That screening, the day before protests marking the 10th anniversary (which I covered here, here and here), was organized by the World Can’t Wait, the campaigners responsible for my visit, and was followed by a panel discussion in which I was delighted to be speaking alongside the attorney Tom Wilner — my colleague in the newly established “Close Guantánamo” campaign and website, with whom I had just taken part in a lunchtime event at the New America Foundation (also with Congressman Jim Moran and Col. Morris Davis) — and Darold Killmer and Mari Newman, attorneys from Denver whom I had asked to come along and speak about their clients, five Yemenis who are still held at Guantánamo.

Introducing the Q&A session, I spoke briefly about the “Close Guantánamo” campaign and the now-closed petition on the White House’s “We the People” website, asking President Obama to fulfil his promise to close Guantánamo, and also reminded those attending that, while criticizing Congress for inserting provisions in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) demanding the mandatory military custody, without charge or trial, of anyone who can be accused of being associated with al-Qaeda, they should not forget that, for ten years, the prisoners in Guantánamo have been detained on essentially the same basis.

I also urged people to go away with just one message to tell everyone they meet — that, far from holding “the worst of the worst,” the Guantánamo of today actually contains 89 prisoners, out of the 171 still held, who have been cleared for release by the President’s interagency Task Force, but who are still held because they have become the victims of cynical political maneuvering.

After this introduction, I turned the mike over to Darold Killmer and Mari Newman, who spoke eloquently about their clients, the obstructions they have faced, and their incredulity that US justice has so spectacularly failed them. They also explained how their clients have persistently asked them to make sure that their stories are not forgotten, and anyone wishing to know more can read the stories of two of these men — Abdul Rahman al-Qyati and Musa’ab al-Madhwani — in the Center for Constitutional Rights’ “Faces of Guantánamo” reports that I played a major role in compiling, and which are also available here.

Afterwards, Tom also spoke, eloquently explaining his own disappointments, urging those attending to join the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and also explaining, as he did last week in an article on the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I publicized here, that the NDAA actually contains a waiver, whereby the administration can, if it wishes, release prisoners from Guantánamo without having to overcome the almost insurmountable obstacles raised by Congress that have prevented a single prisoner from being released in the last 13 months.

Now, as Tom also mentioned, the only obstacle to the release of prisoners is whether President Obama and his administration can find the courage and the political will to actually follow through, and to begin to release some of those 89 cleared prisoners who are still held, but whose ongoing detention ought to be a source of shame.

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

This was the day before the rally and march to close Guantánamo, which I covered here, here and here, and it was an extremely well attended event, with over a hundred people in the audience — mostly campaigners from the various organizations involved in the January 11 protest, including Amnesty International, Witness Against Torture, the World Can’t Wait, Code Pink and the National Religious Campaign Against Torture.

Also present were: the attorney Tom Wilner — my colleague in the newly established “Close Guantánamo” campaign and website, with whom I had just taken part in a lunchtime event at the New America Foundation (also with Congressman Jim Moran and Col. Morris Davis) — and Darold Killmer and Mari Newman, attorneys from Denver whom I had asked to come along and speak about their clients, five Yemenis who are still held at Guantánamo.

The half-hour Q&A session that followed the screening was filmed, and I’ll be posting that soon, but first I’m posting below a short introduction I delivered while the staff at Busboys and Poets worked on technical issues involving the screening. While these were being resolved, I told the audience about the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and our petition on the White House’s “We the People” website, asking President Obama to fulfil his promise to close Guantánamo. The petition has a one-month deadline, which comes to an end on February 6, so please sign it if you haven’t done so already.

I also told the audience about the news from Guantánamo, via Ramzi Kassem, the attorney for Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, which I had announced on my website that day. Shaker and other prisoners had made it clear that they would be holding a three-day protest and hunger strike, to let the world know that they were not happy that President Obama was getting away with portraying Guantánamo as a safe and humane facility, and also to show solidarity with those protesting in Washington D.C. and elsewhere in the US.

In addition, I spoke specifically about the need to create a campaign on both sides of the Atlantic to push for the release of Shaker Aamer, well known as the foremost defender in Guantánamo of the prisoners’ human rights, on the basis that the Obama administration no longer wants to hold him, and the British government has asked for him to be returned to his wife and family in the UK.

I noted that the Congressional restrictions on releasing prisoners to countries that lawmakers regard as dangerous (included in provisions in the horrendous National Defense Authorization Act, in which lawmakers also declared their intention to hold terror suspects in permanent military custody, without charge or trial), could not realistically extend to the UK, making Shaker the prime candidate for breaking the deadlock regarding the release of prisoners from Guantánamo.

As I also explained, in 2011, the restrictions were so successful that only one living prisoner — an Algerian who had his habeas corpus petition granted by the courts — was released, and two others left in coffins, having died at the prison.

My thanks to everyone who turned up to make the screening such a successful event, to Debra Sweet, the national director of the World Can’t Wait for organizing it, and to Palina Prasasouk for filming my talk, and to Justin Norman for editing it.

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

The screening has been arranged by Jean Lambert (UK Green MEP), with the support of Sarah Ludford (UK Liberal Democrat MEP) and Ana Gomes (Portuguese Socialist MEP), and the purpose of the screening is to raise awareness of the continued existence of Guantánamo, and its mockery of universal notions of fairness and justice, ten years after the prison opened, on January 11, 2002. Given President Obama’s very public failure to close the prison as promised, it is essential that other countries step forward to take cleared prisoners who cannot be safely repatriated, and one of the main purposes of the screening and the visit of Moazzam Begg and Andy Worthington is to encourage EU countries to re-engage with the process of resettling prisoners that was so successful in 2009 and 2010.

