Guantanamo campaigns

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.

My report about, and photos from the UK Guantánamo Network’s march and rally for the closure of Guantánamo in London on Saturday (January 20). Dozens of campaigners in orange jumpsuits and hoods marched up Whitehall from the Houses of Parliament to Trafalgar Square, where the rally was held, with speakers including Apsana Begum MP and myself, and afterwards a letter was handed in to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at 10 Downing Street.

Photos from, and my report about the 21 vigils that took place across the US and around the world on January 11, 2024, marking the shameful 22nd anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay. Monthly vigils resume on the first Wednesday of every month next month, on February 7.

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.

Photos from, and my report about the nine coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo that took place on December 6, 2023 across the US and around the world, coinciding with 8,000 days of the prison’s existence, marked by a photo campaign involving former prisoners, lawyers, politicians and campaigners from around the world, for which we received an impressive 170 photos.

Promoting an important date in Guantánamo’s calendar: December 6, when the prison will have been open for 8,000 days. Please join me in marking this terrible milestone by taking a photo with the 8,000 days poster via the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if possible, joining one of the dozen or so monthly coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo, which take place on the first Wednesday of every month, and which, on December 6, happen to coincide with 8,000 days of the prison’s existence.

Photos from, and my report about the ten coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo that took place on November 1, 2023 in London, Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco, Mexico City, Copenhagen, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cobleskill, NY 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 (out of the 30 still imprisoned) who have been approved for release but are still held — as of November 1, between 404 and 5,031 days since the US authorities first decided that they no longer wanted to hold them.

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.