Guantanamo

In a detailed analysis, I compare Israel’s prisons for Palestinians with US prisons in the “war on terror”, following comparisons that have been made between Sde Teiman, the notorious Israeli facility where a mass rape scandal took place, and Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo, noting that the most appropriate comparison is with the CIA’s “black site” torture prisons, as they were the only prisons in the “war on terror” from which the ICRC were excluded, as has happened, under Israel’s far-right National Security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, throughout its entire prison system for Palestinians since October 7, 2023. Along with amendments to the Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, first introduced in 2002, allowing prisoners to be held without any charge or access to lawyers for several months, this has meant that Israel has been engaged in a “black site”-style policy of enforced disappearance and arbitrary detention throughout a network holding thousands of people, dwarfing the numbers held by the US at the height of its “war on terror.” Both the US and Israel were, as I describe it, “driven by a terrifying all-consuming vengeance, by a determination that everyone they seized was a ‘terrorist’, and by claims that they were seeking ‘actionable intelligence’ to target everyone responsible”, and that, as result, they “shredded all protections for prisoners, with complete contempt for all international and domestic laws and treaties that were supposed to guarantee fundamental baseline protections from torture, abuse and murder.” I also bring the story up to date via more recent developments, including the horrific celebrations, within Israel, of the soldiers in the rape scandal as heroes, and a new bill in the Knesset, introduced by Ben-Gvir, which proposes the execution of Palestinian prisoners, and I end with condemnation of the western media, and western leaders, for having bought into discredited lies about atrocities on October 7, while largely failing to recognize or show sympathy for the Palestinians, subjected to genuine atrocities on a colossal scale ever since.

Photos from, and my report about the 34th consecutive coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, which took place across the US, in Washington, D.C., New York, Detroit, Los Angeles and Portland, and in London and Brussels on November 5, 2025, with San Francisco joining on November 6, and Cobleskill, NY on November 8. Former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi also sent a photo from an exhibition of prisoners’ art in Giessen, Germany. This month’s “First Wednesday” vigils also coincided with 8,700 days of Guantánamo’s existence, marked with the latest poster in an ongoing photo initiative by the Close Guantánamo campaign, and they also coincided with the first anniversary of Donald Trump’s re-election as president, although that was wonderfully overshadowed by the Mayoral Election victory, in New York, of Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim socialist immigrant — and, undoubtedly, an opponent of the continued existence of Guantánamo. The vigils also coincided with the death, at the age of 84, of former Vice President Dick Cheney, the primary architect of the Bush administration’s “war on terror”, including the CIA’s repulsive torture program, as well as the main driver, using false information derived from the use of torture, of the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003. Shamefully, as I note, “while Cheney passed away peacefully surrounded by his family, his victims continue to languish in Guantánamo, with no sign of when, if ever, any of them will either be released, or delivered anything resembling justice.”

Photos from, and my report about the 33rd consecutive coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, which took place across the US, in Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Portland, Detroit and Los Angeles, and in London, Brussels, Mexico City and Belgrade on October 1, 2025, with Cobleskill, NY joining on October 4. I also provide commentary and analysis regarding Donald Trump’s use of Guantánamo in the “war on migrants” that he initiated when he took office in January, which, after an initial flurry of media interest, has largely fallen off the radar as much as the “war on terror” prison in recent months. This is in spite of the fact that, as was reported in July, Trump was using Guantánamo to hold 26 migrants (out of 72 held at the time) from a variety of countries, including the UK, who allegedly had criminal records, raising fears that they might be deported to third countries, as has been happening sporadically but alarmingly over the last eight months. That doesn’t seem to have happened, although reports last week indicated that there are currently no migrants left at Guantánamo at all. However, as observers struggle to keep up with Trump’s manifold crimes, it is unclear exactly what happened to these men, and to dozens of others held over the summer, which is clearly a collective abdication of media responsibility.