The screening is free, but anyone who wishes to attend needs to contact Rachel Sheppard, the Parliamentary Assistant to Jean Lambert MEP. If those wishing to attend do not already have an access badge for the European Parliament, they need to provide their full name, date of birth, nationality, passport number or ID card and number and also specify the type of document (passport, ID card) so that access badges can be arranged. Without an access badge, those wishing to attend the screening will not be allowed.

Moazzam Begg and Andy Worthington will be available to talk to the press along with Jean Lambert MP, Sarah Ludford MEP and Ana Gomes MEP. Moazzam and Andy will be available before the screening (between 4 pm and 6.30 pm) and afterwards (after 9 pm), and also on Wednesday morning, and, as mentioned above, they are hoping to have the opportunity discuss the need for European countries to revisit the generosity shown in 2009 and 2010, when many offered new homes to cleared Guantánamo prisoners who could not be safely repatriated.

171 prisoners are still held in Guantánamo, and 89 of these have been cleared for release by President Obama’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force. 58 of these men are Yemenis, whose release is being prevented by President Obama, and by Congress, but others remain in need of new homes, and it is only the absence of offers from, for example, countries in Europe, that is preventing them from finally being freed.

As Guantánamo recently marked the 10th anniversary of its opening, with no sign of when, if ever it will close, given Congressional opposition, and the President’s refusal, or inability to assert his authority, it would be a powerful humanitarian gesture if European countries once more agreed to take cleared prisoners, to help to close this shameful icon of the Bush administration’s misguided “war on terror.”

Below are biographies:

Moazzam Begg is the director of the NGO Cageprisoners, and the author, with Victoria Brittain, of the book Enemy Combatant. He was held in US custody in Afghanistan and in Guantánamo from January 2002 until March 2005, when he was released without charge or trial.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, the author of The Guantánamo Files, and the co-director of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.” He is well-known as a world authority on Guantánamo. His website is AndyWorthington.co.uk, and he is also on the steering committee of the newly launched campaigning website, “Close Guantánamo.”

Polly Nash is a senior lecturer at the London College of Communication, University of the Arts, London, and the co-director of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.”

About the film

“‘Outside the Law’ is a powerful film that has helped ensure that Guantánamo and the men unlawfully held there have not been forgotten.”
Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK

“[T]his is a strong movie examining the imprisonment and subsequent torture of those falsely accused of anti-American conspiracy.”
Joe Burnham, Time Out

As featured on Democracy Now!, ABC News and Truthout. Buy the DVD here (£10 + £2 postage in the UK, and worldwide) or here if in the US ($10 post free).

“Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” is a documentary film, directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, telling the story of Guantánamo (and including sections on extraordinary rendition and secret prisons) with a particular focus on how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws, how prisoners were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening (and often for bounty payments), and why some of these men may have been in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons unconnected with militancy or terrorism (as missionaries or humanitarian aid workers, for example).

The film is based around interviews with former prisoners (Moazzam Begg and, in his first major interview, Omar Deghayes, who was released in December 2007), lawyers for the prisoners (Clive Stafford Smith in the UK and Tom Wilner in the US), and journalist and author Andy Worthington, and also includes appearances from Guantánamo’s former Muslim chaplain James Yee, Shakeel Begg, a London-based Imam, and the British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce.

Focusing on the stories of three particular prisoners – Shaker Aamer (who is still held, despite being cleared for release), Binyam Mohamed (who was released in February 2009) and Omar Deghayes — “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” provides a powerful rebuke to those who believe that Guantánamo holds “the worst of the worst” and that the Bush administration was justified in responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by holding men neither as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, nor as criminal suspects with habeas corpus rights, but as “illegal enemy combatants” with no rights whatsoever.

For further information, interviews, or to inquire about broadcasting, distributing or showing “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” please contact Andy Worthington or Polly Nash.

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

I’ve also embedded the interview below:

And this is how Dennis described the show:

Today on Flashpoints, we continue our series on ten years of torture at Guantánamo: we’ll be joined by Andy Worthington, author of the book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, and producer of the film “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.” Also we’ll be joined by Bay Area anti-torture activist Stephanie Tang: and we’ll feature an extended interview with Emmy award winning talk-show host Phil Donahue who will talk about politics, war, Bradley Manning, and why he’s on the stump for congressional candidate Norman Solomon.

On January 11, during the day of events to mark the 10th anniversary, I was interviewed twice on WBAI in New York: firstly, on a cellphone on the steps of the Supreme Court by Andrea Sears, for inclusion in the WBAI Evening News. That seven-minute interview is available here, and in it I had the opportunity to address all the issues raised by the anniversary, and also to mention the “Close Guantánamo” campaign and website, and the petition on the White House’s “We the People” website, calling on President Obama to close the prison as he promised three years ago, which I encourage readers to sign, as 25,000 signatures are needed by February 6 to secure a response and to show the strength of feeling that exists.

After the walk from the White House to the Supreme Court, and the powerful speeches there, I went for a late lunch with Jen Nessel and Kevi Brannelly of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Debra Sweet of The World Can’t Wait, and afterwards, as I made my way in a cab to Russia Today, for the interview available here, I spoke for ten minutes to Robert Knight for his show, Five O’Clock Shadow. That interview is available here, and it starts about 29 minutes into the hour-long show, which also features Frida Berrigan of Witness Against Torture.

After the RT show, I wandered downtown D.C., which gave the appearance of being permanently swathed in rain, in something of a daze, wandering into Chinatown, and then back downtown until I finally figured out my bearings, and, rather absurdly, walked all the way to Union Station in the rain, where I finally picked up a cab for the shortish ride back to where I was staying.

