On the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Bush administration’s prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, which belonged to George W. Bush for seven of those ten years, but has belonged to Barack Obama for the last three, there is no reason for anyone with a heart, a conscience or a respect for America and the rule of law to be cheerful.

On Tuesday lunchtime, however, as part of my ongoing US tour, when I met up, at the New America Foundation in Washington D.C. with Tom Wilner, Counsel of Record in the Guantánamo prisoners’ habeas corpus cases in the Supreme Court in 2004 and 2008, and Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor of the Military Commissions at Guantánamo, who resigned in 2007 in protest at the use of torture, Col. Davis found it impossible not to crack a joke about it. “We must stop meeting like this,” he said, referring to the fact that, exactly a year ago, he and Tom and I were on a panel discussing Guantánamo on the 9th anniversary of its opening.

As an infrequent visitor to the US, it is, of course, wonderful to meet up with friends I have established throughout my long years of work on Guantánamo, and not just Tom and Moe, and the moderator of the panel discussion, Peter Bergen, who is an old college friend. Nevertheless, the serious intent remains, overshadowing everything else — our efforts to bring to an end the continued existence of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, which unremittingly serves as a reminder that, under George W. Bush, America lost its way, shredding the rule of law and introducing torture as official policy, and that, under Barack Obama, this toxic legacy remains.

For this year’s panel discussion, which, on my fourth visit to the New America Foundation, was a full house as usual, with a mix of journalists, think-tankers, veteran antiwar and anti-Guantánamo activists, and members of the Occupy movement, I was delighted that Congressman Jim Moran, one of a troublingly small number of lawmakers to have opposed the brutal excesses of the “war on terror,” including Guantánamo, agreed to join the panel.

Congressman Moran delivered a powerful analysis of all that was wrong with Guantánamo, past, present and future, as well as severely criticizing his fellow lawmakers for, almost unanimously, passing the National Defense Authorization Act last month, with its provision demanding the mandatory military custody, and indefinite detention without charge or trial, of anyone accused of involvement with al-Qaeda.

It remains to be seen if this will ever be used, either on foreigners or Americans, but the very fact that it was dreamt up and passed overturns the very principles on which the United States was founded — and, of course, it should not be forgotten that it would not have been possible for lawmakers to take this step if Guantánamo, a place where foreigners have been held in indefinite military custody without charge or trial for ten years, was no longer open.

My commentary starts at about 21 minutes into the video, and, after Congressman Moran’s presentation, which covered almost everything that needed mentioning, I took the opportunity to expand on a few issues – the 89 men cleared for release who are still held, the obstacles imposed by the President and Congress on the release of any Yemenis, even though they make up 58 of those 89 cleared prisoners, lawmakers’ imposition of a prohibition on releasing any prisoner to a country where it is alleged that even a single released prisoner has engaged in anti-US activities, and the D.C. Circuit Court’s cynical and ideological elimination of habeas corpus as a remedy for any of the Guantánamo prisoners.

I also took the opportunity to launch the new campaign and website, “Close Guantánamo” on which I have been working with Tom Wilner and Gary A. Isaac, an attorney in Chicago who has worked on the Guantánamo litigation. The three of us form the steering committee, and Col. Davis is one of the many high-profile signatories to our mission statement, along with Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, Chief of Staff to former Secretary of State Colin Powell; the Hon. John J. Gibbons, former Chief Judge, US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit; Gen. David M. Brahms (Ret.); Rear Adm. Donald J. Guter (Ret.); and Rear Adm. John D. Hutson (Ret.).

I encouraged those attending the event — as I do now through this article — to sign up to the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, to be on the mailing list and to be counted as an opponent of the prison’s continued existence, to help us to secure as many supporters as possible, and to sign the petition on the White House’s “We the People” website urging the President to fulfill his promise to close the prison as he promised three years ago. 25,000 signatures are needed by February 6, so please do all you can to help!

Following my contribution, Col. Davis delivered a powerful presentation, starting around 31 minutes in, asking why principles had been sacrificed for political expediency, and lamenting the continuing coarseness of the self-image sold to Americans by Republican candidates, who continue to confuse robustness with brutality and torture, even though that road leads not only to Guantánamo, but also to Abu Ghraib, Bagram and the CIA “black sites,” as well as being illegal, counterproductive and — largely overlooked, it seems to me — morally corrosive, infecting American society like a virus.

