26.10.23
The video of my speech at the inspiring “Close Guantánamo!” event at the European Parliament on September 28, 2023, hosted by the Irish MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, at which I stressed how the men still held at Guantánamo are as fundamentally without rights as they were when the prison first opened nearly 22 years ago, and called on EU countries to help resettle the men approved for release but who cannot be repatriated.
1.10.23
My detailed report about, and the video of ‘Close Guantánamo!’, an extraordinary and hugely powerful three-hour event held at the EU Parliament on September 28, 2023, featuring nine speakers, including Mansoor Adayfi (on what was only his second trip to freedom since he finally got a passport earlier this year) and two other former prisoners, two lawyers, a UN Rapporteur, myself and others, hosted by the inspiring independent Irish MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace. As the event highlighted, the priorities for anyone concerned with justice, and with bringing to an end Guantánamo’s vile existence, are to resettle 16 men still held who have been approved for release (for which the countries of EU can help), providing adequate medical care for everyone still held at the prison, reminding the US government that it continues to have an obligation to ensure the welfare of former prisoners, even after their release, and, eventually, seeking accountability for the crimes that the US government has committed, and still continues to commit at Guantánamo.
20.9.23
The shameful story of Ravil Mingazov, a Russian Tatar held at Guantánamo for 14 years, then sent to the UAE, where he has been imprisoned for nearly seven years, in harsh conditions, despite having been promised that he would be helped to rebuild his life as a free man. His son and wife were granted asylum in the UK in 2014, and campaigners here in the UK are currently involved in efforts to persuade the British government to bring him to the UK to rejoin his family.
10.9.23
Announcing “the most significant gathering ever assembled on Guantánamo in the European Parliament,” on September 28, which I helped to initiate and organize, at which MEPs and members of the public will hear from ten speakers, including three former prisoners (Mansoor Adayfi, Moazzam Begg and Lakhdar Boumediene), Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, three lawyers (Beth Jacob, Alka Pradhan and Mark Denbeaux), Valerie Lucznikowska of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, former Muslim Chaplain James Yee, and myself. The main thrust of the event will be to encourage EU governments to help with the resettlement of men still held at Guantánamo who have long been approved for release but who cannot be repatriated.
27.11.21
My response to the shameful deaths of 27 refugees crossing the Channel to the UK, how it reflects appallingly on the Brexit-soaked racism and xenophobia of the Tory government, the right-wing media and far too many of the British people, and how counter-productive it is to be turning away immigrants when, post-Brexit, all manner of British businesses are critically short of workers.
15.8.20
An update on a long-running story of obstruction by the Canadian government, which is refusing to allow three Uighur men and former Guantánamo prisoners, who were resettled in Albania and Bermuda, and who are married to Canadian citizens and with children who are also Canadian citizens, to be reunited with their families in Canada, citing long-discredited security concerns.
7.4.19
A cross-post, with my own detailed introduction, of an article for the Atlantic by Richard Bernstein about the Uighurs, an oppressed minority in China, and how the Bush administration sided with the Chinese government to falsely assess 22 Uighurs who ended up at Guantánamo as terrorists.
8.2.19
Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal. So there was good news […]
21.12.18
Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist, commentator and activist. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal. As someone who has spent the last 13 years working to end imprisonment without charge or trial at Guantánamo, it has always been chilling to see these institutional […]
20.11.18
Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal. I wrote the following article, […]
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker. Also, photo-journalist (The State of London), and singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers).
Email Andy Worthington
Please support Andy Worthington, independent journalist: