Welcome to Andy Worthington

Reappraising “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo”, the documentary film about Guantánamo, which I co-directed with Polly Nash, on the tenth anniversary of its release, following a recent screening to students at the University of Westminster.

A cross-post, with my own brief introduction, of a powerful open letter to the British home secretary Priti Patel by over 70 medical professionals from around the world, warning of their fears that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, held in Belmarsh maximum-security prison, and facing extradition to the US, may die in prison, and needs “urgent expert medical assessment of both his physical and psychological state of health.”

With “The Report,” about the Senate report into the CIA torture program, released on Amazon Prime on November 29, here’s a cross-post, with my own commentary, of an op-ed in USA Today by torture victim and Guantánamo prisoner Ahmed Rabbani.

My half-hour interview about Guantánamo, past, present and future, the US torture program and the plight of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, with Bob Connors and Tom Walker on the Peace and Justice Report, a show on Sarasota Community Radio in Florida.

Following up on an article in the Independent, I look at the cases of five men abandoned in Guantánamo by Donald Trump — men who were approved for release by high-level review processes under President Obama, but who weren’t freed before he left office, and who, to my mind, can now legitimately be considered the personal prisoners of Donald Trump.

My condemnation of Priti Patel’s disgraceful attack on Britain’s Gypsy and traveller community, in which she is calling for new powers for the police to be able to immediately confiscate the vehicle of “anyone whom they suspect to be trespassing on land with the purpose of residing on it” – a policy change that the police themselves don’t even want, as they recognise that the main problem is the lack of site provision, a requirement that was repealed by the Tories in 1994. I urge all decent people to rise up against this foul government, and also to be aware of where a far-right drift in government can lead.

My report on the welcome news last week that the High Court ruled that a decision by the Metropolitan Police to impose a blanket ban on Extinction Rebellion in London last month was unlawful – and my warning that we need to be vigilant, and to ensure that no draconian new law is introduced, as happened in the 1980s and 1990s, after the Battle of the Beanfield and Castlemorton, with the Public Order Act and the Criminal Justice Act.

In the week that “The Report” – the film about the Senate report into the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program – is released, I cross-post, with my own introduction, a revealing interview conducted by Vice News with the report’s main author, former Senate staffer Daniel J. Jones.

My analysis, cross-posted from the Close Guantánamo website, of the significance – regarding Guantánamo – of Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives last November. Led by Rep. Adam Smith, Democrats, via the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), are trying to prevent Donald Trump from being able to bring new prisoners to Guantánamo, and are also trying to ease restrictions on the release of prisoners, and work towards the eventual closure of Guantánamo. The House and Senate versions of the NDAA are currently being consolidated.

Twenty-four photos I took during the two-month occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, from August 28 to October 28, 2018, which I was part of, before we were violently evicted on October 29. Also included: a re-cap of the reasons for the occupation, and the shameful behaviour of Lewisham Council and Peabody, and the thugs they hired to show their power.