Rounding up, at around 42 minutes, Tom Wilner urged those attending to take the message out to their fellow countrymen and women, and, in particular, to educate them about the shame of Guantánamo, and, primarily, the largely unknown fact that 89 prisoners — over half of the 171 men still held — have been cleared for release.

Afterwards, we had a lively Q&A session for over half an hour, including a powerful and provocative response by Congressman Moran to a comment about the extent of Obama’s perceived crimes on national security issues (including, as just one example, the use of drone attacks), in which he urged those in the room not to confine themselves in their own echo chamber, and to recall that other echo chambers — in Congress and the Republican Party, for example — constitute a particular danger that should not be overlooked.

It left me with a feeling that he had just defined the battleground for the election year — not just between the Democrats and Republicans, but also between those liberals, progressives and others on the left and their legitimate opposition to the Obama Presidency, those who don’t want to be told that they have to blindly vote for Barack Obama, when it is possible for them not to vote at all, unless he can provide an absolute guarantee that he will give something back in return, and that, if he did win a second term, he would finally repay those who believed his soaring rhetoric before he became President, and who worked tirelessly to get him elected on the understanding that, amongst other things, he would follow through on his promise to close Guantánamo.

After all, as was demonstrated last year in the Arab Spring, in protest movements in Greece, Spain and the UK, and in American movements from the occupation of Madison, Wisconsin to Occupy Wall Street and the wider Occupy movement, there is a growing thirst, around the world, for new political movements that are for the people, and not for the bankers and the corporations, and that are not part of the political machinery that maintains the military-industrial complex at the expense of justice, and at such ruinous cost, both morally and economically, as typified by Guantánamo.

Note: The YouTube version of the event is below:

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.

Amazingly, however, that was just two weeks ago, and it was just a week ago that I returned, happy but exhausted after what should have been a grueling program of relentless film screenings (of the documentary, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” which I co-directed with Polly Nash), panel discussions, TV appearances, meetings with Guantánamo lawyers and with The World Can’t Wait’s supporters, and protests outside The White House and the Department of Justice.

I was encouraged by the large crowds attending the events (much bigger than during my last East Coast visit in November 2009) and by the number of people who follow my work, and invigorated by the company of my fellow experts and activists — Debra and the activists of The World Can’t Wait, Leili Kashani, Pardiss Kebriaei, Katie Gallagher, Jen Nessel and others at the Center for Constitutional Rights, David Swanson and Kevin Zeese and other activists in Baltimore, Frida Berrigan, Matt Daloisio, Jeremy Varon and Carmen Trotta of Witness Against Torture, Scott Horton, the staff at Revolution Books in New York, Tom Parker of Amnesty International USA, Valerie Lucznikowska of September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Tom Wilner, Morris Davis, Todd Peirce, Barry Wingard, Professor Juan Mendez, the new UN Rapporteur on Torture, and many others — and, back in Brooklyn, chewing on a bone of indignation and serving up wonderful food, The Talking Dog.

If I find the time, I’ll write an overview of the whole week, but there’s so much going on right now that I won’t make any promises. Much of it is already available — see the Baltimore video and the gun control interview, videos of the D.C. protests here and here, my appearances on Democracy Now! and Russia Today, and the video of the panel discussion at the New America Foundation — and I’m pleased to inform you that a video of the panel discussion at the Brecht Forum in New York on the evening of my arrival (which was packed out, despite only 72 hours’ publicity), is also now available online, via YouTube, as is a second video covering the Q&A session that followed the presentations. The first part is 72 minutes; the second 42 minutes.

