23.2.22
I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, with the US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.
It’s 12 years since two Muslim activist friends in the UK initiated a project to get people to write to the Guantánamo prisoners still held at that time — 186 in total — and I adopted it, and have been running it ever since, generally once or twice a year, although this is the first time I’ve asked people to write to the prisoners since May 2020.
Under President Biden, there has been little progress in releasing prisoners — just one man has been freed since he took office over a year ago — but there has been significant progress in approving prisoners for release. 15 men have been approved for release by Periodic Review Boards (a parole-type review process established under President Obama) since Joe Biden became president, bringing to 20 the number of men still held who have been approved for release.
This is over half of the 39 men still held, but approving men for release means nothing unless the men are actually freed, and on that front we seem constantly to be awaiting news that these men have finally been granted their freedom. Moreover, although these men now have some sort of future beyond Guantánamo to imagine — after the last five years, in which just two of their fellow prisoners were released — life at Guantánamo is still extraordinarily isolated.
Unlike every other prisoner held elsewhere by the US, the men at Guantánamo are not allowed family visits (even if their family members could afford to get to Guantánamo). Their only contact with their families is via limited phone calls and Skype calls, and their only direct contact with the outside world is via visits from their attorneys — and those, of course, ground to halt with the arrival of Covid.
The approval of 15 men for release in the last year has, however, reduced to just seven the number of men held as “forever prisoners” — those who the PRBs have recommended for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial — and it is anticipated that further releases will be recommended as the PRBs continue to review the cases of these men throughout 2022.
12 others have been charged in the military commissions, the broken trial system at Guantánamo that is fundamentally incapable of delivering justice. Ten are in seemingly endless pre-trial hearings, while one other is awaiting release, having fulfilled the terms of a plea deal agreed in 2012, and another man is serving a life sentence after a one-sided trial back in 2008, in which he refused to mount a defense.
In the list below, I have divided the remaining 39 prisoners into those approved for release, the “forever prisoners” whose ongoing imprisonment has been approved by Periodic Review Boards, and those charged or tried in the military commissions system. I have also included some additional information — their nationalities, and links to my reports on their cases.
Please note that I have largely kept the spelling used by the US authorities in the “Final Dispositions” of the Guantánamo Review Task Force, which was released through FOIA legislation in June 2013. Even though these names are often inaccurate, they are the names by which the men are officially known in Guantánamo — although, primarily, it should be noted, those held are not referred to by any name at all, but are instead identified solely by their prisoner numbers (ISNs, which stands for “internment serial numbers”).
Writing to the prisoners
If you are an Arabic speaker, or speak any other languages spoken by the prisoners besides English, feel free to write in those languages. Do please note that any messages that can be construed as political should be avoided, as they may lead to the letters not making it past the Pentagon’s censors, but be aware that your messages may not get through anyway — although please don’t let that put you off.
When writing to the prisoners please ensure you include their full name and ISN (internment serial number) below (these are the numbers before their names).
Please address all letters to:
Detainee Name
Detainee ISN
U.S. Naval Station
Guantánamo Bay
Washington, D.C. 20355
United States of America
Please also include a return address on the envelope.
UPDATE Sept. 2022: We have being hearing about letters being returned unopened from the prison, and have had advice from an attorney that a better address to use might be:
Name
ISN#
Non-Legal Mail
JTF-GTMO SJA
APO, AE 09522-9998
Note: For further information about the prisoners, see my six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five and Part Six).
* * * * *
Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (and see the latest photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison 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 you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).
In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and he also set up ‘No Social Cleansing in Lewisham’ as a focal point for resistance to estate destruction and the loss of community space in his home borough in south east London. For two months, from August to October 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody. Although the garden was violently evicted by bailiffs on October 29, 2018, and the trees were cut down on February 27, 2019, the struggle for housing justice — and against environmental destruction — continues.
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, The Complete Guantánamo Files, 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.
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).
Email Andy Worthington
Please support Andy Worthington, independent journalist:
7 Responses
Andy Worthington says...
When I posted this on Facebook, I wrote:
Here’s my latest article, encouraging opponents of Guantanamo’s continued existence to write to the 39 men still held at the prison.
Although 15 of these men have been approved for release under President Biden, bringing to 20 the number of men still held who have been approved for release, just two men have been freed in the last five years. And with Covid also increasing the remaining prisoners’ already unprecedented isolation over the last two years, it is to be hoped that they will be glad to hear that they haven’t been forgotten.
...on February 23rd, 2022 at 6:58 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Natalia Rivera Scott wrote:
Thank you, Andy!
It’s because of your beautiful campaign that I do.
...on February 24th, 2022 at 9:35 am
Andy Worthington says...
🙂 Natalia. Thank you for your relentless support of my work – and, of course, of the men still held at Guantanamo!
...on February 24th, 2022 at 9:36 am
Andy Worthington says...
Natalia Rivera Scott wrote:
Andy, I’m translating your article now 😉 and I’ll write some letters along with my letters for Julian and Daniel Hale
...on February 24th, 2022 at 9:37 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thank you, Natalia. I do hope they get through!
...on February 24th, 2022 at 9:37 am
Andy Worthington says...
For a Spanish version of this article, on the World Can’t Wait’s Spanish website, see ‘Por favor escríbeles a los prisioneros en Guantánamo. Hazles saber que no han sido olvidados con Biden’: http://www.worldcantwait-la.com/worthington-por-favor-escribeles-prisoneros-gitmo-2022.htm
...on February 28th, 2022 at 11:16 am
Andy Worthington says...
I’ve been hearing that people sending letters have had them returned over the last few months, and campaigners have heard from an attorney that this may be a better address to use:
Name
ISN#
Non-Legal Mail
JTF-GTMO SJA
APO, AE 09522-9998
...on September 30th, 2022 at 7:36 am