullah (Guantanamo detainee 968) Most references that cover the captives who were determined to be "no longer enemy combatants" (ie recognized to have never been "enemy combatants" after all) report the 2004 CSR Tribunals made this determination for 38 men. Bismullah was the 39th. He had claimed he was an official of the Hamid Karzai government, a good guy, on the US side, who ended up in US custody based on false denunciations. He was released in the last days of the Bush administration, in January 2009, as the CSRT process finally confirmed his account, after eight years of detention.
- Abdul Hafiz (Guantanamo detainee), described by Liz Cheney as "Obama's first recidivist". [1], [2], [3], [4]
- Norullah Noori -- As a former governor Norullah Noori is notable as per WP:Politician. Further the United Nations asked member states to freeze his assets. Further, Abdul Salam Zaeef recent book places him in a secret interrogation center in the USS Bataan in late 2001, an honor reserved for the most prominent captives.
- Abdul Razzak Hekmati, Hekmati was a hero, on our side, who lead a daring rescue of three prominent Northern Alliance leaders from a Taliban prison in 1999. As with Bismullah, above, his CSRT President had ruled that the witness statements from the three men he claimed he rescued were not reasonably available, even though all three men had been appointed to high-profile posts in the Hamid Karzai government. The most senior of the three men was the Minister of Energy, and told NYTimes reporter Carlotta Gall that he had personally sought out and told the American ambassador that Hekmati was wrongfully detained.
- Mohammed Nasim (Guantanamo captive 849) -- was sought out and interviewed by the BBC, and by the McClatchy News Service.
- Nasrullah (Guantanamo detainee 886)
- Rahmatullah Sangaryar
- Abdul Ghani (Guantanamo detainee 934)
- Abdul Bagi (detainee)
  - Geo Swan, surely if I had only nominated one group - i.e. "former captives who are apparently recidivists" or "those who were apparently US allies, or innocent bystanders" (to use your words) then you might say that I was pushing some POV in nominating them, but as you say I did not. I came accross these articles as they were listed as members of Jihad Kandahar (except for Norullah Noori), a previous AfD which was deleted (see Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jihad Kandahar), and after reviewing them I all I formed the opinion that they did not meet wikipedia's notabily requirements. Its that simple. Anotherclown (talk) 08:42, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
    - In describing your conclusion you use the phrase: "Its that simple". Unfortunately you seem to have neglected to address key points. Consider Hekmati for instance. The Taliban placed a one million dollar bounty on his head. You haven't said why you don't recognize a one million dollar bounty as showing notability. He had an iron-clad alibi, one that could have refuted or confirmed with trivial effort -- which US intelligence analysts never bothered to refute or confirm. You haven't said why you don't recognize this as showing notability. He had very senior character witnesses, including the Minister of Energy, who personally button-holed the American ambassador, to recommend his release. You haven't said why you don't recognize this as showing notability. No offense, but I think our deletion policies require more effort on the part of those making nominations than you are showing here. As I have already written here, our coverage of topics is supposed to be sober, and measured -- our coverage is not supposed to emulate tabloids. IMO this imposes a requirement on our quality control volunteers to read our articles closely. I acknowledge that I did not play up the potential sensationalistic aspects of Hekmati's case. This is what I believe our standards require. Was it a mistake, on your part, to justify deletion because you found the description of the potentially sensationalistic aspects of Hekmati's case as "routine"? Yes, I think so. Geo Swan (talk) 17:36, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Delete -- as per nom and AustralianRupert. Misuse of primary sources WP:BLPPRIMARY Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person.. Almost all content in these articles come from primary sources what is simply a no no in writing BLP's. IQinn (talk) 14:19, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- Comment -- Response immediately above is boilerplate. Iqinn has posted identical responses in other recent {{afd}}. This response appears to have been written without bothering to actually read the articles in question or to have read my responses, to these nominations, which listed multiple press reports, [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], showing the claim these articles haven't cited press reports to be false. I request closing adminstrator discount this response as a lapse from WP:NOTAVOTE. Geo Swan (talk) 19:09, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Comment - There has been a long history of uncivil responses and personal attacks by a small group of people in almost all Guantanamo related discussion of articles that has been written by Geo Swan. It might be time for a RfC/U to stop this undesirable behavior like here uncivil ad hominum arguments.