The next morning, when the rain miraculously departed as swiftly as it had arrived, I was picked up for a half-hour TV interview for Atlantic Television news, which is not yet available online, and then returned to the house for a half-hour interview with an old friend, Linda Olson-Osterlund of KBOO FM in Portland, Oregon. That interview is available here, and, as Linda explained:

January 11th 2012 is the 10th anniversary of  the opening of the Guantánamo Prison. Protests against this monument to Imperial impunity are happening in London, New York City, Washington D.C. and San Francisco, Portland OR and other cities around the US. London journalist, activist and author Andy Worthington joins host, Linda Olson-Osterlund to talk about closing Guantánamo and freeing the prisoners that are not convicted of a crime. He reports on Wednesday’s protests and the growing movement to close Guantánamo as well as the challenges it faces.

Linda also featured the logo of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign on her site, linked to the website, and spoke to me about that ongoing campaign.

After that interview, Robert, a supporter of The World Can’t Wait, picked me up and drove me to Dulles International Airport for my six-hour flight to San Francisco, which gave me an opportunity to catch up on some lost writing opportunities. At the airport, I was met by an old friend from previous visits, Curt Wechsler of The World Can’t Wait, and we then met up with WCW supporter MaryAnn Thomas, who was putting me up for the night in Oakland. After a meal and an opportunity to catch up, I caught a few hours sleep at MaryAnn’s in preparation for a very early start the next day.

In Berkeley, I appeared on KPFA’s “Morning Mix,” hosted by Mickey Huff of Project Censored, in an hour-long show, co-hosted by Peter Phillips, Professor of Sociology at UC Davis and Abby Martin of Media Roots, which also featured Pardiss Kebriaei calling in from the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, Almerindo Ojeda, the director of the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas at UC Davis, which has an excellent, ongoing Guantánamo project, and the singer-songwriter David Rovics, who I had not met before, who performed two of his powerful songs in the studio. The show is available here, and I’ve also embedded it below:

As soon as the KPFA show was over, MaryAnn drove me across the Bay to the hills above San Francisco, for an appearance on “Your Call” on KALW, with Rose Aguilar. Rose and I had met on a previous visit, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to discuss Guantánamo with her again, and also with Scott Horton, law professor and contributing editor of Harper’s Magazine, who was calling in from New York. The show is available here, and afterwards I met up with two more old friends from previous visits, Stephanie Tang and Joey Johnson of The World Can’t Wait, and we drove back down the hill to UC Hastings Law School, for “Ten Years of Guantánamo: A Discussion with Andy Worthington and Jason Leopold.”

That event, which took the form of a fascinating conversation, was filmed, and will hopefully be available soon. Afterwards, I had the opportunity to catch up not only with Jason (the lead investigative reporter of Truthout), but also with other old friends who had arrived especially for the day — psychologist and blogger Jeff Kaye and former SERE instructor Michael Kearns.

That evening, Jason and I — and David Rovics — attended a fundraising dinner for The World Can’t Wait, when I was reunited with other friends from my last visit in October 2010, for “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week — but I had to leave rather sooner than I would have wished, to take another flight, this time to Chicago, where I was met by another WCW activist, Jay, and where I stayed with Candace Gorman, the attorney for two Guantánamo prisoners (one of whom, Abdul Razak Ali, is still held), whose outspoken blog is here, and took part in a successful screening of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” at Loyola University Chicago School of Law with a panel of Guantánamo attorneys including Candace, Len Goodman (who represents the Afghan prisoner Shawali Khan) and Andy Moss (who represents Umar Abdulayev, the last Tajik prisoner in Guantánamo).

Afterwards, we went out for a meal in a great seafood restaurant with other friends, including Joe Scarry, an associate producer of the Guantanamo film “The Response,” Marissa, a formidable activist with Occupy the Southside, and activist Gregory Koger, and then Joe, Jay, Debra and I took a drive around Chicago, involving a walk down to the shore of Lake Michigan, which was the unadulterated tourist moment of my trip — the visit to the Hill three days before being rather more politically charged.

On Sunday, as I began to lose my grip on what day of the week it was, Debra and I flew back to New York, and were picked up by my old friend The Talking Dog, who looked after me in Brooklyn for my last 24 hours, where, although politics were pretty consistently on the agenda, my public events were over, and I also found time to do some last minute shopping for my family, before the long, jet lag-inducing return home, from which I’m still recovering.

I do, however, wish to thank everyone who helped to facilitate my trip and to make me so welcome, and I also hope to visit again soon. After all, just because it’s a Presidential election year, it’s no reason not to mention Guantánamo, and to call repeatedly for its closure. To do anything less would be to capitulate to the most cowardly form of political manoeuvring, and some outrages — like the ongoing existence of Guantánamo — are too important for that.

Note: Please join the “Close Guantánamo” campaign and sign the White House petition here.

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

It feels like more than a week, as it has been such a busy time, first of all in New York, which I wrote about here, and, for the last two days, in Washington D.C., where the horrors of Guantánamo were dreamt up, where those who could close it have failed or refused to do so — the administration, Congress and two particular courts (the D.C. Circuit Court and the Supreme Court) — and where a number of significant events took place to push for the closure of the prison.

I’ll discuss these in another article very soon, but for now I wanted to thank the hosts of three radio shows who have interviewed me in the last week, and to make those shows available to readers who might appreciate my commentary on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo.

On Monday January 9, in Santa Fe, the film I co-directed with Polly Nash, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” was screened for the anniversary, and to coincide with this screening, Mary-Charlotte of Santa Fe Radio Café broadcast an interview with me that was recorded before I left the UK. That interview is available here, and it was a great pleasure to speak with Mary-Charlotte, who first interviewed me several years ago. I hope it led to some people deciding to attend the screening, and I hope that the screening went well, as I am regularly told by my American friends that the film always has a powerful impact on US audiences.