Entitled, “WikiLeaks, State Secrets, Guantánamo and Torture,” this Special Forum was moderated by Leili Kashani of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and featured myself talking about WikiLeaks, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning (including questions about WikiLeaks’ role in the modern media world, Bradley Manning’s troubling isolation in US military custody and the Obama administration’s pursuit of Julian Assange) and the current woes of Guantánamo (as described in the articles I wrote while in the US, Guantánamo Forever? and The Political Prisoners of Guantánamo), Pardiss Kebriaei of CCR talking about the unexplained deaths of three men at Guantánamo in June 2006, and judicial obstruction of attempts to pursue this particularly bleak story, Katie Gallagher of CCR talking about torture lawsuits in Spain, and Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture talking about activism. It was an excellent evening of presentations, the crowd was great, and my thanks go to Joe Friendly for making this available:

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 and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), 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 been invited along as the keynote speaker, following my appearances at two Amnesty events in December at the Human Rights Action Centre in London — the Amnesty International Student Conference on November 13 (where, with Gareth Peirce, I spoke about Guantánamo and the need for action to secure the release of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison (and the subject of an ongoing Amnesty International campaign in the UK and the US), and “The Rights Time,” a regional conference on December 4, where I delivered a presentation entitled, “Nine Years of Guantánamo: What Now?”

On Saturday, I’ll be stressing the need to continue campaigning for Shaker Aamer, whose continued detention is inexplicable, given that, in November, he was included in a financial settlement reached by the British government with 15 former Guantánamo prisoners, and his presence is needed in the UK to conclude this settlement, to enable the Metropolitan Police to conclude an investigation into his claims that British agents were present in the room when he was tortured in US custody in Afghanistan, and to enable Prime Minister David Cameron to proceed with his planned judicial inquiry into British complicity in torture abroad.

I will also be discussing the distressing inertia on the part of the Obama administration regarding the closure of Guantánamo, and the fair and just treatment of the 173 men still held, as discussed in my recent articles, Guantánamo Forever? and The Political Prisoners of Guantánamo, in which I explained how 89 men cleared for release are still being held indefinitely, 33 others recommended for trials are not being charged or tried, and 48 others are deliberately being held indefinitely without charge or trial, even though this is exactly what the Bush administration established in the first place, when it turned its back on domestic and international laws and treaties in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

Also speaking will be Linda Ramsden from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, and there will also be workshops on Communities at Risk, Amnesty at 50 and Marvelous Meetings.

For further information, please email Lizann Peppard.

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 and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here), 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.

A packed house — featuring at least 150 journalists, lawyers, academics, activists, and government and military representatives — heard myself, Morris Davis (the former chief prosecutor of the Military Commissions at Guantánamo), attorney Tom Wilner (who argued the Guantánamo cases in the Supreme Court) and Ben Wittes of the Brookings Institution discuss and debate President Obama’s failure to close Guantánamo, what this means, and what can — and should — be done about it, following an introduction, describing the issues, by Patrick Doherty, the panel’s moderator, who heads the New America Foundation’s Smart Strategy Initiative, and is a senior advisor to the Counterterrorism Strategy Initiative.

A video of the panel discussion, including Patrick’s introduction, all four talks and a Q&A session, lasting one hour and 40 minutes in total, is available below, via YouTube, and I’m delighted that it was recorded, as it was a very lively session, raising some important questons, and introducing a note of urgency into mainstream discussions of the topic, which is largely lacking, despite the ongoing shame of President Obama’s failure to close this dark chapter in America’s recent history:

After Patrick’s introduction, I opened up the session, explaining who is still held, and why it is unacceptable that 89 men cleared for release are still held, that 33 men recommended for trials are not being put on trial, and why the administration’s plans to hold 48 of the remaining prisoners indefinitely without charge or trial is a terrible idea. This was the most detailed explanation I delivered during my US visit last week, covering all the themes covered in my articles, Guantánamo Forever? and The Political Prisoners of Guantánamo, and I was very pleased to have such a diverse and attentive audience.

Morris Davis, a former Air Force colonel, who is now the director of the D.C.-based Crimes of War Project, resigned as the chief prosecutor of the Military Commissions at Guantánamo in October 2007, on the day that he was put in a chain of command under Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II, one of the small team of lawyers (including David Addington, John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales), who were close to former Vice President Dick Cheney, and who gave supposed legal cover for the Bush administration’s torture program. In his presentation, he enlightened us all with his analysis of the immediate precedent for Bush’s Military Commissions — involving Nazi saboteurs in World War II — and his reflections on his time at Guantánamo, and on the failure of the Commissions, which are favored by Republicans over the more appropriate venue of federal courts, for terrorist trials.

