Video: Andy Worthington Speaks at the Launch of We Stand With Shaker, the Campaign to Free Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo

Below is a short video, on Vimeo, of me (Andy Worthington) talking to doctor and filmmaker Saleyha Ahsan about the launch of the We Stand With Shaker campaign, to secure the release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo, which took place outside Parliament on Monday. Please also follow us on Facebook and Twitter, and watch the campaign video here. [Click on the photo of me at the launch with Roger Waters and campaign co-ordinator Joanne MacInnes to enlarge it].

Saleyha filmed me after the launch, and I explained who had been there — Roger Waters, Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve, Caroline Lucas, John McDonnell, Jeremy Hardy and Peter Tatchell — and I also explained why the campaign is so important: because Shaker has twice been approved for release by the US (in 2007 and 2009), and his return to the UK has been requested by successive governments since August 2007, and therefore his ongoing imprisonment is completely unacceptable.

He continues to be held, it seems certain, because he is eloquent, and has always resisted the injustices of the US-led “war on terror” — with its torture, rendition, and indefinite detention without charge or trial — and because he is a fount of information about the crimes committed in the name of this “war,” but as both the US and UK governments have proven adept at preventing any court from holding them accountable for their actions, it would seems clear that he continues to be held solely because, on release, he may embarrass both governments.

Although the US appears to want to return him to Saudi Arabia, the country of his birth, where he will be silenced, that is not an option, as he was given indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and the British government has a non-negotiable obligation to secure his return to his family in the UK. We call on David Cameron to call Barack Obama immediately to demand that he give 30 days’ notice prior to Shaker’s release, as required in US law (in legislation passed by cynical Republican politicians), and then send a plane to bring Shaker back. With immediate action Shaker could be back in the new year.

Andy at Stand With Shaker Launch from saleyha ahsan on Vimeo.

Also, this week, I spoke about We Stand With Shaker with Bay Area radio host Peter B. Collins, for his show “Processing Distortion” on whistleblower Sibel Edmonds’ Boiling Frogs Post website. The show is only available to subscribers (for a minimum payment of $6, for which listeners get a whole month of broadcasts), but I can recommend it. Peter and I have spoken many times before, and he is a particularly well-informed host. A 90-second preview of me talking about the British government’s evasion regarding Shaker’s case is here.

This is how Peter described the show:

In the second of two reports on Guantánamo prisoners [the first was with Jon B. Eisenberg, one of the lawyers for hunger striking prisoner Abu Wa’el Dhiab], Andy Worthington details the new campaign to bring home Shaker Aamer, the last Briton at Gitmo. With a large, inflatable “Shaker” and a heartfelt endorsement from Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, activists are demanding that the Cameron government negotiate the immediate release of Aamer, who has been held for 13 years without charge or trial, and was cleared for release 5 years ago. We talk about the recent transfer of 6 prisoners, with 10 more reported to be imminent, and the disappointing recent ruling about force feeding by Judge Gladys Kessler. Roger Waters makes a cameo appearance.

I made other media appearances in the week, but sadly most of them are not online. I was on RT’s main news at 6pm on Monday, and a film crew from the Islam Channel interviewed me at my house on Wednesday for a show broadcast on Wednesday evening that also featured my colleague on the campaign, Joanne MacInnes, and Katie Taylor of Reprieve‘s Life After Guantánamo project. As I say, though, neither is online.

However, a third appearance will definitely be online soon — mine and Jo’s appearance on RT’s Sputnik show with George Galloway, which we recorded on Thursday, and which is broadcast today (Saturday November 29) — at 1.30, 7.30 and 11.30pm.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and 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. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.