Also before I left the UK, I met with, and then recorded a brief commentary about Guantánamo on its 10th anniversary, which was included in a program called Speaker’s Corner on a community radio station in London with Noémie Adam and Rajiv Bera, two former students from the LSE (the London School of Economics) who are now volunteering with the legal action charity Reprieve. I had previously met Noémie in connection with a screening of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” that she arranged at the LSE two years ago, and it was great to meet up with her and Raj near my home, to discuss the state of the world over a cup of coffee, and then to record my segment for the show, which also featuring commentary by Asim Qureshi of Cageprisoners, and, in the studio, Chris Chang of Reprieve. The show is here, and a blog entry about it is here.

The last of the three radio shows discussed in this article took place last Friday, after I arrived in the US, when I spoke to Michael Slate of KPFK in Los Angeles last Friday while I was visiting the offices of The World Can’t Wait (the sponsors of my trip to the US). Michael and I have spoken several times, and it was a delight to speak to him again, even though the circumstances of my visit are far from cheerful, because he has followed my work and understands the depth of the crimes and failures involved in the Bush administration’s establishment of Guantánamo, the Obama administration’s inability to close it, and the obstruction of lawmakers and certain judges towards bringing this bleak emblem of America’s disregard for the law to an end. The interview is here, and I hope, over the next few days, to also be able to provide links to the four radio interviews I took part in — on shows in Berkeley, New York and Portland, Oregon — while I was in Washington D.C., as well as video of some of the events in which I was proud to be involved.

Note: Please visit the website of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, whose logo is displayed above, and sign up to join a growing body of people demanding that President Obama fulfill his unfulfilled promise to close the prison. Please also sign a new White House petition on the “We the People” website calling for the closure of Guantánamo. 25,000 signatures are needed by February 6.

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

At 5.30 pm, Tom Wilner and I will be at Busboys and Poets (at 5^th and K) showing a new cut of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (which I co-directed with filmmaker Polly Nash), featuring new commentary by Tom, and, on Wednesday January 11 (the actual anniversary), I’ll begin, at 10 am, by attending an event at the National Press Club, at 529 14th St. NW, on the 13th Floor in the unironically entitled First Amendment Room.

Organized by the Center for Constitutional Rights, “Obama’s Prison: Guantánamo Turns 10” is an event to “discuss issues ranging from National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provisions that prohibit the transfer of detainees unanimously cleared for release by the CIA,FBI, NSC, and Defense Department, to the continued lack of transparency and accountability for US  torture practices.” The event features Stephen Olesky, co-lead counsel in Boumediene v. Bush, Col. Morris Davis, Retired Adm. Gen. John Hutson, Vince Warren, CCR’s Executive Director, and Baher Azmy, CCR’s Legal Director.

Afterwards, I’ll be attending “10 Years Too Many: National Day of Action Against Guantánamo,” consisting of a rally outside the White House at 12 noon, followed by a march to key institutions, including Congress, where I’ll be speaking — and berating lawmakers for their cynical fearmongering regarding Guantánamo.

I had a great time in New York over the last four days. The sun was shining, and there was also an unseasonable warmth, which may be an alarming portent in the long run, of course, but in the short term it made my visit very pleasant.

I arrived on Thursday evening, and was met by Debra Sweet. We immediately made our way to the Brecht Forum on the West Side Highway for a fascinating event, “Building a Movement to Close Guantánamo and End All Unjust Detentions,” which focused on building bridges between those working to close Guantánamo and those campaigning against unjust trials and detentions in the US. There I was delighted to meet up, for the first time since last January, with Pardiss Kebriaei and Leili Kashani of the Center for Constitutional Rights, with Guantánamo attorney and law professor Ramzi Kassem, and also Faisal Hashmi of the Muslim Justice Initiative, the brother of Fahad Hashmi, whose unfair extradition from the UK and unfair trial and disproportionately punitive sentence in the US in 2010 — after three and a half years kept in isolation in New York — I wrote about here. I then took a train uptown, to an apartment near Columbia University, where supporters of the World Can’t Wait looked after me throughout my stay.

On Friday, I was mainly working, although I appreciated hanging out at the World Can’t Wait office and having lunch with Debra and Louise, a visiting friend from Massachusetts. I also took part in an interview by phone with the progressive radio host Michael Slate on KPFK in Los Angeles, which is available here.

On Saturday, after an early start and more writing in the morning, I decided to take a break for some sightseeing, wandering for a while uptown, and then traveling downtown, getting off at Times Square, wandering over to Fifth Avenue, and then walking 15 blocks north. Architecturally and touristically, this was a fascinating detour, but of course there was no sign anywhere of the repressive machinery of empire (beyond the homeless people and those with unaddressed mental heath problems), or of people’s awareness of it. More revealing were overheard conversations at other times, on the Metro, about status or shopping, and a few glimpses of the aggression that is often just below the surface of US society, and, occasionally, the fear that has been pumped at the people so relentlessly since 9/11, and that shows no sign of abating.

Late in the afternoon, I gave a presentation at Revolution Books, which was excellent in every respect, except for the fact that it was rather sparsely attended, which is either a poor reflection on me (I hope not), or, I think more probably, a reflection on the fact that, even on the 10th anniversary of its opening, Guantánamo is a topic that has largely been forgotten about, or is being ignored, even by those who should care about its continued existence.

In running through the story of why Guantánamo is still open, three years after President Obama promised to close it, I was able to explain, in appropriate detail, how the President, Congress and the judiciary must all bear responsibility for having failed to close Guantánamo, and, in some cases, have actively worked to keep it open, not just in the short term, but forever.