Following Morris Davis, Ben Wittes, an advocate of new legislation authorizing the indefinite detention of prisoners not only in relation to current circumstances, but also in the future, accepted his role as devil’s advocate for the panel, and his participation prompted a useful and relevant focus on the reasons who those of us who disagree with him retain our belief that a new system is not required: essentially, because the Bush administration’s “new paradigm” of a “War on Terror,” involving holding men indefinitely as “enemy combatants,” was — and remains — a shocking and unnecessary aberration from the existing methods for holding priosners — either as criminals (terrorists), to be tried in federal court, or as prisoners of war (soldiers), to be held according to the Geneva Conventions, which authorizes their detention untl the end of hostilties, and which, if followed by President Bush (or adopted by President Obama) would now mean that lawyers would be arguing how long a war can last.

In response, Tom Wilner, palpably dismayed at the failures and backsliding of the last two years, tackled some of the points raised by Ben Wittes, whom he has known for many years, and delivered a passionate call for anyone concerned about the ongoing existence of Guantánamo to overcome the inertia and apathy that has largely allowed Republican hysteria to go unchecked and unchallenged, and that has allowed President Obama to lose whatever courage he might once have possessed when it comes to removing this dreadful legacy of the Bush and Cheney years. “I am furious and ashamed,” Wilner said at one point (as related by Dan Froomkin in an article for the Huffington Post), adding, “I think Guantánamo is a symbol of fear and weakness.”

A lively Q&A session followed, and I do hope that you will watch the video if you have the time, and forward it, share it, recommend it and cross-post it if you like it. Gatherings like this are all too rare, and I’d like also to thank the New America Foundation for hosting it, and to express my hope that similar events can be arranged in the future, as, without passionate and engaged debate on these issues, it seems unlikely that Guantánamo will be closing in the foreseeable future, and, as a result, 173 men will continue to languish in a situation that — whatever its supposed rationale — ought to be a source of national and international shame. As I stated in my talk, “Every day that a place like Guantánamo is open is an insult to values that decent American people hold.”

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 and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), 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.

All the speeches were filmed by a number of media organizations and individuals, and I hope to make footage of the entire rally available soon, but in the meantime I’m posting below a short report by Press TV, featuring a brief clip of my speech, and part of an interview outside the Department of Justice, following a procession of 173 hooded protestors in orange jumpsuits who had walked from The White House, as well as a clip of Valerie Lucznikowska’s speech:

More extensive coverage of the protest outside the Department of Justice, including a short speech I gave, and other interviews and speeches (with peace activists Ruth Hooke and Ray McGovern, and peace poet Luke Nephew), filmed by the wonderfully dedicated activist Bill Hughes, is below:

Note: The photo at the top of this article (click to enlarge) is by Sarah Hogarth, whose many photos of the day’s protests are available here, and I hope to be posting some of my favorite images in a separate article soon.

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 and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), 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.

We then headed off — with Debra — to Baltimore, where both Debra and I were David’s guests at an event promoting War Is A Lie, his compelling new book, and a manifesto for a war-free America. This was the first time I had met David, after years of correspondence between us, and it was great to spend time with him, and also to meet so many committed activists in the Baltimore area.

For the event in the evening, at the Barnes & Noble branch near John Hopkins University, a large and lively crowd enthusiastically welcomed the presentation of an award to Bill Hughes, an indefatigable activist who films everything that takes place in the Baltimore/Washington D.C. Area, and after a choir sang the old gospel song, “Down by the Riverside” (aka “Ain’t Gonna Study War No More”) — which struck all of us as something that should happen more often — David talked about his book, I discussed Guantánamo, and Debra spoke about the work of The World Can’t Wait, and I’m delighted that videos of my talk and of David’s presentation, are available below, via YouTube.

Andy Worthington in Baltimore.

David Swanson in Baltimore.

Andy Worthington, David Swanson and Danny Schechter on Russia Today.

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 and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), 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.

Ending Bush’s big lie on Guantánamo
Andy Worthington, The Guardian, January 6, 2011

In the Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” it was important to dehumanise the men held at Guantánamo, to give life to the myth that the prison held “the worst of the worst” terrorists, picked up on the battlefields of Afghanistan.

