Andy Worthington – events

The audio recording of “Life at Guantánamo: Writing Behind Bars”, a powerful and moving event that took place at Amnesty International’s London headquarters on Wednesday June 28, 2023, featuring former prisoners Mohamedou Ould Slahi (in person) and Mansoor Adayfi (by Zoom) in discussion, with Andy Worthington, about the enormous challenges they faced when it came to writing at Guantánamo, but how, almost against all odds, they overcame those challenges to create two books — Guantánamo Diary” and “Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo” — which provide searing accounts of the almost incomprehensible injustices and brutality that they experienced at the prison.

Promoting an exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ art — the first in the UK — at Rich Mix in London, with an opening event on December 5 at which I will be speaking, alongside former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, whose 2021 memoir, “Don’t Forget Us Here”, provides the title of the exhibition.

The video of Andy Worthington’s speech calling for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay at the London rally for the prison’s closure on January 20, 2024, organized by the UK Guantánamo Network, and marking the 22nd anniversary of the prison’s opening on January 11.

My review of Guantánamo in 2023, events marking the 22nd anniversary of the prison’s opening on January 11, 2024, and hopes, plans, actions and possibilities for 2024. As this is the last year of President Biden’s term as president, those us seeking to exert pressure on the administration to make progress towards the closure of Guantánamo need to do all we can to highlight its many ongoing crimes, including the continued imprisonment of 16 men approved for release, conditions at the prison, and the plight of men released from Guantánamo under “diplomatic assurances” that have often turned out to be worthless.

The video of, and my report about the powerful online panel discussion, hosted by the New America think-tank, marking the 22nd anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay on January 11, featuring former prisoner Mohamedou Ould Slahi, UN Rapporteur Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, and myself, moderated by New America’s Vice President, Peter Bergen.

Publicizing the shameful and unforgivable 22nd anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay on January 11, listing the online events taking place, and the 20 vigils and rallies across the US, and in London and Mexico City, and also asking supporters to take a photo with the Close Guantánamo campaign’s poster marking 8,036 days of the prison’s existence on January 11, and urging President Biden to close it without further delay.

Linking to a video of ‘The Legacy of the War on Terror: Guantánamo Bay’, a panel discussion at SOAS, in London, on November 21, 2023, featuring Andy Worthington, former prisoners Moazzam Begg and Mansoor Adayfi, and academic Deepa Govindarajan Driver.

Promoting ‘The Legacy of the War on Terror: Guantánamo Bay’, an inspiring panel discussion about Guantánamo, taking place in SOAS in London on Tuesday November 21, featuring myself, and former prisoners Moazzam Begg and Mansoor Adayfi.

Remembering the long campaign to free Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who was finally released eight years ago, on October 30, 2015, and the We Stand With Shaker campaign, involving photos of MPs and celebrities standing with an inflatable figure of Shaker, which I ran with the activist Joanne MacInnes in the last year of Shaker’s imprisonment.

The video of my speech at the inspiring “Close Guantánamo!” event at the European Parliament on September 28, 2023, hosted by the Irish MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace, at which I stressed how the men still held at Guantánamo are as fundamentally without rights as they were when the prison first opened nearly 22 years ago, and called on EU countries to help resettle the men approved for release but who cannot be repatriated.