Photos from, and my report about the 32nd consecutive coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, which took place across the US, and in London, Brussels and Belgrade on September 3, 2025. In my report, I also discuss the significance of today being the 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which not only led to the extraordinarily ill-advised establishment of the prison at Guantánamo, but also perilously sought to redefine the rules regarding warfare and detention, with baleful and far-reaching effects that, 24 years on, seem particularly to have provided inspiration for Israel’s behaviour over the last 23 months of its genocide in Gaza, and its unjustifiable attacks on numerous neighbouring countries.

Two of the most talented artists in Guantánamo, Moath Al-Alwi and Khalid Qassim, resettled in Oman in January after being held for nearly 23 years without charge or trial, discuss their artwork and their memories of Guantánamo with their friend, the former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi. Both men’s work has featured in various art exhibitions of prisoners’ art over the last eight years, in the US and in Europe, and Moath’s vast sailing ships, made from recycled and scavenged materials, attracted significant attention — so much so that, for five years after the first exhibition in New York in 2017, the Pentagon petulantly imposed a ban on prisoners leaving with their artwork, and even threatened to destroy it, until the Biden administration capitulated to demands made by two UN Special Rapporteurs. Less well-known, but no less striking, are Khalid’s sculptures and symbolic paintings, some painted on gravel from the prison’s recreation yards, mixed with glue, which, as I describe them, “reveal a tantalizing conceptual fascination with using the elements of Guantánamo itself to tell a story.” The article was published two weeks ago on Spencer Ackerman’s Forever Wars website, and this cross-post features my own detailed introduction. Also included are photos of artwork by both men which hadn’t been seen until the Forever Wars article was published.

Photos from, and my report about the 31st coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, which took place across the US and in London, Brussels, Mexico City and Belgrade on August 6, 2025. I describe Guantánamo as doubly forgotten because, as we continue to campaign for justice for the 15 men still held in the “war on terror” prison, who now seem largely to have receded from memory, Trump’s recent reanimation of Guantánamo as a venue for his “war on migrants” seems also to have drifted from view, after a flurry of media activity in the first few months of his baleful second presidency. This is in spite of the fact that, six weeks ago, it was reported that 72 migrants were being held at Guantánamo, and that 26 of them, including a British national, had been identified as having criminal records for serious crimes. Since then, however, the trail has gone cold, even though it is reasonable to fear that the administration is planning a one-way trip for these men to obliging third countries. This recently happened with South Sudan and Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), where the men disposed of by the administration were given no safeguards that they would not be subjected to torture, “disappearance” or even death, as required under the Torture Convention, to which the US is a signatory.

My definitive overview of the first six months of Trump’s “war on migrants”, with a particular focus on the administration’s recent and truly alarming drive to deport, to third countries, migrants with criminal records, who have served prison sentences, often for serious crimes. The administration claims that it is being forced to act because these ex-prisoners’ home countries won’t take them back. However, even if this is sometimes true, it is essentially an intractable political problem, to which the answer cannot, and must not be to eviscerate the post-WWII consensus — involving the Refugee Convention and the Torture Convention — that there must be robust mechanisms preventing foreign nationals from being deported, either to their home countries, or to third countries, where they face the risk of torture or death. I also examine how Trump’s declared pursuit of migrants with criminal records (roughly 4% of the 11 million undocumented migrants in the US) is a smokescreen seeking to disguise a blunter and much more violent truth — that all eleven million are a target, because entering the US illegally is being regarded as a crime worthy of deportation. I also examine how there must always be a balance between a desire to stem uncontrolled immigration and the need for a significant number of immigrants to do numerous essential jobs, and run through the sordid back story of the administration holding Venezuelan migrants at Guantánamo, and then sending others on a one-way trip to a mega-Guantánamo in El Salvador, on the basis of allegations about their criminality that were largely exposed as lies. I proceed to explain how this new focus on finding migrants with criminal records and sending them on a one-way trip to third countries (South Sudan and Eswatini in the last week) has been cynically implemented to forestall any sympathy for these men, to enable a program that can be effected without attracting the outrage it deserves, with its horrific echoes of the Bush administration’s “extraordinary rendition” policies in the “war on terror”, which may well also constitute the reviled international crime of enforced disappearance. I end with some good news, with polls showing that Americans are increasingly turning against Trumps’s excesses, although that alone is not sufficient to prevent an ever-increasing humanitarian and moral disaster without serious resistance.