This was not true, as reports over the years have demonstrated. A former military interrogator in Afghanistan, writing under the pseudonym Chris Mackey, explained in his book The Interrogators that there was no screening process in place, and that every Arab who came into US custody, by whatever method, had to be transferred to Guantánamo.

Moreover, in 2006, an analysis of the Pentagon’s own allegations against 517 prisoners (compiled after 200 men and boys had already been released), and conducted by researchers at the Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey, found that 86 percent were captured by the Northern Alliance or Pakistani forces, 55 percent were not determined to have committed any hostile acts against the US or its allies, and only 8 percent were alleged to have had any kind of affiliation with al-Qaeda.

In addition, around half the prisoners were not captured in Afghanistan, but were either seized in Pakistan, or crossing the border from Afghanistan to Pakistan, and although many of the men were foot soldiers for the Taliban, who had been involved in the long-standing civil war against the Northern Alliance, which had begun many years before the 9/11 attacks, others were missionaries, humanitarian aid workers, or economic migrants, and only 33 of the remaining 174 prisoners have been recommended for trial by President Obama’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force, which reviewed all the cases in 2009.

As the prison at Guantánamo prepares to start its tenth year of operations (on January 11), and as I begin a week of events in New York and Washington D.C. to raise awareness of the remaining prisoners, these men are still, for the most part, as dehumanised as they were under President Bush.

Part of the attempt to raise awareness involves showing the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” which I co-directed with filmmaker Polly Nash, and which features compelling and emotional testimony from former Guantánamo prisoners Omar Deghayes and Moazzam Begg, both seized in 2002 from the homes where they were living in Pakistan, many hundreds of miles from the battlefields of Afghanistan, and sent to Guantánamo.

Last year, I travelled around the UK with Omar Deghayes, showing the film to audiences of students and activists who were grateful for the opportunity to meet Omar, after listening to his harrowing descriptions of how he was mistreated, and how the British security services colluded in his abuse, but when I travel to the US, I am not allowed to visit with Omar, or with Moazzam, or with any other cleared prisoner.

Audiences in the States are also moved by Omar’s testimony, when they have the opportunity to see it, but it would have a much greater impact if they were able to meet a former prisoner in person.

Sadly, the Obama administration is largely to blame for this state of affairs. In early 2009, White House Counsel Greg Craig was close to finalising a plan to rehouse a handful of cleared prisoners who could not be repatriated safely. These men were the Uighurs, Muslims for China’s Xinjiang province, seized by mistake, who had won their habeas corpus petition in a US court in October 2008, and their presence in the US would have done more to destroy the Bush administration’s enduring lies than any other gesture.

However, when Republicans got wind of it, and reacted with unjustifiable outrage, Obama quashed the plan, making it difficult for the US to find third countries prepared to take cleared prisoners who could not be repatriated, and contributing to the paralysis that Obama finds himself in today: presiding over a prison in which, although over half the remaining prisoners have been cleared for release by Obama’s Task Force, cynical lawmakers, and the President’s own cowardice, have made it increasingly difficult for him to release anyone.

Anonymity — the dehumanisation of these men — helps to maintain the illusion that their ongoing detention is somehow justifiable, but if their stories, and the circumstances of their capture, were more widely known, the Bush administration’s enduring mythology might be thoroughly punctured, and more substantial steps taken — or demanded — to secure their release. Bringing the stories of Omar Deghayes and Moazzam Begg to the American public can, hopefully, play a part in this still necessary process.

Details of this evening’s screening:

Friday January 7, 7 pm: Film screening – “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” followed by Q&A with Andy Worthington and Scott Horton.
Revolution Books, 146 West 26th Street (between 6th & 7th Ave.), New York, NY 10001.
A donation of $10 is requested for the film, drinks and popcorn, to benefit Revolution Books. For further information, see the Revolution Books website, or contact the store by email or by phone: 212-691-3345. A Facebook page is 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 and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), 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’m delighted to report that it has now been confirmed, and hope that readers in the New York area will be able to come along, and/or will be able to publicize it as widely as possible in the next three days. The following description is largely taken from the Brecht Forum website:

Thursday January 6, 7.30 pm: Special Forum — “WikiLeaks, State Secrets, Guantánamo and Torture” with Andy Worthington, Katie Gallagher, Pardiss Kebriaei, Leili Kashani and other speakers to be confirmed.
The Brecht Forum, 451 West Street (between Bank & Bethune Streets), New York, NY 10014.