To claim i would not have read the nomination and i would not know the articles is laughable. I extensively worked on all these articles as user Geo Swan knows very well. They almost all have the same problem:

Delete -- as per nom and AustralianRupert. Misuse of primary sources WP:BLPPRIMARY Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person.. Almost all content in these articles come from primary sources what is simply a no no in writing BLP's. IQinn (talk) 00:33, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Let's deal with the issues. You asserted that the articles in this deletion relied on government sources -- even though simply reviewing the references, or glancing at the references I included above, show

Seems like that this is ending up in another unproductive discussion where one editor writes filibustering walls of words and keeps ignoring the point he seems not to like. So let me repeat it again:

Almost all content in these articles come from primary sources what is simply a no no in writing BLP's. Misuse of primary sources WP:BLPPRIMARY Do not use trial transcripts and other court records, or other public documents, to support assertions about a living person.. Almost all content in these articles come from primary sources. IQinn (talk) 16:43, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete - The nominator is 100% correct, and if the response by Iquin is boilerplate, it shares the characterisitics of these articles. The sources for all of these articles are, for the most part, primary sources. If these sources can be eliminated, and the articles can stand on their own merits using reliable secondary sources, then my feelings might be different. The subjects also fail notability requirements. Simply being a Detainee in GTMO does not make one notable. I would also ask that we keep this a civil discourse. Thank you.--Yachtsman1 (talk) 19:27, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Comment - I am on the fence about the notability of this article but I am a little concerned about the recent wave of deletion requests regarding the detainees, the lawsuits they filed and the other various articles surrounding and discussing the incident at Guantanamo. In the last couple weeks I have seen more than 50 articles, some better than others all submitted for deletion on this submject. It seems a little suspicious. regardnig the use of Primary and secondary references I think I am a little confused. This article has reference from various places including the New York Times so I am not sure what the issue is with the references. --Kumioko (talk) 19:42, 23 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
- What are you suspicious about in particular? I have nominated these articles for deletion because IMO they fail to meet the notability requirements of the encyclopaedia and I have cited recent precedent to support this argument. What are your concerns with that? Anotherclown (talk) 08:28, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
  - You wrote: "...or secondary sources dealing with the subject in a routine fashion..." We don't emulate tabloids. These articles could have been written in highly sensational terms, because the detention of these men is literally unprecedented. Never before, since the Geneva Conventions were first signed, has a signatory nation declared that alleged combatants would not be treated according to the Geneva Conventions. "Written in a routine fashion" is not a deletion criteria. If someone were to take your complaint at face value, and rewrite these articles in a more exciting, sensational, tabloid manner, then they would be lapsing from policy and longstanding convention.
  - I disagree with your characterization of the references as "primary sources". Documents where an independent party collates multiple earlier reports, reconciles discrepancies, strips out duplicates, and summarizes their own conclusions, are "secondary sources", by any reasonable definition.
  - You asked Kumioko for the grounds for their suspicion. The opposition of some of the contributors have opposed covering material about the Guantanamo captives based on misconceptions -- they were simply misinformed. One serious misconception is that the detention of these men is routine, mundane, totally unprecedented. I have been asked how their detention differs from that of "other" convicted felons in the US penal system. Of course as of about a month ago exactly two of the captives could be described as "convicts". And even those two men were not convicted in a traditional court of law. Of the remaining 777 men, about two dozen have faced charges, but only two of them, Ahmed Ghailani and Jose Padilla, in a US court.
    The rest have been held, without charge, for years. Another misconception is that the detention without charge of these men is routine for "POW"s, prisoners of war. Under the Geneva Convention POWs can be held, without charge, "until hostilities cease". But the George W. Bush administration announced, by executive order, that these captives were not protected by the Geneva Conventions. If the men don't have the protections of the Geneva Conventions, then the USA can't claim holding them for years, without charge, is a legal act.
