Radio: Andy Worthington Speaks to Michael Slate and Scott Horton About Guantánamo, David Hicks and Shaker Aamer

I’m pleased to report that, in the last week, I have taken part in two radio shows in the US with two radio hosts that I have known for a long time and who I admire — Michael Slate and Scott Horton.

Michael’s show was entitled, “From the Torture Chambers of Guantánamo to the Deadly Streets of the US: American Thugs on the Rampage,” which is a great title, and I was delighted to be on the same show as Larry Siems, the editor of Guantánamo Diary, the extraordinarily powerful book by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who is still held at Guantánamo (Larry and I were previously on another show, in Chicago, which you can find here). Also on the show was the activist Carl Dix.

The hour-long show is here, and I’m on for the first 16 minutes, bringing Michael’s listeners up to date on the current situation at Guantánamo, and also speaking about We Stand With Shaker, the campaign to secure the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, which I launched in November with the activist Joanne MacInnes.

This is how Michael described the show:

This year, for the first time, the world got to hear the full story of Guantánamo. Guantánamo Diary, by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, is the first book by a prisoner currently locked up in the infamous US torture camp. We talk with the editor, Larry Siems, and to Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files. Plus Carl Dix, Stop Mass Incarceration Network and Revolutionary Communist Party, on making April 14 a Nationwide Day of No Business As Usual to Stop Police Murder of Black and Brown People.

A few days ago, I spoke to another old friend, Scott Horton, following the dismissal of the 2007 military commission conviction against David Hicks, and my article for Al-Jazeera, entitled, “The collapse of Guantánamo’s military commissions.”

Our 23-minute interview is here, but unfortunately, as Scott and I discussed, although the commissions should collapse as a result of this ruling, there is no guarantee that will happen, and, as we also discussed, in a parallel world, Republican lawmakers (led by Sen. Kelly Ayotte, and with support from John McCain and others) are in denial that Guantánamo is a moral, legal and ethical abomination, and are trying to pass new legislation that will prevent any prisoner being released during the rest of the Obama presidency — a plan that will hopefully either not be passed by the Senate, or will be vetoed by President Obama.

This is how Scott described the show:

Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, discusses how the dismissal of David Hicks’ terror conviction could end Guantánamo’s military commission trial system; and how Congress’s “Detaining Terrorists to Protect America Act of 2015” is designed to keep Guantánamo operating forever.

I hope you have time to listen to the interviews, and will share them if you find them useful.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter. 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.