Guantanamo

See the entire event on C-SPAN here (and also via UStream below, from the website of the New America Foundation, where it was later replaced by a YouTube version, made available at the foot of this article). On the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Bush administration’s prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which belonged [...]

I wrote this today on a plane flying across the US, from Washington D.C. to San Francisco, a week into my 12-day visit to campaign for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which has been the focus of my work for the last six years. It feels like more [...]

Yesterday, at “Guantánamo Forever?” an event at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C., attorney Tom Wilner and journalist Andy Worthington launched “Close Guantánamo,” a new campaign and website designed to provide education about the ongoing injustice of Guantánamo, to provide a focus for those who believe that the prison must be closed, and to [...]

Today, prisoners at Guantánamo will embark on a peaceful protest, involving sit-ins and hunger strikes, to protest about their continued detention, and the continued existence of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, three years after President Obama came to office promising to close it within a year, and to show their appreciation of the protests [...]

After nearly four days in New York as part of my US tour to mark the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, I’ve just taken a bus with Debra Sweet, the national director of the campaigning group The World Can’t Wait, who arranged my visit, heading down to Washington D.C. to take part in [...]

Before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, there were only two ways of holding prisoners — either they were prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, or they were criminal suspects, to be charged and subjected to federal court trials. That all changed when the Bush administration threw out the Geneva Conventions, equated [...]

I arrived in New York yesterday, a year after my last visit, for 12 days of events to mark the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo (as described here), with a particular focus on a rally and march in Washington D.C. next Wednesday, January 11 (the actual date of the opening of Guantánamo). On [...]

With the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo fast approaching (on January 11), I was delighted that, on Sunday, the Observer not only ran a double-page feature about the British ex-prisoners (and Shaker Aamer, the last British prisoner still held), but also that Tracy McVeigh, Chief Reporter for the Observer, spoke to me on [...]

Please support my work! For nearly six years, I have been researching and writing about Guantánamo and the 779 men (and boys) held there over the last ten years, first through my book The Guantánamo Files, and, since May 2007, as a full-time independent investigative journalist. For three years, I focused on the crimes of [...]

Note: See here for an Amnesty International petition calling for the release of Fayiz al-Kandari and Fawzi al-Odah. Just a few days ago, Jenifer Fenton, who used to work for CNN, but has recently started working for Al-Jazeera, followed up on the excellent work she was doing for CNN last year, focusing on the stories [...]