In addition, what I also touched upon, with some sadness, was the fact that the recent uproar about the provision for the mandatory military custody of all terror suspects with ties to al-Qaeda in the National Defense Authorization Act, by focusing solely on the perceived threat to US citizens, overlooked the fact that, without Guantánamo, and the indefinite military detention of foreign terror suspects for the last ten years, Congress would not have been in a position to regard such a proposal as feasible.

Afterwards, I made my way to the West Village, to attend an evening of music, poetry and politics at Judson Memorial Church, described as “Dan Berrigan’s Freedom Ride: Get on the Bus to Shut Down Guantánamo,”  including poetry by the veteran activist priest Dan Berrigan, music by William Parker, and a presentation on Guantánamo, which sounded, at times, like an echo of my own words, by Baher Azmy, the new legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights, with whom I’ve been working closely of late, while I was writing a series of reports on Guantánamo for CCR, which will be published on Wednesday. Afterwards, we went for a coffee and a chat about the future, which was very pleasant, and I then wandered around the West Village for a while, soaking up the Saturday night vibe, before heading back uptown for a late dinner, and some more burning of the midnight oil.

On Sunday morning I did some more work, had breakfast with my hosts, and then made my way downtown again for a fundraiser for the World Can’t Wait, which was a wonderful event, and well attended. It was a chance to meet up with some people I had met before, including the author Mike Otterman, and the former Muslim chaplain at Guantánamo, James Yee, who, notoriously, was imprisoned after the authorities wrongly concluded that he was a spy. I also had the opportunity to meet Sunsara Taylor for the first time, which was a great pleasure.

After an introduction from Debra, I ran through another version of my explanation of why Guantánamo is still open, with its cast of miscreants and incompetents, including the President, lawmakers and the judges of the D.C. Circuit Court. This was followed by a powerful performance by American Creative Dance, drawing on the stories of the prisoners, and inspired, as director Nancy Vining Van Ness  explained, after she saw “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” exactly a year ago, during my previous visit.

Afterwards, there was a very lively discussion, and once the event wound up, a number of us went to a lovely Persian restaurant for great food and further discussion of our objectives, and the wider problems facing our respective countries, as the powers-that-be try to shore up our broken systems, and to blame the ordinary working people for the colossal crimes of the financial sector and the corporate world.

So now I’m in the belly of the beast, and looking forward to the events of the next few days, when, for a moment, the mainstream media will be glancing towards Guantánamo, remembering the men held there, before moving on and chasing the next ambulance. I hope we can provide them with some notion that, behind the indifference and the resignation, many people remain deeply troubled by the continued existence of Guantánamo.

Note: For further information, and to sign up to a new movement to close Guantánamo, please visit the new website, “Close Guantánamo,” which you can join here, and also please sign a new White House petition on the “We the People” website calling for the closure of Guantánamo. 25,000 signatures are needed by February 6.

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

To mark this bleak occasion, Andy Worthington, investigative journalist, author of The Guantánamo Files and co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” is visiting the US for 12 days, with the support of The World Can’t Wait and the Center for Constitutional Rights, taking part in events in New York, Washington DC., San Francisco and Chicago.

171 of the 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo throughout its long, dark history are still held, three years after Barack Obama became President and promised to close it within a year, even though 89 of them have been cleared for release. The President’s vacillations, and lack of courage, as well as the unprincipled obstructions of cynical or cowardly lawmakers, and of paranoid right-wing judges have ensured that no one has left Guantanamo alive in the last year and to guarantee that the prison will remain open — and these 171 men will be held forever — without concerted action by these with the determination to bring to an end the toxic legacy of the Bush administration.

These events are listed below, and are free unless otherwise indicated. For further information, or to book Andy for TV or radio appearances, please contact Debra Sweet, National Director, the World Can’t Wait, or contact Andy Worthington.

Thursday January 5, 7.30 – 9 pm: “Building a Movement to Close Guantánamo and End All Unjust Detentions”: Panel discussion with Pardiss Kebriaei and Leili Kashani of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and other speakers including Andy Worthington.
The Brecht Forum, 451 West Street (West Side Highway) between Bank & Bethune Streets, New York, NY 10014.
This event is organized by the Center for Constitutional Rights, and co-sponsored by The Brecht Forum, Creating Law Enforcement Accountability & Responsibility (CLEAR), and the Pakistan Solidarity Network. The evening will seek to “situate GTMO as a deeply important but single piece of a larger unjust US detention system,” and “to deepen and broaden alliances to finally close Guantánamo and build a movement against all unjust US detentions,” and speakers include Pardiss Kebriaei and Leili Kashani of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Faisal Hashmi of the Muslim Justice Initiative, Laura Whitehorn, former political prisoner and senior editor at POZ Magazine, Silky Shah, Field Director at Detention Watch Network and co-producer of Asia Pacific Forum, Anna Brown of Witness Against Torture, and Guantánamo expert Andy Worthington, who will be flying in from London at the start of a 12-day visit.
For further information, and to register for this event, see the Brecht Forum website. Admission is on a sliding scale: $6/$10/$15. Also see the CCR website, and the Facebook page.

Saturday January 7, 4 – 6 pm: “Ten Years of Guantánamo, Ten Years of Injustice: A Conversation with Andy Worthington.”
Revolution Books, 146 West 26th Street (between 6th & 7th Ave.), New York, NY 10001.
To mark the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, Andy Worthington will be discussing the continuing injustice of Guantánamo, and strategies for campaigning for the prison’s closure. Andy has been at the forefront of the campaign to close Guantánamo for six years, since he first began researching the stories of the prisoners for his book The Guantánamo Files, and he will be discussing his research, writing and campaigning, and, in particular, his work in 2011 as a media partner with WikiLeaks for the release of classified military files relating to the Guantánamo prisoners, and his ongoing 70-part, million-word series, “The Complete Guantánamo Files.”
For further information, see the Revolution Books website.

