15.2.25
My detailed analysis of the latest disturbing news regarding Donald Trump’s “war on migrants”, and, specifically, his use of Guantánamo, where, as of February 12, 98 Venezuelan migrants had been sent from the US mainland, with 45 of them being held in the Migrant Operations Center used since the 1990s, and 53 in Camp 6 of the notorious “war on terror” prison, after the three remaining “low-value detainees” — all long approved for release, but still held — were moved into the neighboring Camp 5, where the other remaining prisoners, 12 “high-value detainees”, are also held. The legality of sending any migrant from the US mainland to Guantánamo is extremely dubious, but it is beyond doubt that holding any of these men in the “war on terror” prison is absolutely illegal, because the authorization for holding prisoners there, passed after the 9/11 attacks, stipulates that they can only be people accused of involvement with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces, in connection with 9/11. Framing this in the context of Trump’s wider “war on migrants”, I analyze the cynical comparisons being deliberately made with the “war on terror”, I examine the lawsuit submitted last week seeking access to the prison for lawyers representing the migrants, and I also examine the stories that have emerged of three of these men, which reveal the same sweeping generalizations and distortions that were used to demonize Muslims in the “war on terror.” As with the almost entirely non-existent terrorists at Guantánamo, beginning 23 years ago, the migrants seem not to be “the worst of the worst”, as the Trump administration suggests, but entirely unconnected with any kind of criminal activity — one being a car mechanic, and another a barber — who were doing nothing more than trying, with the odds stacked against them, as for so many migrants, simply to get into the US to work.
12.2.25
Photos from, and my report about the coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo that took place across the US and in London, Brussels and Mexico City on February 5, 2025, and the week after. The vigils have been taking place on the first Wednesday of every month for the last two years, and will continue under Donald Trump, especially as he has now shocked the world by illegally sending migrants to the prison as part of the vile “war on migrants” that he launched when he took office.
10.2.25
My analysis of, and condemnation of Donald Trump’s deranged press conference with Benjamin Netanyahu last week, when he called for the ethnic cleansing or forced displacement of the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip, framing it as a humanitarian move, and also, to everyone’s surprise, called for the US takeover of Gaza to develop it as “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Reassuringly, Trump’s performance galvanized support around the world for the Palestinians, more noticeably than at any time in the last 16 months, although his proposals are not only a complete affront to international law; they also undermine the ceasefire deal that he was instrumental in finalizing, via his Middle East Envoy, Steve Witkoff, just three weeks ago. I explain how the ceasefire deal, as I describe it, “isn’t something that can be tossed aside as an irrelevance, just because Trump wants to be seen as a humanitarian ethnic cleanser, and a conquering real estate developer”, and I express my hope that the ceasefire will hold, that international pressure will be applied to stop the escalation of Israel’s aggression in the West Bank, and that Israel, fundamentally fatigued and isolated as a result of its 15-month genocide, will realize that the only lasting solution is “for the Palestinians to be free to establish their own autonomous state in Gaza and the West Bank, with its capital in East Jerusalem — the only just solution, and the only guarantee of a lasting peace now as it has been for the last 58 years.”
8.2.25
In a disturbing development involving Guantánamo and Donald Trump’s “war on migrants”, it has emerged that ten Venezuelans seized on the US mainland and flown to Guantánamo are not being held in the migrant detention facility that has been used for migrants intercepted at sea since the 1990s, but are being held instead in Camp 6 of the “war on terror” prison, established in 2002. While the legality of sending migrants to the Guantánamo naval base has not been established, it is abundantly clear that no authority whatsoever exists to justify imprisoning migrants in the “war on terror” prison — even those, like these men, who are accused of involvement in the Tren de Aragua gang, designated as a terrorist group. As the Center for Victims of Torture explained in an important briefing yesterday, only those allegedly involved with Al-Qaeda, the Taliban or associated forces, in connection with the 9/11 attacks, can be held at Guantánamo according to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), which justified its creation. As CVT added, the AUMF “does not authorize military detention of migrants, criminals or anyone broadly designated as a ‘terrorist’ or member of a Foreign Terrorist Organization.” As lawyers begin to prepare legal challenges, it seems inconceivable that the Trump administration can defend its actions — but these are such troubling times that nothing about the law seems certain anymore, as Trump seeks to position himself as thoroughly unaccountable.
