Guantanamo campaigns

26 photos from, and my report about the 39th monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, which took place across the US and around the world on and around April 1. In the article, I also provide a detailed analysis of how and why the great crimes of Guantánamo and the “war on terror” — imprisonment without charge or trial, including torture and other forms of abuse, and illegal wars in pursuit of regime change — have, through not being adequately challenged and repudiated, fed directly into the horrific atrocities of the last 30 months. The first of these is Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and the torture, rape and murder in Israel’s prisons for Palestinians, while, over the last six weeks, the US, the staunchest supporter of Israel’s genocide, has become directly involved in the Israeli model of devastating, lawless warfare, focused on as much arbitrary civilian death and destruction as possible, via its joint war with Israel on Iran, while Israel also repeats its Gaza playbook in Lebanon.

25 photos from, and my report about the 38th monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, in which I also explain why the vigils remain important: firstly, because Guantánamo enshrined indefinite imprisonment without charge or trial, the hallmark of dictatorships, as US policy, echoing and drawing inspiration from Israel’s brutal, lawless prisons for Palestinians, and inspiring Donald Trump and Stephen Miller’s ever-expanding ICE detention facilities for US immigrants; and secondly, because, as the last bastion of the “war on terror”, it is also a powerful reminder of how that “war” led not only to the establishment of horrific, lawless prisons, but also, via the invasion of Iraq in particular, to the notion that the US could invade a sovereign nation based on lies, and, via Obama’s drone assassination program, to the notion that the US could extrajudicially murder anyone alleged to be a “combatant” without any form of due process, both of which helped Israel to seek to justify its genocide in Gaza, and are now being used by Trump to seek to justify his joint “war” with Israel on Iran.

Photos from, and my report about the “First Wednesday” monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay on February 4, 2026, marking the third anniversary of the vigils, and a return to the regular “First Wednesday” slot after last month, when the vigils were moved to Sunday January 11 to mark the 24th anniversary of the opening of the prison. Nine vigils took place across the US and around the world, including at the White House, outside the Houses of Parliament in London, and outside the European Parliament in Brussels, and after the London vigil campaigners also delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street, urging the UK government to continue to call for Guantánamo’s closure, and to repudiate its recent claim that it is solely the business of the US government.

Over 50 photos from the 19 global vigils for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay that took place across the US and around the world marking the shameful and unforgivable 24th anniversary of the opening of the prison on January 11. The article also includes my report about the significance of the vigils, because of the fundamental and unending lawlessness of the prison, and also because of Donald Trump’s cynical co-opting of it over the last year as a venue for performative cruelty in his vile, racist “war on migrants.” 15 men are still held at Guantánamo, although none under circumstances that are acceptable in a country that claims to respect the law. Six are held indefinitely without charge or trial, while the nine others are caught up, in various ways, in a trial system, the military commissions, that is haunted by the US’s use of torture and is fundamentally incapable of delivering justice. I’m grateful to everyone who took part in the vigils, both for cutting through the fog of lamentable amnesia that engulfs Guantánamo, and for remembering that it’s a monstrous place where, after 9/11, the law was sent to die, and also for their dedication when so many other horrors are vying for campaigners’ attention; most noticeably, in the US, Trump’s aggression towards Venezuela and the monstrous abuses being committed in Minneapolis by ICE agents.

Promoting the global vigils this weekend, on Saturday January 10 and Sunday January 11, marking the unforgivable 24th anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay on January 11, where 15 men are still held, although none are detained on anything resembling a legally sound basis. Six are held without charge or trial, six face charges in a broken trial system, the military commissions, that are incapable of delivering justice, one is in legal limbo after being judged mentally unfit to stand trial, another, severely disabled, agreed to a plea deal, and another is serving a life sentence in solitary confinement after a one-sided trial 17 years ago in which he refused to mount a defense. Please join us if you find this ongoing but largely forgotten injustice intolerable, and if you can’t be present in person, feel free to join us by sending in a photo with the Close Guantánamo campaign’s poster marking how long Guantánamo will have been open on January 11 — 8,767 days — as part of an ongoing photo campaign we’ve been running every 100 days, and on the anniversaries of the prison’s opening, since 2018.

Photos from, and my report about the coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay that took place across the US and in London, Brussels and Mexico City on June 4, 2025. The “First Wednesday” vigils have been taking place on the first Wednesday of every month for the last 29 months, and will continue while the prison is still open. I also run through the horrors of Guantánamo under Donald Trump, usurped as a theater of performative cruelty in the “war on migrants” that he declared when he took office, until he took more interest in sending migrants on a one-way trip to the CECOT prison, a mega-Guantánamo for alleged terrorists in El Salvador. I also point out that Trump’s indifference towards the 15 men still held in the “war on terror” prison — who include the men allegedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks and previously regarded as the most significant terrorists in US history — ironically reveals how Guantánamo is no longer of any relevance, although that won’t, sadly, help any of the men still held either secure their freedom or anything resembling justice.

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 May 7, 2025. The “First Wednesday” vigils have been taking place on the first Wednesday of every month for 28 months, and have gained greater resonance under Donald Trump and his “war on migrants”, in which he has cynically used Guantánamo, and, more recently, has also sent migrants to El Salvador’s CECOT prison, a mega-Guantánamo that, arguably, wouldn’t exist at all without the template provide by the Bush administration at Guantánamo, and shamefully maintained by every president ever since.

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 and Brussels on April 2, 2025. The “First Wednesday” vigils have been taking place on the first Wednesday of every month for more than two years, and are, of course, continuing under Donald Trump, after he has cynically, cruelly and illegally decided to use the prison to hold migrants as part of the racist “war on migrants” that he declared when he took office.

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 March 5, 2025. The “First Wednesday” vigils have been taking place on the first Wednesday of every month for the last two years, and are, of course, continuing under Donald Trump, after he has cynically, cruelly and illegally decided to use the prison to hold migrants as part of the racist “war on migrants” that he declared when he took office.

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.