Sunday January 8, 4 – 7 pm: “Dance and Discussion to Shut Down Guantánamo,” with Andy Worthington and American Creative Dance.
3-D Laboratories, 29 West 26th Street, New York, NY 10010.
In a fundraising event for The World Can’t Wait, Andy Worthington discusses Guantánamo and his work for the last six years, including his relationship with The World Can’t Wait, and the artists of American Creative Dance, under the direction of Nancy Vining Van Ness, show some of the prisoners’ stories through poetry, theatre, music and dance. Hosted by Gbenga Akkinagbe, Sharon Pavlovich and Sunsara Taylor. In addition, celebrated blogger The Talking Dog will be calling in to provide support while on the road.
Suggested Contribution: $50. Donations can be made tax-deductible to support The World Can’t Wait’s educational work to end torture and shut down Guantánamo.
For further information, please contact Debra Sweet, National Director, The World Can’t Wait. Also see The World Can’t Wait’s event page here.

Tuesday January 10, 12.15 – 1.45 pm: “Ten Years of Guantánamo: Will It Ever Close?” Panel discussion with Col. Morris Davis, Tom Wilner and Andy Worthington, plus special guest Congressman Jim Moran.
New America Foundation, 1899 L Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20036.
This high-profile event, hosted by the New America Foundation, features Congressman Jim Moran, who has been one of the few legislators brave enough to call for the closure of Guantánamo in Congress, Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor for the Military Commissions at Guantánamo, who resigned in 2007, in protest at the planned use of evidence obtained through the use of torture, and is now the executive director of the Crimes of War Project, Tom Wilner, Counsel of Record for the Guantánamo prisoners in their cases before the Supreme Court in 2004 and 2008, and freelance investigative journalist and Guantánamo expert Andy Worthington.
For further information, please contact Andrew Lebovich at the New America Foundation.

Tuesday January 10, 5.30 – 7.30 pm: Screening of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” plus Q&A with Andy Worthington, Tom Wilner, Mari Newman and Darold Killmer.
Busboys and Poets, The Cullen Room, 5th & K (1025 5th Street, NW), Washington, D.C.
For the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, director Polly Nash has produced a new one-hour edit of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington), featuring new commentary by Tom Wilner. For this special screening, Tom Wilner and Andy Worthington are joined by Mari Newman and Darold Killmer, attorneys for five Yemeni prisoners still held at Guantánamo.
This event is organized by The World Can’t Wait.
For further information, please contact Debra Sweet, National Director, The World Can’t Wait. Also see the Busboys and Poets website, and see the map here.

Wednesday January 11, 12 – 2 pm: “10 Years Too Many: National Day of Action Against Guantánamo,” Washington, D.C.
To mark this bleak anniversary, dozens of campaigning groups — including the Center for Constitutional Rights, Witness Against Torture, Amnesty International USA, The World Can’t Wait, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Physicians for Human Rights and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows — will rally at the White House at 12 noon, where speakers will demand the closure of Guantánamo, and an end to indefinite detention and unfair trials. After the rally at the White House, a human chain will be created stretching from the White House to the Capitol. For further information, see Andy Worthington’s page, and the pages of the Center for Constitutional Rights, Witness Against Torture, Amnesty International USA and The World Can’t Wait.

Friday January 13, 12 noon – 2 pm: “Ten Years of Guantánamo: A Discussion with Andy Worthington and Jason Leopold.”
UC Hastings Law School, Louis B. Mayer Lounge (auditorium), 198 McAllister St., San Francisco, CA, 94102.
To mark the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, Andy Worthington will be paying a flying visit to the Bay Area to take part in a freewheeling interview at UC Hastings Law School in San Francisco with Jason Leopold, lead Investigative reporter at Truthout, discussing Guantánamo, the Bush administration’s torture program, the victims of torture, including Abu Zubaydah, and the failures of the Obama administration to close Guantánamo or to hold anyone accountable for the Bush administration’s crimes.
For further information, please contact Curt Wechsler or Stephanie Tang of The World Can’t Wait, San Francisco Bay Area Chapter, and see the map here.

Saturday January 14, 1 – 4 pm: Screening of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” plus Q&A with Andy Worthington, Candace Gorman, Gary A. Isaac, Andy Moss and Debra Sweet.
Loyola University Chicago School of Law, 25 E. Pearson Street, Chicago, IL 60611, Room 1040 (Ceremonial Courtroom on the 10th floor).
For his first ever visit to Chicago, Andy Worthington will attend a screening of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington), and a Q&A sessions afterwards, with Guantánamo attorneys Candace Gorman, Len Goodman and Andy Moss, and Debra Sweet, National Director, The World Can’t Wait.
This event is organized by Chicago World Can’t Wait, with the support of Amnesty International, Midwest Antiwar Mobilization, National Lawyer’s Guild (Loyola Law), National Lawyers Guild, Chicago Chapter, Public Interest Law Society and the Muslim Law Student Association.
For further information, please contact Jay Becker of Chicago World Can’t Wait. Also see the Chicago World Can’t Wait website, and the Facebook page.

Note: For further information, and to sign up to a new movement to close Guantánamo, please visit the new website, “Close Guantánamo,” which you can join here, and also please sign a new White House petition on the “We the People” website calling for the closure of Guantánamo. 25,000 signatures are needed by February 6.

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

NOTE Dec. 5: The screening at Middlesex University on November 29 was postponed, because, due to a water leak, the whole of the Hendon Campus was closed on health and safety grounds, but was rescheduled for December 6.

