Videos: Speeches at the Close Guantánamo Protest in London, Jan. 8, 2022, Including Andy Worthington and John McDonnell MP

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Back in January, campaigners in the UK, calling for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, put up with torrential rain while marching from Parliament to Trafalgar Square, where a rally was held, with speakers including John McDonnell MP and myself, calling for the closure of the prison just days before the 20th anniversary of its opening on January 11.

The protest was coordinated via the Guantánamo Network, a coalition of concerned groups including Amnesty International, Close Guantánamo, Freedom From Torture, the Guantánamo Justice Campaign and the London Guantánamo Campaign, and it was also attended by a number of Julian Assange supporters. Particular thanks are due to Sara Birch, the Guantánamo Network’s convenor, who is part of the Lewes Amnesty Group, and “under whose energetic leadership”, as I have previously explained, “Lewes has become something of an epicentre for Guantánamo activism.”

39 campaigners, hooded and dressed in orange jumpsuits, represented the men still held in the prison at the time, and, despite the rain, created an eye-catching protest, as I recorded in photos I took on the day.

Until now, however, I had thought that none of the speeches had been recorded, as the inclement weather prevented the planned presence of a film-maker to record them. However, I recently stumbled on the YouTube channel of an activist, Antonia Omirou, of the Committee to Defend Julian Assange, and found that she had recorded five of the speakers — myself, John McDonnell, who is a longtime opponent of Guantánamo, having set up the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group back in 2014, which helped to secure the release of the last British resident in the prison, Kevin Macdonald, the director of ‘The Mauritanian’, the feature film about Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who read out a message from Mohamedou, Kate Hudson of CND and Dave Ebester of the Guantánamo Justice Campaign — and I’m delighted to be making the videos available below.

For myself, the opportunity to make a rousing public speech about the need for Guantánamo to be closed was compensation for the fact that, for the second year running, because of Covid, I had been unable to deliver my speech in front of the White House, as I had done every year from 2011 to 2020.

In my speech, I lambasted the Biden administration for its meager efforts towards the closure of Guantánamo during President Biden’s first year in office, when just one man was freed, even though Biden inherited six men approved for release from previous administrations, and even though an additional 13 men had been approved for release by Periodic Review Boards (a parole-type process established under President Obama) when our protest took place.

Since then, three more men have been approved for release, and two more men have been freed, so the good news is that 21 of the remaining 37 prisoners have now been approved for release, although the bad news remains the same as it was in January, when I stated that approving men for release but then not freeing them “rather mak[es] a mockery of the entire process of approving people for release in the first case.”

I hope these videos provide campaigners with a reminder of the vibrant spirit of our opposition to the enduring injustice of Guantánamo, especially right now, when news regarding the prison has sadly gone quiet.

John McDonnell’s speech at the rally for the closure of Guantánamo in Trafalgar Square on January 8, 2022.

Andy Worthington’s speech at the rally for the closure of Guantánamo in Trafalgar Square on January 8, 2022.

Kevin Macdonald’s speech at the rally for the closure of Guantánamo in Trafalgar Square on January 8, 2022.

Kate Hudson’s speech at the rally for the closure of Guantánamo in Trafalgar Square on January 8, 2022.

Dave Ebester’s speech at the rally for the closure of Guantánamo in Trafalgar Square on January 8, 2022.

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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.

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