Welcome to Andy Worthington

A link to, and discussion of my recent half-hour interview about Guantánamo with Bob Connors and Tom Walker on their show, “The Peace and Justice Report,” on WSLR 96.5, a community radio station in Florida, in which I discussed what we might expect from the Biden administration, the importance of the new film, “The Mauritanian”, based on the best-selling memoir of former prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi, and much more.

My report on the death, at the age of 60, of former Guantánamo prisoner Ibrahim Idris, who is the only prisoner to have been freed because his attorney managed to persuade the Justice Department that he was so mentally and physically ill that he could not pose a threat to the US.

A fundraising appeal for my ongoing photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’, which I started nearly nine years ago, for which I have no institutional backing, and am reliant on your support. If you’re one of the project’s followers, any donation you can provide will be very gratefully received.

My response to statements about the Biden administration’s proposed closure of Guantánamo that were made on February 12 by White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who, asked whether President Biden would shut the prison before the end of his presidency, told reporters, “That certainly is our goal and our intention.”

My review of “The Mauritanian,” the film based on the best-selling memoir “Guantánamo Diary” by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who, based on nothing more than suspicion, was subjected to a horrendous torture program at Guantánamo in 2003, and, despite the case against him collapsing, wasn’t released until 2016.

A letter to President Biden, urging him to close Guantánamo, and to end indefinite detention without charge or trial, signed by 111 organizations, including Close Guantanamo, which I co-founded nine years ago with the US attorney Tom Wilner.

A cross-post, with my own introduction, of an open letter to President Biden, urging him to close Guantánamo, which was written by seven former prisoners who are also authors: Mansoor Adayfi, Moazzam Begg, Lakhdar Boumediene, Sami Al Hajj, Ahmed Errachidi, Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Moussa Zemmouri.

The latest news regarding Guantánamo under President Biden, as his defense secretary, Gen. Lloyd Austin, told the Senate in written testimony, “I believe it is time for the detention facility at Guantánamo to close its doors.” Sadly, however, at the same time a Pentagon official approved military commission charges against three “high-value detainees.”

Here’s the video of, and a discussion of, an online Guantánamo meeting on January 11, 2021, the 19th anniversary of the opening of the prison, featuring guest speakers Mohamedou Ould Salahi and myself, and hosted by the Lewes Amnesty Group.

The video of an online event about Guantánamo at Revolution Books in New York on Jan. 17, in which I appeared with attorney Shelby Sullivan-Bennis. It may have been online, rather than in the bookstore as in previous years, but it was, nevertheless, a powerful and emotional occasion.