“‘Outside the Law’ is a powerful film that has helped ensure that Guantánamo and the men unlawfully held there have not been forgotten.”
Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK

“[T]his is a strong movie examining the imprisonment and subsequent torture of those falsely accused of anti-American conspiracy.”
Joe Burnham, Time Out

As featured on Democracy Now!, ABC News and Truthout. Buy the DVD here (£10 + £2 postage in the UK, and worldwide) or here if in the US ($10 post free).

On Monday and Tuesday next week, in New York and London, there will be two screenings of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington), which, in the last two years, has had hundreds of screenings during two UK tours, a US tour (plus screenings on two further US visits), and a Polish tour, as well as film festival screenings in the UK, the US and Norway, many of which have featured Andy Worthington answering post-screening questions about Guantánamo past, present and future.

The intention of the screenings, as with every showing, is to raise awareness of the truth about Guantánamo, extraordinary rendition, secret prisons and torture, explaining how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws, rounding up men and boys in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening (and often for bounty payments), and also explaining why some of these men may have been in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons unconnected with militancy or terrorism (as missionaries or humanitarian aid workers, for example).

With the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo looming (on January 11, 2012), and 171 men still held with, essentially, no prospect of release, because President Obama has failed to close the prison as promised, and supporters of arbitrary detention have taken the upper hand, it is of enormous importance that Guantánamo remains in people’s consciousness, and that those concerned with human rights and justice continue to take action to secure the prison’s closure.

For British audiences, the film has added significance, as those still held include Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, whose story is featured in the film, along with those of released prisoners Omar Deghayes and Binyam Mohammed. And the timing is particularly appropriate, because, yesterday, I wrote about Shaker Aamer in an article entitled, After Ten Years in US Custody, British Resident Shaker Aamer “Is Gradually Dying in Guantánamo,” Says Clive Stafford Smith, which coincided with the 10th anniversary of his detention without charge or trial.

The details of the screenings, which are both free, and open to the public are below:

Monday November 28, 2011, 6 pm: Film screening – “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.” Followed by Q&A with Leili Kashani from the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Jeremy Varon, Professor of History at the New School and organizer with Witness Against Torture.
The New School, 80 5th Ave., Room 529, New York.
Jeremy writes: “Please join us for a screening of ‘Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.’ Made by one of the world’s leading Guantánamo researchers, the film tells the tragic, infuriating, and still-shocking tale of the United States’s torture of men at Guantánamo and Bagram prison. It traces the history of US detention policy and, through interviews with lawyers and former detainees, shows the human impact of the violation of basic rights and the rule of law. The film will be followed by a dialogue led by Leili Kashani and Jeremy Varon. The two will discuss the current status of Guantánamo and detention policies, as well as plans for a mass demonstration in Washington, D.C. on January 11, 2012 — the tenth anniversary of the detention facility at Guantánamo.
For further information, please contact Jeremy Varon.

Tuesday November 29, 2011, 5.30 pm: Film screening – “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.” Followed by Q&A with Andy Worthington.
Middlesex University, Room G190c, The Grove Building, Hendon Campus, London, NW4 4BT.
This event is organised by Amnesty International Middlesex Society.
For further information, please contact Nadira Irdiana, President, Amnesty International Middlesex Society. Also see the Facebook page, and, for directions, see Map 1 here.

For further information about the film, for interviews, or to inquire about broadcasting, distributing or showing “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” please contact Polly Nash or Andy Worthington, and please see below for the first five minutes of the film:

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

“[T]his is a strong movie examining the imprisonment and subsequent torture of those falsely accused of anti-American conspiracy.”
Joe Burnham, Time Out

As featured on Democracy Now!, ABC News and Truthout. Buy the DVD here (£10 + £2 postage in the UK, and worldwide) or here if in the US ($10 post free).

The first autumn screening of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington) takes place on the second anniversary of the film’s launch, at the University of Aberdeen, as part of a human rights film festival, from October 17 to 23, which also includes screenings of two films about Burma — “Burma VJ” and “This Prison Where I Live,” “The Green Wave” (about the Iranian elections in 2009, and the state’s brutal clampdown on the pro-democracy movement), and a film about Scottish Gypsy Travellers. See here for further details, and see below for specific details about the screening of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.”

In the last two years, there have been hundreds of screenings of the film during two UK tours, a US tour, and a Polish tour. The film has also had several film festival screenings, in the UK, the US and in Norway, and co-director Andy Worthington has made dozens of personal appearances to answer post-screening questions abut Guantánamo past, present and future. The most recent screening was a Parliamentary screening in June, hosted by hosted by Caroline Lucas MP, supported by Jeremy Corbyn and Peter Bottomley.

With the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo looming (on January 11, 2012), and 171 men still held with — literally — almost no prospect of release, as President Obama has failed to close the prison as promised, and his critics (and supporters of the prison’s continued existence) have taken the upper hand, reviving Dick Cheney’s successful and cynical message of fear, it is still of great importance that Guantánamo remains in people’s consciousness, and that those concerned with human rights continue to take action to secure its closure.

For British audiences, the film has added significance, as those still held include Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, whose story is featured in the film, along with those of released prisoners Omar Deghayes and Binyam Mohamed.

Despite being told that he had been approved for transfer in 2007, Shaker Aamer, who has a British wife and four British children, is still held, even though the British government claims to be doing all in its power to secure his return. Foreign secretary William Hague and the Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg have both raised Aamer’s plight with members of the US administration in the last year, but to no avail.

However, as I have mentioned before, and continue to maintain, Britain’s heel-dragging on this issue is both inexplicable and unacceptable, as the British government negotiated a compensation deal for Shaker, as well as 15 former prisoners, last November, and which cannot, of course, be concluded in Shaker’s case while he remains in Guantánamo.

