Guantanamo media

A cross-post, with my own introduction, of a recent op-ed calling on President Biden to close Guantánamo, which was published in The Hill, and written by Anthony Lake, national security adviser to President Clinton from 1993 to 1997, and the attorney Tom Wilner, with whom I co-founded the Close Guantánamo campaign in 2012.

Recalling the significance of the release of “The Guantánamo Files” by WikiLeaks, ten years ago today, on which I worked as media partner, and calling for the release of Julian Assange, who is still imprisoned in Belmarsh, despite a judge refusing to allow his extradition to the US in January.

An important letter from 24 Democratic Senators to President Biden, urging him to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay, including, most significantly, a call to release all the prisoners who are not going to be charged with crimes. The signatories include Dick Durbin, Patrick Leahy, Dianne Feinstein, Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Here’s my report on the US military’s announcement that it has closed the secretive Camp 7 at Guantánamo, where the so-called “high-value detainees” were held, and has moved them to Camp 5 instead. Camp 7 had been falling apart for years, but moving these men is no solution to Guantánamo’s larger problems: that the men held there should either be tried via a functional judicial system, or released.

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.

A link to, and my discussion of a Zoom event about Guantánamo, organized by veterans’ and peace groups, primarily in California, which took place on February 21, featuring myself, Mansoor Adayfi and James Yee as speakers.

My response to statements about the Biden administration’s proposed closure of Guantánamo that were made on February 12 by White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who, asked whether President Biden would shut the prison before the end of his presidency, told reporters, “That certainly is our goal and our intention.”

My review of “The Mauritanian,” the film based on the best-selling memoir “Guantánamo Diary” by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who, based on nothing more than suspicion, was subjected to a horrendous torture program at Guantánamo in 2003, and, despite the case against him collapsing, wasn’t released until 2016.

A letter to President Biden, urging him to close Guantánamo, and to end indefinite detention without charge or trial, signed by 111 organizations, including Close Guantanamo, which I co-founded nine years ago with the US attorney Tom Wilner.

A cross-post, with my own introduction, of an open letter to President Biden, urging him to close Guantánamo, which was written by seven former prisoners who are also authors: Mansoor Adayfi, Moazzam Begg, Lakhdar Boumediene, Sami Al Hajj, Ahmed Errachidi, Mohamedou Ould Slahi and Moussa Zemmouri.