    Some have gone on, and while acknowledging that the captives are not being held in a manner consistent with the USA's international obligations, they have claimed that this too is routine, and that one hundred million individuals have been seized, and held without charge, in secret camps, all over the world. That is true, up to a point, if we count the Nazi concentration camps, the old Soviet Gulag, similar Gulags in other communist states, Cambodia's "killing fields", and similar facilities run by right-wing totalitarian states. With the exception of the Guantanamo captives, 99,999,000 of those individuals held in secret, without charge, were held by countries that did not (usually) respect the rule of law. The USA normally respects the rule of law. So holding 779 in the same conditions that totalitarian states hold their victims is literally unprecedented. No other democracy has done this. Geo Swan (talk) 14:41, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Although I don't exactly share Geo Swan's views on the matter I also don't think that the described lack of notability and references is a dubious one as well. The problem with lack of notability is how to quantify it. I don't follow soccer so if WP didn't have one biography about a soccer player wouldn't be offended, others would argue otherwise. This is one of those cases were, people could and are interested in the subject of these cases and what seems to be a mass deletion campaign of the articles on the subject gives the appearance that we are trying to white wash the issue by delting all the articles abot it and thereby pushing POV. I personally think that the references are find and the notibility, although unclear, is probably ok too. --Kumioko (talk) 14:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Given that this is first time I have done an AfD for such an article I am at a loss to figure how I could be accused of POV pushing but I guess I should have expected it. As I have said above I nominated these following similar outcomes at previous AfDs I have participated in (and have provided the links to these discussions). IMO none of these individuals is notable and we have literally deleted hundreds of articles about people with far more biographical information and coverage in secondary sources (the Silver Star reciepients is one prominent example IMO). 90% of the articles about Guantanamo detainees appear to duplicate infomation in other articles and add very little. Of course some will undoubtably be notable due to significant independent coverage (for instance David Hicks etc who have had books written about them and hundreds of news articles etc), but most will not even come close and are only mentioned in passing in most references. BTW this is the last time I will respond to editors questioning my motives. I expected better but I shouldn't have. Anotherclown (talk) 15:20, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I called the nomination mysterious, I never said I thought you were consciously pushing a POV. Personally, I think you are misinterpreting Kumioko's comments if you think he or she has accused you of consciously pushing a POV. Realistically, good faith contributors innocently lapse from WP:NPOV all the time, due to unexamined biases they are unaware of, or from focussing on a task so long they get tunnel vision. I acknowledge when I realize I have lapsed. No one has questioned your motives. I have merely disagreed with you, I don't think I have gone as far as suggesting an unconscious bias on your part.
You write: "IMO none of these individuals is notable..." I pointed out that, as a former governor, Norullah Noori is a clearcut WP:POLITICIAN. Governors of states or provinces with on the order of a million citizens are notable, even if the regime was unpopular and it is a backward region on the other side of the world. I would appreciate you responding to this point.
I am not aware of the discussions you refer to about receipients of the Silver Star. Are you saying that opponents argued that our convention that while merely receiving a Victoria Cross, or Congressional Medal of Honor has conventionally been regarded as sufficient to make someone notable, merely receiving a second rank, but still prestigious medal, like the Silver Star is not? And how is that like the Guantanamo captives? Cast your mind back, weren't those opponents arguing some variation of {{blp1e}}, where receiving the Silver Star was merely one event? Did anyone argue that if the receipient was known for something else: like being a childhood chess prodigy; or inventing something; or publishing a well-reviewed memoir; or being involved in a sex scandal; or running a Ponzi scheme -- then that particular Silver Star receipient would be notable, because they weren't a {{blp1e}}, but they were a {{blp2e}} or a {{blp3e}}. 200 of the Guantanamo captives were released prior to reviews required by the SCOTUS in 2004, and we know essentially nothing about approximately 150 of them -- they have dropped from sight. We have no articles on them. Those 150 about whom we know nothing beyond when they were held in Guantanamo are the equivalent of the Silver Star receipients, about whom we know nothing except that they were awarded a Silver Star. There is no value in having articles on individuals in either of these groups. But the Silver Star receipient who is also an inventor, or writer? The Guantanamo captive who is also accused of being trained in assassination techniques? They are not candidates for deletion under {{blp1e}}.