Andy Worthington and attorneys and advocates from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Witness Against Torture will discuss the importance of WikiLeaks, attempts to extradite Julian Assange to the U.S., the dangerous isolation of Bradley Manning, revelations about Guantánamo and U.S. interference to suppress torture investigations in Germany and Spain, and the significance of other stories not covered by Wikileaks — in particular, the circumstances surrounding the deaths of three prisoners at Guantánamo in June 2006. This January 11, 2011 marks the beginning of the 10th year of indefinite detention at the U.S. prison at Guantánamo.

Andy Worthington is an author, journalist, and film maker who regularly writes for newspapers and websites including the Guardian, Truthout, the Future of Freedom Foundation, Cageprisoners, the Daily Star, Lebanon, the Huffington Post, Antiwar.com, CounterPunch, AlterNet, and ZNet. His book The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison is the first book to tell the story of every man trapped in Guantánamo. His film is called “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” and addresses Guantánamo and the “War on Terror.”

Katie Gallagher is a Senior Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), where she focuses on holding individuals, including U.S. and foreign government officials, and corporations, including private military contractors, accountable for serious human rights violations. She is involved in two ongoing legal proceedings in Spain about the U.S. torture program, and WikiLeaks has revealed that the Obama administration has engaged in a political campaign to block both of them and prevent Spanish courts from securing accountability for torture and other crimes planned, authorized, and committed by Bush administration officials at Guantánamo and elsewhere.

Pardiss Kebriaei is a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). She joined the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at CCR in July 2007, and provides direct representation to several of CCR’s clients at Guantánamo and the families of the men who died there in 2006. She is also involved in a lawsuit challenging a U.S. government kill-list and the targeting of a U.S. citizen now in Yemen and far from any armed conflict with the United States.

Leili Kashani is the Education and Outreach Associate for the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR). She advocates for a just closure of the prison at Guantánamo, resettlement for the men still detained, and against illegal detentions, the lack of accountability for torture, and expanding U.S. wars more broadly.

Witness Against Torture formed in 2005 when 25 Americans went to Guantánamo Bay and attempted to visit the detention facility. They are activists who are organizing to shut down Guantánamo and end U.S. torture programs and have engaged in public education, street theater, lobbying, and nonviolent direct actions towards this end.

For further information, and to register for this event, see the Brecht Forum website, or phone: 212-242-4201. This event is free for Brecht Forum Subscribers. Otherwise, admission is on a sliding scale: $6/$10/$15.

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 and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), 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.

Sadly, two years into Barack Obama’s Presidency, and a year after the failure of his promise to close Guantánamo within a year, the outlook for the remaining 174 prisoners in Guantánamo is bleaker than it has been at any time since June 27, 2004, the day before the Supreme Court ruled that the prisoners had habeas corpus rights.

Although 90 of the remaining 174 prisoners have been “approved for transfer” for at least a year by the Guantánamo Review Task Force, established by President Obama to review the cases of the remaining prisoners, 58 of these men are Yemenis, whose release is prevented by a moratorium on the release of any Yemeni prisoners, which was issued by the President last January, in response to hysterical overreaction to the news that the failed Christmas Day plane bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, had been recruited in Yemen. In addition, Congress has now stepped in, unconstitutionally restricting the President’s powers by declaring Yemen as one of several countries that are too dangerous for prisoners to be released to.

The remaining 32 men “approved for transfer” are mostly still held because of fears that they will face torture or other ill-treatment in their home countries, and because no third countries have been found that will accept them. They should, therefore, be offered new homes in the United States, but the Obama administration, the courts and Congress have all acted to prevent the relocation of a single cleared Guantánamo prisoner to the US mainland.

Of the remaining 84 prisoners, three are imprisoned after trials by Military Commission, 33 were recommended for trials by the Task Force, and 48 others were recommended for indefinite detention without charge or trial. Congress recently passed legislation preventing the transfer of any of these men to the US mainland to face trials, and also preventing the administration from buying a US prison to rehouse them, but this is not the only stumbling block to attempts to secure justice for any of these men.

