Ahmed Belbacha

I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January with 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. Eleven years after the terrible terrorist […]

This investigative report is published simultaneously here, and on the website of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, which I established in January with 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 […]

I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January with 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. The message came in February […]

Since July 2008, when the first Algerian prisoners were repatriated from Guantánamo, the position taken by the US government — first under George W. Bush, and, for the last three years, under Barack Obama — has been that Algeria is a safe country for the repatriation of prisoners cleared for release. Lawyers and NGOs aware […]

“‘Outside the Law’ is a powerful film that has helped ensure that Guantánamo and the men unlawfully held there have not been forgotten.” Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK “[T]his is a strong movie examining the imprisonment and subsequent torture of those falsely accused of anti-American conspiracy.” Joe Burnham, Time Out “Every American needs to […]

On Tuesday, as President Obama, on his first state visit to the UK, was welcomed by the Queen at Buckingham Palace, campaigners from the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign and the London Guantánamo Campaign were outside, on the Mall, making a noise about the need to secure the return to the UK of the last British […]

Ten days ago, when I traveled to Sheffield with my friend, the former Guantánamo prisoner Omar Deghayes, for a screening of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (which I co-directed with Polly Nash), I asked Omar what Guantánamo was like at Christmas, as I knew that he had spent five Christmases imprisoned […]

In an attempt to bring to an end a nearly four-year deadlock in the case of Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian prisoner in Guantánamo, lawyers at the London-based legal action charity Reprieve have “started high court proceedings to force the British government to disclose information that they say could free him from Guantánamo Bay and save […]

Congratulations to the Malvern Hills Amnesty International Group for demonstrating, on Tuesday evening, that compassion and empathy are not dead. Less than 24 hours before the coalition government announced its spending review, which demonstrated a notable absence of compassion and empathy for the poor and the disadvantaged, several hundred people turned up at Malvern Theatres […]

This is the fourth part of a nine-part series telling the stories of all the prisoners currently held in Guantánamo (174 at the time of writing). See the introduction here, and Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Five, Part Six and Part Seven. This fourth article tells the stories of 19 prisoners seized in […]