My report about the disturbing news that, in recent weeks, around 60 migrants, from 26 countries including the UK, have been flown to Guantánamo, apparently reviving the use of detention facilities on the naval base, which began with the arrival of 178 Venezuelans in February, but then tailed off after legal challenges, and after the administration was embarrassed by research establishing that, although they were all described as dangerous gang members, this was demonstrably untrue. In a new twist, seeking to overcome these earlier embarrassments, the Department of Homeland Security has published a list naming 26 of these men, and alleging that all of them, including the British national, have been convicted of serious crimes, although, via an internet search, I was unable to verify any of these claims. What the administration’s intention is remains unclear, but two options seem probable. Sending men with criminal convictions to Guantánamo (if these claims are true) may enable the administration to claim that it can hold them without charge or trial, replicating the model used in the existing “war on terror” prison, or it may be a prominent way to deport them to third countries, as recently happened when eight men from a variety of countries, all allegedly with criminal convictions, were sent to an unknown fate in war-torn South Sudan. Drawing analogies with the “extraordinary rendition” program of the Bush administration, and the often flawed resettlements of Guantánamo prisoners in third countries under Obama and Biden, I examine a recent and commendable New York Times investigation into the 58 countries that administration officials have approached, or want to approach, regarding taking in migrants who are not their own nationals. I also discuss the seven countries who have already agreed, and raise the alarm about the threat of the worst abuses of the “war on terror” being revived under Trump and his senior officials, who seem particularly motivated not to safely repatriate migrants, but to defy protections against torture or even death by sending them to unsafe destinations where any rights they should have will be unenforceable. I also sound a similar alarm about the increasing expansion of unaccountable hit squads “disappearing” people on the US mainland, and the creation of new detention facilities, reminiscent of Guantánamo, with “Alligator Alcatraz” in Florida as the first example, and highlight the very real prospect that, without ferocious resistance, the $175 billion allocated to ICE in Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will lead to a horrendous police state expansion of “disappearances” and gulags across the entire country. As I state in my conclusion, “Resistance is necessary, by all means available.”

Photos from, and my report about the 30th coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, which took place across the US and in London, Brussels, Mexico City and Belgrade on July 2, 2025. As we continue to call for justice for the 15 remaining prisoners in the “war on terror” prison, I point out how our vigils are assuming increasing importance because of the “Gitmoization” of Donald Trump’s vile, racist “war on migrants”, in which new detention facilities are being established on the US mainland that look suspiciously like Guantánamo, or even like concentration camps, with the first notable example having just opened in the Florida Everglades, gleefully dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” I also point out how the horrors of the “war on terror” that are being replicated in Trump’s USA extend to the “extraordinary rendition” program that is being revived through the deportation of migrants to uncertain fates in third countries, with the most recent alarming example being the deportation of eight migrants from various nationalities to the war-wracked country of South Sudan.

The remaining 15 “war on terror” prisoners at Guantánamo have largely been forgotten, although detention facilities at the naval base have been cynically used by Donald Trump in the “war on migrants” he declared when he took office five months ago. While Trump’s interest in Guantánamo has largely waned, migrants are still being sent there, with the latest including a group of Haitians who were subsequently deported back to Haiti, on the same day that it was reported that the Trump administration was planning to send 9,000 new migrants to Guantánamo, including 800 Europeans. The claim was dismissed as “fake news” by the White House, but it seems to me that the officials who leaked the documents did so in an effort to derail the proposals by enraging European allies, which seems to have been successful. I also report on a letter to Kristi Noem and Pete Hegseth by 15 lawmakers, led by Rep. Rashida Tlaib, calling for the prison’s closure, and I also reflect on Guantánamo’s sordid history, and its still tainted present, to mark the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, which was yesterday.