“‘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).

With the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay now in its 11th year of existence, and with no sign of when, if ever the prison will be closed, the need to campaign for its closure is greater than ever, even though the will to do so is largely drowned out by the voices of US lawmakers and pundits who would like it to stay open, and by a colossal indifference on the part of far too many citizens of the US, and others around the world.

This is deeply disturbing, as a prison in which people are subjected to arbitrary detention (as Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, explained three weeks ago) cannot simply be brushed aside or forgotten about by those who claim to care about legal and humane detention practices. As long ago as October 2003, a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross complained about the damaging effects of open-ended arbitrary detention on the mental health of the prisoners held at Guantánamo, and that remains true eight years and four months later, even if most of the prisoners are now allowed time to socialize. Back in 2003, Girod said, “The open-endedness of the situation and its impact on the mental health of the population has become a major problem.” Read the rest of this entry »

In the whole sordid ten-year history of Guantánamo, one of the most distressing events, which has never been adequately investigated, involves the deaths of three prisoners on the night of June 9, 2006. According to the authorities, the deaths were the result of a coordinated suicide pact, but this never sounded credible to anyone who investigated the official story, and found that they were obliged to believe that the men had somehow tied themselves up, stuffed rags down their throats and managed to hang themselves, in a prison where the guards checked on them every few minutes.

These doubts were thoroughly exposed in a report (“Death in Camp Delta“) published by the Seton Hall Law School in New Jersey in December 2009,  which involved a detailed examination of thousands of pages of records and reports from an inadequate investigation conducted by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (which concluded in 2008, and which I discussed here), and it was followed, in January 2010, by an explosive article in Harper’s Magazine by Scott Horton (“The Guantánamo ‘Suicides’: A Camp Delta sergeant blows the whistle“), drawing on the testimony of US military personnel who were in Guantanamo at the time of the deaths, and who cast further doubts on the official story, mentioning a secret camp known as “Camp No,” and the movement of vehicles — very possibly to and from this facility — on the night that the men died. See here and here for my commentary.

In an attempt to keep the deaths of these three men in the public eye, the Norwegian filmmaker Erling Borgen spent three years making a documentary film, “Death in Camp Delta,” which I recently reviewed for Russell Michaels’ show “Cinepolitics” on Press TV, along with the film reviewer Neil Smith. The video of the show is below, via Daily Motion, and for further information about the film, please see the “Death in Camp Delta” website and the Facebook page. Read the rest of this entry »

Last month, when I was in the US to campaign for the closure of Guantánamo on the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” prison, I paid a visit, during my 30-hour visit to San Francisco and the Bay Area, to KPFA in Berkeley for an interview on “The Morning Mix with Project Censored,” which also featured the wonderful singer/songwriter David Rovics, Pardiss Kebriaei of the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Almerindo Ojeda of UC Davis, who runs the university’s Guantánamo Testimonials Project.

That half-hour show is here, and it was regarded by the producers as covering so much important material in such a short amount of time that a decision was made to run an extended version, as part of a fundraising drive, on February 17, and the resultant two and a half hour show is available here, and is embedded below. Read the rest of this entry »

Below, I’m pleased to cross-post an interview conducted by phone with the journalist Brad Jacobson during my recent visit to the US to campaign for the closure of Guantánamo on the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Bush administration’s brutal and lawless “war on terror” prison. The interview was conducted while I was in Washington D.C., and afterwards I was pleased to direct Brad to Truthout as a prospective publisher, and delighted that Truthout decided to run with it. It was published on Sunday, and I’ll let it speak for itself, after noting that I have made a few editorial changes, and have inserted some additional links as well.

Brad was a knowledgeable interviewer, and clearly interested in the horrors of America’s post-9/11 journey to the “dark side,” and the surreal situation we now find ourselves in, when a Democratic President, who campaigned largely on a promise to clear up the Bush administration’s mess, and to close Guantánamo, has largely failed to do so, and,perversely, has ended up normalizing much of what, under George W. Bush, had come to be regarded as a national shame.

Guantánamo Ten Years Later: “It’s a Disgrace,” Says Expert Andy Worthington
Interview by Brad Jacobson, Truthout, February 12, 2012

On January 12, the tenth anniversary of the notorious military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Truthout interviewed investigative journalist and Guantánamo expert Andy Worthington. Author of The Guantánamo Files and co-director of the film “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” Worthington has spent the last six years painstakingly working to keep alive in the public consciousness the human faces and personal contexts of the 779 people imprisoned within the facility. Read the rest of this entry »

During my ten-day US tour last month to mark the 10th anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo, all the events I took part in, and the TV and radio interviews I undertook, were worthwhile, enjoyable, and an opportunity to provide important information and to urge those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo to keep campaigning for its closure.

This is not an easy task, given President Obama’s failures, cynical Congressional opposition, and the obstruction of right-wing judges in the D.C. Circuit Court — and it is compounded by a recent poll showing that a majority of Americans are apparently content for Guantánamo to remain open — but the 10th anniversary provided an opportunity to launch a new campaigning website, “Close Guantánamo” with the attorney Tom Wilner (and supporters can sign up here), and also to hook up with many other friends.