You write: "Of course some will undoubtably be notable due to significant independent coverage (for instance David Hicks...)" Do you realize it looks like you are suggesting that we should only have articles on individuals who have been the topic of an entire book, or hundreds of news articles? I suggest this is far too high a bar, by several orders of magnitude. Do you realize that the wikipedia has more than one million biographical articles? Do you think one percent of those one million article would qualify for inclusion because they had a book written about them, or were the subject of hundreds of newspaper articles? I am going to ask you to consider "false Geber" -- a scholar from the 12th century who might be the first sockpuppet. We know nothing about him. Up until recently we didn't know where he lived, his occupation, his name, religion. All we knew was that he was the first individual to describe the process of purifying and using Sulfuric acid. This was enough for Isaac Asimov to include him in his list of the 1000 most notable scientists. Whether we have an article on an individual should be guided by common sense and collegiality. Is it useful to have articles about them? For false Geber the answer is clearly yes, even though we know nothing about his life. Do not interpret this as a challenge to your movites, but I believe you are overlooking significant differences in these individuals. We have shortcuts we use in {{afd}} discussions we use, which link directly to metadocuments like Arguments to avoid. Can you please tell me whether I need to avoid using these shortcuts, so I don't trigger in you the feeling that your motives are being challenged?
You write: "90% of the articles about Guantanamo detainees appear to duplicate infomation in other articles." And, someone with little background in chemistry, and no interest or tolerance for those who are interested in chemistry, could write something similar about the elements on the periodic table. Heck, those articles are full of duplicative information about Atomic Weights and Atomic Numbers, and valence electrons. Do we really need 92 articles that all appear very similar? Couldn't the same kind of argument be applied to many US Congressional Representatives, or to most sport stars, if you aren't prepared to recognize how those individuals differ? Could you please explain how this is different from the arguments you have offered for deletion of the articles on these individuals? Geo Swan (talk) 17:06, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I apologize if my comments offended you AC or sounded like they were directed at you because they were not but between these and others (such as the very long list that Fram submitted) it gives the appearance that there is an effort in WP to suppress this from the public eye. I would be interested to know how many "hits" these articles got before making a complete decision. If they got zero or a low number of views then I might be more inclined to vote to delete them. IRT Geo Swan yes, the determination was made that a nations highest award, such as the VC or MOH is sufficient in itself to make the member notable but that second and third level awards are not. Although it was also determined that if someone had multiple secondary awards that might make them notable. --Kumioko (talk) 17:56, 24 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all per nom. The articles are reliant on primary sources and brief mentions in media articles so WP:BIO isn't met. Nick-D (talk) 08:12, 25 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all per nom, a distinct lack of non-primary, non-potentially-biased sources are available, don't meet WP:BIO, delete. - The Bushranger _{One ping only} 20:07, 27 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Delete all per nom.--Wikireader41 (talk) 02:51, 28 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Keep and consider the least notable ones separately. This is an abuse of AfD policy about group nominations--the people are not of the same degree of notability It is better to have separate discussions that to try to sort it our here. I do not want to consider the possible motivates for such an indiscriminate group of nominations, but regardless of the motivations, it was not a good approach. Hafiz at least has excellent additional RSs, and is clearly notable--inclusion of him among the others shows either no attempt to actually even read the articles and look at the sources, which is at best careless and unhelpful behavior, or a stubborn insistence that nobody ever incarcerated at Gitmo can possibly be notable, regardless of third party sourcing. The sources otherwise are the best that can be expected, and they are sufficient. The BLP concerns are met by a/the articles do the subject no possible harm b/the presentation of the evidence shows it objectively for what it is , and people can judge. But if we are going to consider them here , DGG ( talk ) 01:29, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I explained above all the nominees (bar one) were listed as members of the same organisation - Jihad Kandahar - an article that was also deleted for the same reasons (please see the afd: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Jihad Kandahar). As such it is by no means a random sample, that is how I came accross the articles and after reviewing each one I formed the opinion that they all suffered from the same issue (even if you disagree with that opinion which of cause is why we have AfDs). Given this I felt that a group nomination would allow us to discuss a group of articles with the same issue, rather than doing 10 seperate AfDs (which would clearly be unhelpful IMO). I note however that four similar articles have gone through afds in the past week and been deleted: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abdul Jabar (Taliban leader), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abdul Haq (Taliban leader, 2008), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abdul Aziz (Taliban leader), and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Abdul Ghafar (Afghan mujahideen fighter). Likewise for the following two the week before that: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Esmatulla (Guantanamo detainee 888) and Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mullah Rahmatullah. Also I wish to make it perfectly clear that no one is attempting to prevent this information from being included on Wikipedia, it is simply that many of these individuals are not individually notable enough to have a whole article themselves IMO. The bulk of this information could easily be included in List of Guantanamo Bay detainees or a similar article without the need to repeat huge paragraphs on the same thing. Anotherclown (talk) 02:16, 29 December 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.