Guantanamo media

Here’s a link to, and description of my most recent radio interview – about Boris Johnson’s lamentable victory in the UK’s recent General Election, and also about Guantánamo – with Chris Cook on his Gorilla Radio show in Victoria, Canada. Chris has been interviewing me on and off for ten years, mostly about Guantánamo, but occasionally about other topics, and I was delighted to have the opportunity to talk about the dangerous state of British politics in the wake of Johnson’s victory.

My discussion of a recent ABC News article highlighting, via attorney Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, repressive and culturally inadequate treatment of prisoners at Guantánamo by medical personnel this summer, which led to all of the “low-value detainees” — 24 men in total —refusing to engage with medical staff. The situation now appears to have been partly resolved, but prisoners continue, as ever, to be shackled when meeting with military personnel, even though they offer no threat to them whatsoever.

Reappraising “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo”, the documentary film about Guantánamo, which I co-directed with Polly Nash, on the tenth anniversary of its release, following a recent screening to students at the University of Westminster.

My half-hour interview about Guantánamo, past, present and future, the US torture program and the plight of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, with Bob Connors and Tom Walker on the Peace and Justice Report, a show on Sarasota Community Radio in Florida.

Following up on an article in the Independent, I look at the cases of five men abandoned in Guantánamo by Donald Trump — men who were approved for release by high-level review processes under President Obama, but who weren’t freed before he left office, and who, to my mind, can now legitimately be considered the personal prisoners of Donald Trump.

My analysis, cross-posted from the Close Guantánamo website, of the significance – regarding Guantánamo – of Democrats taking control of the House of Representatives last November. Led by Rep. Adam Smith, Democrats, via the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), are trying to prevent Donald Trump from being able to bring new prisoners to Guantánamo, and are also trying to ease restrictions on the release of prisoners, and work towards the eventual closure of Guantánamo. The House and Senate versions of the NDAA are currently being consolidated.

Here’s my report about – and link to – an interview about Guantánamo that I undertook this week with Linda Olson-Osterlund on KBOO FM, a community radio station in Portland, Oregon. Linda and I have, it’s sobering to note, been discussing Guantánamo for eleven years.

My report about a little-noticed ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case of Abu Zubaydah, for whom the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program was developed, in which, for the first time, an appellate court has stated that he was tortured, and has also recognized that the Bush administration’s description of him as a member of Al-Qaeda was mistaken. My article also includes a cross-post of an article about the case by Joseph Margulies, who was one of Abu Zubaydah’s lawyers for over ten years.

Following up on a report about the outrageous cost of running the prison at Guantánamo Bay by Carol Rosenberg in the New York Times, in which I suggest that her figure of $13m per prisoner per year, based on figures for last year, is actually understated, and is, instead, $14m per prisoner per year. Such a waste of money, as well as being a legal, moral and ethical abomination.

Following up on an ABC News feature about Guantánamo – a rarity for the US mainstream media, with the exception of Carol Rosenberg at the New York Times – about the case of Abdul Latif Nasser, a Moroccan prisoner who was approved for release from Guantánamo three years ago, but is still held because the necessary procedures weren’t completed by the time President Obama left office, and Donald Trump, of course, has no intention of releasing anyone from Guantánamo under any circumstances.