7.9.15
Dear friends and supporters,
Every three months, I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support my work on Guantánamo and related issues — accountability for torture, for example, and the We Stand With Shaker campaign, the specific campaign to free Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, which I launched last November with the activist Joanne MacInnes. I’m hoping to raise $3,500 (£2,300) for the next three months, which is just $270 (£180) a week for my constant advocacy and campaigning on behalf of the Guantánamo prisoners.
As my work is primarily reader-funded (I receive no outside funding for this website, or for my work on the We Stand With Shaker campaign), any amount will be gratefully received, whether it is $25, $100 or $500 — or any amount in any other currency (£15, £60 or £300, for example). PayPal will convert any currency you pay into dollars.
If you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to donate via PayPal (and I should add that you don’t need to be a PayPal member to use PayPal).
You can also make a recurring payment on a monthly basis by ticking the box marked, “Make This Recurring (Monthly),” and if you are able to do so, it would be very much appreciated. If you make a recurring payment of at least $15 a month, or if you make a one-off donation of $200 or more, I’ll send you a free copy of my band The Four Fathers’ debut album, ‘Love and War’, on CD. The album includes six original songs of mine, including ‘Song for Shaker Aamer’, featured in the campaign video for We Stand With Shaker, and ’81 Million Dollars’, about the US torture program.
Readers can pay via PayPal from anywhere in the world, but if you’re in the UK and want to help without using PayPal, you can send me a cheque (address here — scroll down to the bottom of the page), and if you’re not a PayPal user and want to send cash from anywhere else in the world, that’s also an option. Please note, however, that foreign checks are no longer accepted at UK banks — only electronic transfers. Do, however, contact me if you’d like to support me by paying directly into my account.
It is now ten years since I first began researching the stories of the prisoners held at Guantánamo, and back in September 2005 all that was available were the scattered accounts of prisoners already released, a few accounts that had emerged from within the prison, via the men’s lawyers, who had begun visiting them at the start of the year, and two speculative lists of who might be held, compiled by the Washington Post and the British NGO Cageprisoners.
I spent some time searching online for every scrap of information about the prisoners, and began compiling a list of my own, but it was another six months until I began researching and writing about Guantánamo on a full-time basis, when the Pentagon lost a lawsuit and was obliged to release 8,000 pages of documents about the prisoners, which I then analyzed in depth for my book The Guantánamo Files.
Ten years on, and sadly there is no sign that the closure of Guantánamo, promised nearly five years and eight months ago by President Obama, will happen before he leaves office in January 2017. His administration is looking at ways to move dozens of prisoners to the US mainland so that Guantánamo itself can be closed, but he faces opposition in Congress, and, of the 116 men still held, he is still holding 52 men who have been approved for release — most since 2009 — and holding them year after year is completely unacceptable.
With your financial support, I will continue to work towards the closure of Guantánamo, conducting research, writing articles and opinion pieces and trying to come up with new initiatives to help to get the prison closed. It remains a potent icon of the injustice that was shamefully implemented by the Bush administration, with compete disdain for domestic and international laws and treaties regarding the treatment of prisoners, and as long as it remains open it ought to be a source of undying shame for everyone responsible for its continued existence.
As I have often mentioned, and will continue to do so, President Obama is in charge of a prison where men continue to be held indefinitely without charge or trial, which is unacceptable in any country that claims to respect the rule of law. The prison should never have been opened, and must be closed as soon as possible.
With thanks, as ever, for your interest in my work. I honestly couldn’t do what I do without your help, and I will be very grateful if you can make any kind of donation to support me.
Andy Worthington
London
September 7, 2015
Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ was released in July 2015). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-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 the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — 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.
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker. Also, photo-journalist (The State of London), and singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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7 Responses
Andy Worthington says...
When I posted this on Facebook, I wrote:
My friends, it’s that time of the year when I ask you, if you can, to donate to support my ongoing work on Guantanamo and related issues. I’m trying to raise $3500 (£2300) for the next three months, which is just $270 (£180) a week for my constant work trying to get Guantanamo closed, trying to free prisoners (including Shaker Aamer) and educating people about who the prisoners are, and why the prison is an abomination and must be closed. If you can help out at all, it will be very greatly appreciated.
...on September 7th, 2015 at 9:17 pm
Andy Worthington says...
I’ve just had my first donation. Thanks to this friend for kicking it off. Remember: any and all donations are welcome. $25/£15 is just $2/£1 a week for the next three months – not a lot of money if you appreciate what I do.
...on September 7th, 2015 at 9:17 pm
Andy Worthington says...
I’ve just had a second donation to get my fundraiser off the ground. Many thanks. Any amount, in any currency – $25/£15, $100/£60, $500/£300 – will be gratefully received.
...on September 7th, 2015 at 10:56 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Many thanks to the two donors from the United States who made donations overnight. As Day 2 of the fundraiser gets underway, please do help out if you can, and if you find my work useful. As a reader-funder journalist, for the most part, I genuinely couldn’t do what I do without your support.
...on September 8th, 2015 at 9:49 am
Andy Worthington says...
Harriet Marrinan wrote:
Thanks Andy for the comprehensive info and analysis and your campaigning efforts.
...on September 8th, 2015 at 10:00 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thank you, Harriet, for the kind and supportive words.
...on September 8th, 2015 at 10:01 am
freedetainees.org – First Photos Published of Shaker Aamer Since His Release from Guantánamo says...
[…] Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation. […]
...on November 11th, 2015 at 4:11 am