Although the adminstration has been prevented from proceeding with the planned federal court trials for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks, officials have also shown little appetite for trials by Military Commission either, especially after the negative publicity that greeted the plea deal negotiated in October with the former child prisoner Omar Khadr, who was obliged to plead guilty to war crimes invented by Congress and endorsed by the administration.

In addition, it was recently announced that President Obama is set to sign an executive order formalizing the indefinite detention of the 48 men designated for indefinite detention by the Task Force. This will allow them a periodic review of their cases, but it remains an unjustifiable position for the administration to maintain (and is symptomatic of the administration’s disregard for the US courts and the prisoners’ ongoing habeas petitions), and the combination of factors in play as Guantánamo begins the 10th year of its lawless business — the executive order regarding indefinite detention, the unwillingness to proceed with any trials, and the self-imposed obstacles preventing the release of 90 men whose release was recommended by the Task Force — means that, on this particular anniversary, there is a very real possibility, without concerted effort by Americans opposed to the existence of Guantánamo and all it stands for, that almost everyone still held at Guantánamo will continue to be held indefinitely.

To raise awareness of these issues, and to call for action, Andy is taking part in the following events:

Thursday January 6, 7.30 pm: Special Forum — “WikiLeaks, State Secrets, Guantánamo and Torture” with Andy Worthington, Katie Gallagher, Pardiss Kebriaei, Leili Kashani and Jeremy Varon.
The Brecht Forum, 451 West Street (between Bank & Bethune Streets), New York, NY 10014.
For this special event, Andy Worthington will be joined by Katie Gallagher, Pardiss Kebriaei and Leili Kashani from the Center for Constitutional Rights and Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture to discuss the importance of WikiLeaks, attempts to extradite Julian Assange to the US, the dangerous isolation of Bradley Manning, revelations about Guantánamo and US interference to suppress torture investigations in Germany and Spain, and the significance of other stories not covered by Wikileaks — in particular, the circumstances surrounding the deaths of three prisoners at Guantánamo in June 2006.
For further information, and to register for this event, see the Brecht Forum website, or phone: 212-242-4201. This event is free for Brecht Forum Subscribers. Otherwise, admission is on a sliding scale: $6/$10/$15.

Friday January 7, 7 pm: Film screening – “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” followed by Q&A with Andy Worthington and Scott Horton.
Revolution Books, 146 West 26th Street (between 6th & 7th Ave.), New York, NY 10001.
A screening of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington) will be followed by a discussion about the film, the state of Guantánamo on the 9th anniversary of its opening, and accountability for torture with Andy Worthington and Scott Horton, law professor and columnist for Harper’s Magazine.
A donation of $10 is requested for the film, drinks and popcorn, to benefit Revolution Books. For further information, see the Revolution Books website, or contact the store by email or by phone: 212-691-3345. A Facebook page is here.

Sunday January 9, 4 pm: World Can’t Wait open house to celebrate the New Year and a new office, and to welcome Andy Worthington.
The World Can’t Wait, 112 West 27th Street, New York, NY 10001.
An open house to mark the opening of The World Can’t Wait‘s new office, and an opportunity to meet Andy Worthington, to discuss actions to help close Guantánamo, and to hold senior Bush administration officials accountable for torture, and also to hear about. and to support the campaigning work of The World Can’t Wait.
For further information, please contact Debra Sweet, National Director, The World Can’t Wait by email or phone the office: 866-973-4463.

Monday January 10, 7 pm: Panel discussion — “War Is A Lie” with David Swanson, plus guests Andy Worthington, Cindy Sheehan and Debra Sweet.
Barnes & Noble Johns Hopkins Bookstore, 3330 St. Paul Street, Baltimore, MD 21218.
En route to Washington D.C. for events marking the 9th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, Andy Worthington will be a guest of the author, blogger and activist David Swanson at an event promoting his latest book War Is A Lie, along with peace activist Cindy Sheehan and Debra Sweet of The World Can’t Wait.
For further information, see the War Is A Crime website, and to contact the store, please phone: 410-662-5850.