One of these is Jason Leopold, the lead investigative reporter for Truthout, who is a colleague and a friend with whom I spent some time in the fall of 2010, during “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week, and in the third of the four cities on my recent visit — San Francisco — Jason and I took part in an hour-long conversation, at UC Hastings Law School on January 13, which was one of the most satisfying of all my engagements, as Jason and I work well together, and had enough time to cover all the issues that need discussing, on this baleful anniversary when all three branches of the US government have failed to close Guantánamo, and too few people seem to care. Read the rest of this entry »

February 14 marks the 10th anniversary of the arrival at Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, who is now the last British resident in the prison, but was once one of 15 British citizens and residents held at Guantánamo. Shaker’s story is one that I have told and retold over the years, including in the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” which I co-directed with Polly Nash, and it is distressing, for his British wife, and his four British children (the youngest of whom has never seen his father, because he was born after his capture) to have to endure another anniversary without Shaker, an eloquent man of great compassion, who has spent ten years demanding that he and his fellow prisoners be treated as human beings, and not as “enemy combatants” without rights, which is what they essentially remain, despite some general improvement in their living conditions under President Obama.

Throughout this period in which I have been studying Shaker’s story (for the last six years), it has been clear that there was no good reason for Shaker Aamer to be held. He was told in spring 2007 that he had been cleared for release by the Bush administration, and in August 2007 Gordon Brown, taking over from Tony Blair as Prime Minister, requested his return along with the other British residents.

Nevertheless, he was not freed, and with a new President in the US and a new government in the UK it was not initially known what his status was as the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo approached. However, two recent discoveries have ensured that, on the 10th anniversary of Shaker’s arrival at Guantánamo, there are no obstacles to his immediate release, however much representatives of the US or UK governments may pretend otherwise. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday, I posted a short video of a speech I gave on January 10, while I was visiting the US for events marking the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, prior to a screening of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (which I co-directed with Polly Nash) at a branch of Busboys and Poets in Washington D.C.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

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 and Poets in Washington D.C.

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. Read the rest of this entry »

In the long struggle to close Guantánamo, protests took place in Washington D.C. and across America on the 10th anniversary of the opening of the prison on January 11, and the newly established “Close Guantánamo” campaign (of which I am a member of the steering committee) launched a petition on the White House’s “We the People” website, calling on President Obama to fulfill his promise to close the prison, which he made when he took office three years ago, and pointing out how fundamentally unjust it is that 89 of the remaining 171 prisoners have been cleared for release, and yet are still held.

That petition needs to secure 25,000 signatures by February 6, to oblige the President to respond, and at the time of writing, over 4,300 people had signed it. Many groups have been asking their supporters to sign it, and yesterday the Center for Constitutional Rights publicly added their voice to the campaign, sending out an email alert to all their supporters, asking them to sign the petition, and also asking visitors to the “Close Guantánamo” page on their website to sign it.

The embedded clock above was also created by CCR, and, in further publicity, three videos featuring speeches made outside the Supreme Court on January 11 — by Andy Worthington, by conscientious objector Daniel Lakemacher, who worked as a guard at Guantánamo, and by CCR’s executive director Vince Warren — have also been made available on CCR’s “Close Guantánamo” page, and are posted below. Read the rest of this entry »

In the final article following my 12-day visit to the US to join protestors calling for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo on the 10th anniversary of its opening, I’m posting below three videos by filmmaker Ed Haas of the protests in Washington D.C. on the actual anniversary, January 11, 2012, which I wrote about here.

In the first video, Ed asked me about how I became interested in exposing the injustices of Guantánamo and I explained how I became the custodian of the prisoners’ stories, and he also filmed my brief speech to the crowd, as well as the speeches made by the Guantánamo attorney Tom Wilner (my colleague in the newly-launched “Close Guantánamo” campaign), Vince Warren, the executive director of the Center of Constitutional Rights, Stephen Olesky, the attorney for Belkacem Bensayah, an Algerian still held in Guantánamo, and a very powerful speech by Daniel Lakemacher, a former Guantánamo guard and conscientious objector, who was noticeably moved by the presence of other people who care about the ongoing injustice of Guantánamo, and the continuing dehumanization of the men still held there.

In the second video, Ed captured part of the rally outside the White House, and the march to the Supreme Court, via the Justice Department, as well as the speech made outside the Supreme Court by Debra Sweet, the director of The World Can’t Wait, and the facilitator of my visit. The third video features the very moving recitation, by Leili Kashani of the Center for Constitutional Rights, of “Is It True?” written during his detention by a former Guantánamo prisoner, the Jordanian national Usama Abu Kabir, which the crowd echoed using the “call and response” method of transmitting information, which has been a hallmark of the Occupy movement, and was a very powerful experience, which I was delighted to find that Ed had filmed. Read the rest of this entry »