Binyam Mohamed

There was a time, as two senior judges in the British High court reported on Wednesday (PDF), when “The suppression of reports of wrongdoing by officials (in circumstances which cannot in any way affect national security) would be inimical to the rule of law and the proper functioning of a democracy.” As the judges — […]

I’m about to post a detailed article looking at the meaning of yesterday’s High Court judgment in the case of British resident and torture victim Binyam Mohamed, in which, while repeatedly stressing the importance of “open justice” in an extraordinary story that involves an “arguable case” of torture by the United States, and complicity in […]

I’ll shortly be posting an analysis of yesterday’s High Court judgment in the case of British torture victim Binyam Mohamed — and a transcript of Jon Snow’s interview with Foreign Secretary David Miliband on Channel 4 News yesterday evening — but in the meantime I’m proud to present the latest cartoon by British political cartoonist […]

With 50 prisoners on hunger strike, including British resident Binyam Mohamed, who is apparently “close to death,” dissent from a military judge, a protégée of Dick Cheney still overseeing the Military Commissions, and doubts about loopholes in President Obama’s Presidential orders regarding “extraordinary rendition” and the use of torture, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo […]

For three years, ever since I began researching and writing about the stories of the prisoners held in the US prison at Guantánamo Bay on a full-time basis, I have looked forward to writing that headline, as the story of Binyam Mohamed, 30, a British resident who was subjected to “extraordinary rendition” and torture in […]

Or, Praise for Those Defending Rights and Liberties in the “War on Terror” A Talking Dog/Andy Worthington co-production Andy suggested that he and I team up on a top ten list of what we felt after at least seven years of winter in the American judicial system, when we now have some semblance of the sun breaking […]

The announcement on December 1 that President-Elect Barack Obama had retained Robert Gates as defense secretary was intended to demonstrate Obama’s desire for a “big-tent” administration that transcended partisan politics. Gates, who voiced his desire to close the Pentagon’s notorious Guantánamo Bay prison almost as soon as he took over from Donald Rumsfeld in December […]

As the British legal action charity Reprieve launches a new initiative, Zero dB (against music torture), which encourages musicians to take a stand against the use of their music as part of an arsenal of torture techniques employed by the US military and intelligence agencies, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, looks at the […]

In the real world outside the US Naval Base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, Barack Obama’s pledge to close Guantánamo and scrap the Military Commissions (the system of trials for “terror suspects” that was established in the wake of the 9/11 attacks) has provoked a rare outburst of frenzied media coverage. With no concrete plans announced […]

As Barack Obama and his transition team begin looking at ways to fulfill the President-Elect’s pledge to close Guantánamo, Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, recalls that Barack Obama also promised to “reject the Military Commissions Act” (the legislation that revived the system of “terror trials” conjured up in the Office of Vice President […]