Guantanamo

My report, illustrated with photos, and including videos, of the inspiring launch of the first UK exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ art, which took place on December 5 at Rich Mix in east London, and which runs until January 5. Mansoor Adayfi and I spoke at the well-attended event, with Mansoor, in particular, eloquently explaining how, after years of isolation and oppression, the opportunity to create artwork, after Barack Obama became president, was an absolute lifeline for many of the men, allowing them to express their creativity, and to connect with their memories and with the outside world. I also discuss the history of the exhibitions, which began in New York in 2017, but led to a clampdown by the Pentagon, and highlight the six artists featured in the exhibition, pointing out how one of them, Moath Al-Alwi, is still held despite having been approved for release for many years (as is the case with another artist, Khaled Qassim, not featured in the exhibition). I also note how, even for the other five men, who have been released, their post-Guantánamo existence is, in many cases, still profoundly and unjustly affected by the stigma of having been held at Guantánamo.

My analysis of the significance of December 9 and 10, as the dates when the Genocide Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights were adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948. December 10 also marks the 40th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention Against Torture, and December 9 the 10th anniversary of publication of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s groundbreaking report about the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program. In a world of increasing chaos and depravity, in which it can appear that the mechanisms put in place after the Second World War no longer have any meaning, I argue that, in fact, efforts to prosecute individuals for genocide, and for war crimes and crimes against humanity, initially by UN-backed courts, and, since 2002, by the International Criminal Court, shouldn’t be dismissed, as demonstrated by the recent arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant. I also celebrate the importance of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, particularly on generations of young people, assess the significance of the Senate torture report, and note how both the US and Israel remain in the spotlight for the torture and abuse in their prisons — at Guantánamo, and in Israel’s prisons for Palestinians. I also note how the sands of time can shift swiftly, as has just happened in Syria, where Bashar al-Assad has fallen, and his almost indescribably monstrous prisons have suddenly been liberated.

My latest quarterly call for support for my ongoing Guantánamo work, in which I also promote a crucial new way to be informed about my various endeavors, via my brand-new Substack account, which bypasses censorship and algorithmic suppression by delivering all my news directly into your inbox.

Photos from, and my report about the ten monthly coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo that took place across the US and around the world on December 4, 2024. These vigils — the 23rd — marked the last opportunity for campaigners to urge President Biden to urgently implement a resettlement plan for the 16 men (out of the 30 still held) who have long been approved for release. The next vigils will move, for one month only, from the first Wednesday of every month to Saturday January 11, 2025, marking the 23rd anniversary of the prison’s opening, and will resume on the first Wednesday of every month on Wednesday February 5.

Publicizing two letters sent to President Biden, urging him to take urgent action to free 16 men still held in the prison at Guantánamo Bay (out of 30 in total) who have long been approved for release — between two and four years ago, and in three outlying cases nearly 15 years ago. The first letter (US and international) is signed by 100 individuals and organizations — including 36 former Guantánamo prisoners, 36 ex-US government officials, lawyers, academics, psychologists and public figures, and 28 rights organizations — while the second, UK-based letter is signed by 40 British MPs and peers, academics and the CEOs of UK rights organizations. The former prisoners signing the first letter include the authors Mansoor Adayfi and Mohamedou Ould Slahi, and the supporters include Larry Wilkerson, the former chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell, and the musician and activist Roger Waters. The UK letter includes 20 Parliamentarians, the Chief Executive of Amnesty International UK, and the film director Kevin Macdonald (‘The Mauritanian’).

The audio recording of “Life at Guantánamo: Writing Behind Bars”, a powerful and moving event that took place at Amnesty International’s London headquarters on Wednesday June 28, 2023, featuring former prisoners Mohamedou Ould Slahi (in person) and Mansoor Adayfi (by Zoom) in discussion, with Andy Worthington, about the enormous challenges they faced when it came to writing at Guantánamo, but how, almost against all odds, they overcame those challenges to create two books — Guantánamo Diary” and “Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo” — which provide searing accounts of the almost incomprehensible injustices and brutality that they experienced at the prison.

Promoting an exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ art — the first in the UK — at Rich Mix in London, with an opening event on December 5 at which I will be speaking, alongside former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, whose 2021 memoir, “Don’t Forget Us Here”, provides the title of the exhibition.

Linking to and discussing my recent, in-depth, one-hour interview with Kevin Gosztola for his “Unauthorised Disclosure” podcast, in which we discussed Guantánamo, with a specific focus on the military commissions, and the recent ruling by the 9/11 trial judge refuting defense secretary Lloyd Austin’s claim that he had the right to revoke plea deals agreed in July with three of the 9/11 co-accused, and on the plight of the 16 men still held who have long been approved for release, and for whom President Biden urgently needs to find new homes before his presidency comes to an end. Kevin also promoted ’Songs of Loss and Resistance”, the new album of protest music by my band The Four Fathers, harking back to the ‘Protest Song of the Week’ feature that he ran on his previous site, Shadowproof, where he publicized our very first release nine years ago.

My analysis of the hugely important ruling in the military commissions at Guantánamo by Judge Matthew McCall, the military judge in the 9/11 trial, who has ruled that defense secretary Lloyd Austin had no right to revoke the plea deals that were agreed three months ago with three of the men charged in connection with the 9/11 attacks — Khalid Shaykh Mohammad, the alleged mastermind of the attacks, and two of his alleged accomplices, Walid bin Attash, and Mustafa Al-Hawsawi. The plea deals, which took the death penalty off the table in exchange for life imprisonment, and, crucially, involved confessions from the three men that would constitute some kind of closure for the 9/11 victims’ families, took two and a half years to negotiate and arrange, after prosecutors finally recognized that the torture to which the men were subjected in CIA “black sites” was so horrific that it made the notion of successful prosecutions fundamentally unviable. Judge McCall forensically analyzed Lloyd Austin’s revocation of the plea deals, and found, unerringly, that he had no right to do, having handed responsibility to the Convening Authority, retired US Army Brigadier General Susan Escallier (previously the Chief Judge in the US Army Court of Criminal Appeals), who had full authority to approve them. It is to be hoped that the government doesn’t appeal, as it is threatening to do, because the plea deals are the only way to bring to an end a broken process, fatally infected by the use of torture, that has been mired, for the last 12 years, in seemingly endless pre-trial hearings with no trial date in sight.

With just two months to go until President Biden cedes power to Donald Trump, it’s crucial that pressure is exerted on the Biden administration to secure the release from Guantánamo of 16 men, never charged with a crime, who have long been approved for release — for between two and four years, and in three outlying cases for nearly 15 years. Urgent action is essential, because it is clear that Trump will seal Guantánamo shut, as he did in his first term in office. The scandal of these men’s ongoing imprisonment is that the decisions taken to approve them for release were made by high-level administrative processes, which have no legal weight, meaning that no mechanism exists to compel the government to actually free them if they find it inconvenient or to do so. An additional complication is that most of them are Yemenis, and US law prevents the return of prisoners to Yemen. However, over a year ago, a plan to resettle them in Oman was finalized, but was called off after the October 7 attacks in Israel. That plan urgently needs reviving, or, if that isn’t possible, another country needs to be found that will offer these men new homes. The alternative — another four years of entombment under Donald Trump — doesn’t even bear thinking about.