Deptford Screening of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” + Q&A with Andy Worthington, March 6

It’s been some time since there’s been a screening of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” the documentary film I co-directed, with Polly Nash, which was released in 2009, so I’m delighted that, next Friday, the Deptford Cinema, “a new, not-for-profit, volunteer-run cinema focusing on art film and experimental film,” located at 39 Deptford Broadway, London SE8 4PQ (see the map on the Facebook page here), is showing it, and that I’ll be doing a Q&A session after the screening.

The Facebook page for the event is here. It begins at 7pm, when I will be around to talk to people before the screening begins, and the film itself will be shown at 8pm, with the Q&A beginning at 9.15. Tickets cost £5 (or £3 concessions) and can be bought online here.

This is my description of the film:

“Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” tells the story of Guantánamo (and includes sections on extraordinary rendition and secret prisons) with a particular focus on how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws, how prisoners were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening (and often for bounty payments), and why some of these men may have been in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons unconnected with militancy or terrorism (as missionaries or humanitarian aid workers, for example).

The film is based around interviews with former prisoners (Moazzam Begg and, in his first major interview, Omar Deghayes, who was released in December 2007), lawyers for the prisoners (Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve in the UK and Tom Wilner in the US), and journalist and author Andy Worthington, and also includes appearances from Guantánamo’s former Muslim chaplain James Yee, Shakeel Begg, a London-based Imam, and the British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce.

Focusing on the stories of three particular prisoners — Shaker Aamer (who, disgracefully, is still held), Binyam Mohamed (who was released in February 2009) and Omar Deghayes — “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” provides a powerful rebuke to those who believe that Guantánamo holds “the worst of the worst” and that the Bush administration was justified in responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by holding men neither as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, nor as criminal suspects with habeas corpus rights, but as “illegal enemy combatants” with no rights whatsoever.

At the Q&A, as well as providing an updated overview of the situation at Guantánamo, where 122 men are still held, I will also be talking about We Stand With Shaker, the campaign I launched three months ago with the activist Joanne MacInnes to try to secure Shaker’s release, nearly eight years after he was first told that the US no longer wanted to hold him. The campaign (also on Facebook here) has gained widespread support — from celebrities including numerous actors, writers and comedians, as well as from MPs across the political spectrum, and from mainstream media including the Daily Mail and Sky News.

I will be bringing along a promotional poster for the campaign, and encouraging those watching the film to have photo taken with the poster, to be uploaded to the We Stand With Shaker website, where supporters from all round the world have been showing their support.

Below, on YouTube, you can watch the first five minutes of the film via Orchard Pictures, from whom you can also pay to watch the whole film online. You can also pay to watch it online, for just £1, via Journeyman Pictures.

If you’re in London next Friday, I hope to see you in Deptford!

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.