Please Support My Guantánamo Work: A Fundraising Appeal by Andy Worthington

Please support my work!

It’s that time of the year again — three months since my last quarterly fundraising appeal. For some readers, this may be a terrible time of year to put out a request for financial assistance, but if you can help out at all it would be much appreciated. US readers — or readers anywhere else in the world — can use the “Donate” button, which leads to a PayPal page, at the top of this post. If you’re in the UK and want to help, you can send me a cheque (address here — scroll down to the bottom of the page).

I am now being regularly supported financially by both Truthout and the Future of Freedom Foundation, but much of the work I do is still unpaid, and many of the 80 or so articles I have written in the last three months have been produced without any financial support whatsoever.

In addition, although I received significant support from the Future of Freedom Foundation and The World Can’t Wait for my recent trip to the US to promote the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and myself), and was very well looked after in New York, Fairfax, Washington D.C., Oakland and Berkeley, I also had to cover many expenses myself.

In the last three months, I have assiduously covered the Obama administration’s desperation and confusion when it comes to closing Guantánamo, have repeatedly discussed the spinelessness and/or opportunism of lawmakers, and have reported in unprecedented detail the stories of the handful of prisoners who have been released, as well as continuing to try to cover other stories that are not adequately covered elsewhere, as, for example, in my report about the successful habeas corpus petition of Fouad al-Rabiah, a Kuwaiti who was tortured to produce false confessions in Guantánamo, my profile of another Kuwaiti, Fayiz al-Kandari, who is still waiting for a judge to hear his case, and my report on the Justice Department’s attempts to gag Guantánamo attorney Candace Gorman. I have also tried to keep an eye on Britain’s ailing, but still monstrously unjust anti-terror policies, and have recently examined the dubious circumstances under which two Guantánamo prisoners were transferred to Italy to face trials.

Close scrutiny of the Obama administration and pressure on policy makers remain of the utmost importance over the next few months, as Guantánamo marks its eighth anniversary (on January 11, 2010), and the deadline is missed for President Obama’s promise to close the prison (January 22). I intend to remain focused on these issues — and would, if possible, like to visit the US again to join those campaigning for the closure of Guantánamo.

In conclusion, however, if you can’t help out with a donation, please be aware that my book The Guantánamo Files (and my two previous books, The Battle of the Beanfield and Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion) are all available to buy from me if you’re in the UK (and are available elsewhere through Amazon and other retailers), and that copies of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” are available on DVD, and can be dispatched anywhere in the world.

I wish you a peaceful December, and progress on the issues that are of concern to all of us.

Andy Worthington
London, December 2009

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK). To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, published in March 2009, and details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and launched in October 2009).