As I have also pointed out repeatedly, the inquiry into British complicity in torture abroad, which David Cameron announced last July, cannot proceed without Shaker’s presence, not only because he is a prime witness to some of the claims that the inquiry will have to address, but also because a Metropolitan Police inquiry into his claims that he was tortured in US custody in Afghanistan, prior to his transfer to Guantánamo, while British agents were present in the room, cannot, realistically, conclude without him, and, as the PM has acknowledged, the inquiry cannot begin while the Met’s investigations are ongoing.

It is also worth noting that, in April this year, in WikiLeaks’ release of classified military documents relating to almost all of the 779 prisoners who have been held at Guantánamo throughout its long history (on which I worked as a media partner), the reasons for Shaker Aamer’s continued detention were revealed as the paranoid sham that they have always been. Because of his principled stand regarding the prisoners’ rights, and because of his fluency in English, his charisma and his influence, Shaker Aamer has persistently been regarded as a threat by the US authorities, even though most of the supposed evidence against him in his file consists of statements made by some of the most notoriously unreliable witnesses in Guantánamo and the CIA’s network of secret prisons.

For those interested in Shaker Aamer’s plight, please visit the Facebook page of the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign or, if you’re in the US, see this Amnesty International USA campaign page.

Details of next week’s screening — which is free — are below, and more screenings will be announced soon. Also see the 2011 tour page here.

Friday October 21, 2011, 6 pm: Film screening – “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.”
Followed by Q&A with Andy Worthington.
Room NK1, New King’s Building, King’s College, University of Aberdeen, AB24 3FX.
This event is organized by the University of Aberdeen Amnesty International Society and the Amnesty Aberdeen group.
For further information, please contact Matthew James Biro, the President of the Amnesty student group. Also see the university group’s Facebook page, and Amnesty Aberdeen’s website.

About the film

“Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” looks at how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws after 9/11, and examines how prisoners were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening, and why some of these men may have been in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons unconnected with militancy or terrorism. The film provides a powerful rebuke to those who believe that Guantánamo holds “the worst of the worst” and that the Bush administration was justified in responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by holding men neither as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, nor as criminal suspects with habeas corpus rights, but as “illegal enemy combatants” with no rights whatsoever.

For further information about the film, for interviews, or to inquire about broadcasting, distributing or showing “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” please contact Polly Nash or Andy Worthington, and please see below for the first five minutes of the film:

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

Sarah and I met a few years ago, when she let me know that she wanted to write a song about Guantánamo, and last February she came to see a screening at the BFI of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” the film I co-directed with Polly Nash, which tells the story of Shaker Aamer (as well as Binyam Mohamed and Omar Deghayes, two other British residents released from Guantánamo), and which contributed to the creation of “How the West Was Won,” Sarah’s song about Shaker Aamer. Sarah’s review of the film is here.

Unlike far too many musicians, Sarah is not afraid to be politically aware. She is also articulate, as can be seen from her material, her political writings, her gigs for Palestine, and her choice of musical partners — she works with the Israeli-born British saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, who is one of the most sustained critics of Zionism in the world.

Below is the blog post that Sarah has just published (and Gilad’s cross-post is here), introducing the song. Also included is a superb live version of the song, recorded in April at the Vortex in north London. Enjoy! And if you like it, please share it — and buy “In the Current Climate.”

“How The West Was Won” — A Song For Shaker Aamer
By Sarah Gillespie

Over a year ago I went to see Andy Worthington and Polly Nash’s brilliant documentary, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.” I wrote a paper about it here. It is the kind of film you can’t shake off. It leaves you with a lingering sense of what it might mean to be arbitrarily captured, tortured, humiliated and left without any plausible hope of reprieve. It evokes the cataclysmic trauma and despair, the heavy grief of all those stolen years. One British resident still flounders in this zone of no jurisdiction. He is Shaker Aamer. There is no legal reason for his continued incarceration. He has never been charged with a crime and there is no reliable evidence against him. After seeing Andy and Polly’s film I was haunted by Aamer’s plight, by the suffering of his wife who still lives in Battersea where she has been repeatedly hospitalized with nervous breakdowns — and by the awareness that, while I look forward to going out for dinner tonight in London, Shaker Aamer is still in Guantánamo.

I wrote this song in his honor. It is not explicitly about him, but it is for him. The imagery in the song mocks the islamaphobic motifs of “oppressed” burqa-clad women, opium trafficking warlords, violent husbands and clandestine plots to enrich uranium. Pondering on this picture it is clear Aamer is one of countless souls enduring hell for our so-called freedom. When I wrote this song, it struck me that this is nothing new. What we refer to as “the Enlightenment” always flourished at the expense of others. European nation states were built on the backbreaking toil of nameless foreigners. Still today, the so-called equality, individualism and liberty we are encouraged to celebrate, invariably relies upon someone else, somewhere else being denied it. In this case, it is Shaker Aamer.

How the West Was Won
(a song for Shaker Aamer)

They said they saw me coming
down the foothills of my mountain,
where the women just drink the poison
and the men just kick your jaw in,

where the wells are jinxed with ginseng
by warriors doped up on opium,
where the law men are fictitious
and our desperation gets ridiculous

You’re only just when you
pull me down down down
a peg or two
If you’re honest to God and men
I’d bend my back in two
to defend you my friend

They mocked me in my chamber
with the women there licking peaches
for boys hell bent on parading me
in my maniacals and my britches

They said, “Son you must be putting me on.
You know I can get heated.
I’ll just make you like your uranium:
vicious and depleted.”

You’re only just when you
pull me down down down
a peg or two
If you’re honest to God and men
I’d bend my back in two
to defend you my friend

So I won’t be back this summer
’cause the militiamen got my number
They recorded it to the letter
I sing, “mama, mama make it better.”

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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, on tour in the UK throughout 2011, and available on DVD here — or here for the US), my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.