5.2.25
My detailed examination of Donald Trump’s cynical and provocative announcement, last week, that he had issued an executive order for the massive expansion of an existing migrant detention facility on the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay to hold 30,000 migrants as part of a monstrous “war on migrants” that has been unfolding since he took office just two weeks ago. I look at how Trump drew on the use of the facility to hold, at one point, 25,000 Haitian and Cuban migrants in the 1990s, and also at how he is using the proximity of the nearby “war on terror” prison to suggest that the migrants are “terrorists”, who should be held without rights, and how officials in his administration have reinforced this notion by describing those to be sent to the facility as “the worst of the worst.” I also examine the deeply troubling legal basis — or the lack of it — when it comes to holding migrants at Guantánamo, which has long been used by the US government as a “law-free zone”, and question who it is intended for, when Trump has already massively expanded the use of “expedited removal” to allow immigration enforcement agents in the US to remove undocumented migrants and send them back to their home countries without being able to meet with a lawyer or have any kind of immigration hearing. This is especially troubling as reports emerge of the first arrivals at the migrant facility, and I wonder, in particular, if Trump will, as I describe it, seek to create “a new law that would explicitly endorse holding undocumented migrants at Guantánamo indefinitely on the basis that they pose a direct threat to the US and its security as ‘invaders’ or ‘terrorists.’”
17.1.25
My report about the ceasefire deal for Gaza, which was announced on January 15, and which will begin to be implemented on Sunday (January 19), the day before Donald Trump’s inauguration. I examine how Trump, via his envoy Steve Witkoff, seems to have played a central role, to fulfil his intention of starting his presidency as the “hero” who stopped the war and secured the release of Israeli hostages, the first of whom will be freed as his presidency begins. This would seem to unmistakably show up President Biden and Antony Blinken for their own failures to have ever stood up to Netanyahu, especially as the ceasefire deal is almost identical to one that could — and should — have been implemented eight long months ago. While I have no hopes that Trump, surrounded by rabidly enthusiastic supporters of Israel, will bring peace to the Palestinians, with the most likely scenario being that violence will be ramped up in the West Bank, I’m unwilling to declare that the ceasefire will be broken by Netanyahu after the first of its three phases, as some are discussing, because Hamas has only agreed to free hostages over all three phases of the deal, and the release of hostages is so important within Israel itself that any backsliding could be politically fatal. I also hope that the ceasefire will last because international organizations and observers will have to be allowed into Gaza in significant numbers, and, in addition, because of a creeping war fatigue in the Israeli military, exacerbated by the pursuit of soldiers in courts around the world, following on from the ripples of accountability created by the issuing of arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant in November.
22.12.24
My latest interview with Andy Bungay, recorded for his Riverside Radio show in London as part on an ongoing series of monthly interviews, and made available here as a stand-alone podcast. In a freewheeling 80-minute discussion, we focused on some of the many profoundly dispiriting events dominating our lives as 2024 draws to a close — the imminent return as the US president of Donald Trump, the ongoing genocidal carnage being inflicted by Israel on the trapped Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip, and the growing menace of catastrophic climate change. All are thoroughly depressing topics, of course, but our conversation was threaded through with resistance and hope, based on my assessment that societal tipping points may arrive unexpectedly when we are failed so persistently by our leaders, whichever political party they represent, as is very clearly the case right now.
14.11.24
With just two months to go until President Biden cedes power to Donald Trump, it’s crucial that pressure is exerted on the Biden administration to secure the release from Guantánamo of 16 men, never charged with a crime, who have long been approved for release — for between two and four years, and in three outlying cases for nearly 15 years. Urgent action is essential, because it is clear that Trump will seal Guantánamo shut, as he did in his first term in office. The scandal of these men’s ongoing imprisonment is that the decisions taken to approve them for release were made by high-level administrative processes, which have no legal weight, meaning that no mechanism exists to compel the government to actually free them if they find it inconvenient or to do so. An additional complication is that most of them are Yemenis, and US law prevents the return of prisoners to Yemen. However, over a year ago, a plan to resettle them in Oman was finalized, but was called off after the October 7 attacks in Israel. That plan urgently needs reviving, or, if that isn’t possible, another country needs to be found that will offer these men new homes. The alternative — another four years of entombment under Donald Trump — doesn’t even bear thinking about.
1.9.22
Following up on a powerful BBC report by Joel Gunter about the art produced by Guantánamo prisoners, which was banned from leaving the prison under Donald Trump, a ban that, shamefully, President Biden has not reversed.
26.3.21
A cross-post of a detailed article about Guantánamo activism over the last 12 years, from President Obama’s eight years in office, through the four lamentable years of Donald Trump, to the current hopes pinned on President Biden. Written by Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture, it was originally published on the Waging Nonviolence website.
Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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