Tuesday January 11, 10.30 am: 11-day Vigil and Fast for the Closure of Guantánamo begins outside The White House, 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., Washington, D.C. Press conference at 11 am with Tom Parker (AIUSA), Pardiss Kebriaei (CCR), Andy Worthington, Frida Berrigan and Valerie Lucznikowska.
On the 9th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, anti-torture activists Witness Against Torture launch a Daily Vigil and Fast for Justice that will continue for 11 days and includes demonstrations throughout Washington D.C. The event on January 11 begins with a rally of a coalition of human rights and grassroots groups and individuals, including the Center for Constitutional Rights, Amnesty International USA, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, The World Can’t Wait, Andy Worthington, Cindy Sheehan and, hopefully, peace activist Ray McGovern and others, followed by a press conference at 11 am, a “prisoner procession” to the Department of Justice at 11.45 am, arriving at 12.15 pm, where members of Witness Against Torture will engage in nonviolent direct action. Speakers at the rally will include: Tom Parker, Amnesty International USA’s advocacy and policy director of terrorism, counterterrorism and human rights, Valerie Lucznikowska, September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, historian and Guantánamo researcher Andy Worthington, Pardiss Kebriaei, staff attorney, the Center for Constitutional Rights, representing Guantánamo detainees, and Frida Berrigan, Witness Against Torture.
For further information, please visit the Witness Against Torture website, or contact Frida Berrigan by email or phone: 347-683-4928 or Jeremy Varon by email or phone: 732-979-3119. Or contact Aaron Barnard-Luce of AIUSA by email or phone: 202-509-8194, Jen Nessel of CCR by email or phone: 212-614-6449, or Shonna Carter of September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows by email or phone: 212-260-5000

Tuesday January 11, 3.30-5 pm: Panel discussion — “Nine Years of Guantánamo: What Now?” with Andy Worthington, Tom Wilner, Morris Davis and Benjamin Wittes.
New America Foundation, 1899 L Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20036.
On the 9th aniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, Andy Worthington is joined by attorney Tom Wilner, Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor of the Military Commissions at Guantánamo, and Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution, for what promises to be a lively discussion about the future of Guantánamo. Tom Wilner is the former attorney for the Kuwaiti prisoners in Guantánamo, who argued the Guantánamo cases in the Supreme Court (and is hoping to challenge the ongoing detention of one of the two remaining Kuwaiti prisoners before the Supreme Court), Morris Davis resigned in October 2007, after being placed in a chain of command under Pentagon General Counsel William J. Haynes II, who advocated for the use of torture, and Benjamin Wittes has spent several years arguing that new legislation is required authorizing the indefinite detenton of prisoners. Among the topics under discussion will be the viability of the Authorization for Use of Military Force as a basis for detention, the approach taken by the Obama administration and the courts with regard to the prisoners’ habeas corpus claims, and the conficting claims for federal court trials, trials by Mlitary Commission or indefinite detention without charge or trial for the 81 of the remaining 174 prisoners that the adminstration has stated that it wants to try or to detain indefinitely. The discussion will be moderated by Patrick Doherty of the New America Foundation.
For further information, please contact Andrew Lebovitch of the New America Foundation.

Wednesday January 12, 12-1.30 pm: Panel discussion on the future of Guantánamo and accountabiity for torture with Andy Worthington, Juan Méndez, Leili Kashani and Frida Berrigan, plus excerpts from “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.”
American University Washington College of Law, JD Lounge, 6th floor, 4801 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20016.
For the final event of this short US tour, Andy Worthington will be joined by Juan Méndez, Visiting Professor of Law at the American University Washington College of Law, and the newly appointed UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and Leili Kashani of the Center for Constitutional Rights for further discussion about how to push for the closure of Guantánamo, fair trials, the release of cleared prisoners, an end to indefinite detention without charge or trial, and accountability for torture. The panel discussion will be moderated by Frida Berrigan of Witness Against Torture, excerpts from “Outside the Law; Stories from Guantánamo” will be shown, and refreshments will be served.
For further information, please contact Kate Kelly or Ann Warshaw of WCL.

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 and Twitter). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in July 2010, details about the new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, currently on tour in the UK, and available on DVD here), 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.