Welcome to Andy Worthington

84 days into Joe Biden’s presidency, I look at how his lack of prompt action regarding Guantánamo — in the first instance, by not reviving the Office of the Special Envoy for Guantánamo Closure in the State Department — has left six men approved for release between 2009 and 2020 still languishing at the prison. It is also impacting on the lives of men already released, who, as under Donald Trump, have no one within the administration to communicate with when they face life-threatening problems, which, in the case of Lutfi bin Ali, a Tunisian, recently led to his death.

Here’s my report on the US military’s announcement that it has closed the secretive Camp 7 at Guantánamo, where the so-called “high-value detainees” were held, and has moved them to Camp 5 instead. Camp 7 had been falling apart for years, but moving these men is no solution to Guantánamo’s larger problems: that the men held there should either be tried via a functional judicial system, or released.

Video of my interview with the London-based activists of Team Assange, about the new UK police bill, the right to protest, Guantánamo and Julian Assange. Also included is an update regarding genuinely shocking incidents of police violence in Bristol over the last week in response to protests about the bill.

A cross-post of a detailed article about Guantánamo activism over the last 12 years, from President Obama’s eight years in office, through the four lamentable years of Donald Trump, to the current hopes pinned on President Biden. Written by Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture, it was originally published on the Waging Nonviolence website.

My assessment of the first year of Covid lockdowns, and how, on two occasions — last June, and last weekend — political protests have erupted, regarding racial oppression and women’s rights, when the logical limits of strict lockdowns have been reached. Plus a much more critical analysis of the parallel world of Covid denial.

My response to the police violence at the peaceful vigil for Sara Everard on Clapham Common, and its curious timing, coinciding with the second reading of home secretary Priti Patel’s horribly authoritarian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill 2021, which seeks to legislate meaningful protest out of existence.

Marking 1,400 days since I began posting a photo a day, with accompanying text, on my Facebook page ‘The State of London’, from my nearly nine years of photos taken on daily bike rides throughout the capital, with particular reference to the last year that I have spent photographing and reporting on London under Covid.

My quarterly fundraiser, in which I’m trying to raise $2,500 (£2,000) to support my Guantánamo work over the next three months, and marking 15 years since I first began working on Guantánamo on a full-time basis. If you can make a donation to support my work, which is all reader-funded, it will be very gratefully received.

My report on the news that the Afghan government has submitted an amicus brief to a US court in the case of Asadullah Haroon Gul, one of the last two Afghans in Guantánamo, arguing for his long-overdue release. Of the 40 men still held, Gul is one of 22 identified as “forever prisoners,” because of their ongoing and thoroughly unjustifiable imprisonment without charge or trial.

A link to, and my discussion of a Zoom event about Guantánamo, organized by veterans’ and peace groups, primarily in California, which took place on February 21, featuring myself, Mansoor Adayfi and James Yee as speakers.