Shaker Aamer

On January 10, while I was visiting the US for events marking the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, the World Can’t Wait, the campaigning organization responsible for my visit, hosted a screening of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (which I co-directed with Polly Nash) at a branch of Busboys [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

This Saturday, December 10, which is UN Human Rights Day, I’ll be attending a vigil for Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, outside Downing Street. The event, arranged by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, runs from 12 noon to 3 pm, and at 1 pm speakers — myself included — will be reading [...]

In Truthout today, four British MPs — Jeremy Corbyn, John Leech, Caroline Lucas and Michael Meacher — wrote an open letter to Congress seeking the return to the UK of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison. Mr. Aamer’s story is familiar to those of us who have long campaigned for the closure [...]

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 [...]

Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the London-based legal action charity Reprieve, has just visited Guantánamo, for the first time in a number of years, as his colleagues have been undertaking visits instead, and has returned with a renewed sense of horror at the continued existence of Guantánamo, that bleak icon of the Bush administration’s [...]

“‘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 [...]

On Saturday October 8, 2011, to mark the 10th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, the Stop the War Coalition is holding a Mass Assembly in Trafalgar Square, from 12 noon to 4 pm, to call for an end to the war, which continues to haemorrhage lives and money at an alarming rate, despite [...]