Andy Worthington – events

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.

Promoting a very special event on Sunday 22nd October in Conway Hall in London, ‘Grassroots Protest: Activism from Below’, in which I’ll be discussing the We Stand With Shaker Aamer campaign of 2014-15, and my ongoing work on Guantánamo, and writer, editor and activist Leila Hassan (Race Today) will be discussing her involvement in the anti-racist movement of the ‘70s and ‘80s.

My detailed report about, and the video of ‘Close Guantánamo!’, an extraordinary and hugely powerful three-hour event held at the EU Parliament on September 28, 2023, featuring nine speakers, including Mansoor Adayfi (on what was only his second trip to freedom since he finally got a passport earlier this year) and two other former prisoners, two lawyers, a UN Rapporteur, myself and others, hosted by the inspiring independent Irish MEPs Clare Daly and Mick Wallace. As the event highlighted, the priorities for anyone concerned with justice, and with bringing to an end Guantánamo’s vile existence, are to resettle 16 men still held who have been approved for release (for which the countries of EU can help), providing adequate medical care for everyone still held at the prison, reminding the US government that it continues to have an obligation to ensure the welfare of former prisoners, even after their release, and, eventually, seeking accountability for the crimes that the US government has committed, and still continues to commit at Guantánamo.

Announcing “the most significant gathering ever assembled on Guantánamo in the European Parliament,” on September 28, which I helped to initiate and organize, at which MEPs and members of the public will hear from ten speakers, including three former prisoners (Mansoor Adayfi, Moazzam Begg and Lakhdar Boumediene), Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, three lawyers (Beth Jacob, Alka Pradhan and Mark Denbeaux), Valerie Lucznikowska of September Eleventh Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, former Muslim Chaplain James Yee, and myself. The main thrust of the event will be to encourage EU governments to help with the resettlement of men still held at Guantánamo who have long been approved for release but who cannot be repatriated.

My report about last week’s Guantánamo events in London – the second meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for the Closure of the Guantánamo Detention Facility, attended by former prisoners Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Moazzam Begg, and an Amnesty International event featuring Mohamedou, and, via Zoom, former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi.

Promoting the second meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Closing the Guantánamo Detention Facility in the Houses of Parliament on Monday June 26, attended by former prisoners Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Mansoor Adayfi (on his first UK visit), followed by an event at Amnesty International’s UK headquarters in London on Wednesday June 28, at which Mohamedou and Mansoor will discuss writing in prison, and I will be moderating.

Photos from, and my report about the eleven coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo that took place on June 7, 2023 in locations including London, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, Detroit, Brussels, Copenhagen, Mexico City, Morocco, Serbia and the Netherlands. The ongoing vigils take place on the first Wednesday of every month, and, as well as calling for the closure of the prison, also highlight the plight of the 16 men (out of the 30 still imprisoned) who have been approved for release but are still held — as of June 7, between 257 and 4,884 days since the US authorities first decided that they no longer wanted to hold them.

The text of ‘We Can’t Trust the Weather Any More’, my first ever public speech about the climate crisis, which I made during Extinction Rebellion’s ‘The Big One’, on April 21, outside 55-57 Tufton Street, the home of opaquely-funded right-wing ‘libertarian’ think-tanks that are actively committed to maintaining the murderous status quo, including denying the reality of catastrophic climate change.

Photos from, and my report about the eight coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo that took place on May 3, 2023 in London, Washington, D.C., New York, Mexico City, Brussels, Copenhagen, Detroit and Los Angeles. The ongoing vigils take place on the first Wednesday of every month, and, as well as calling for the closure of the prison, also highlight the plight of the 16 men still held (out of 30 in total) who have been approved for release but, in 13 cases, cannot be repatriated because of US laws, and must be found new homes in third countries.