Joe Biden

Promoting a letter to President Biden from eight former Guantánamo prisoners, urging him to drop a ban on released prisoners leaving with their artwork, or even giving it as gifts to their lawyers (and, via them, to their family members), which was imposed under Donald Trump in November 2017, in response to Pentagon hysteria about an exhibition of prisoners’ artwork in New York.

An update on the latest positive news regarding Guantánamo: the appointment of a “special representative” in the State Department to deal with releases from the prison (of the 22 out of the 36 men still held who have been approved for release), and confirmation that the negotiation of plea deals is ongoing with those charged in the military commissions, to bring to an end a ten-year deadlock in which pre-trial hearings are caught in a kind of Groundhog Day, because of the use of torture on the accused, and the strict procedural safeguards required for capital cases.

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.

A cross-post, with my own introduction, of a feature in the latest issue of The New Republic, in which Jordan Michael Smith profiles Tom Wilner and myself, the co-founders of the Close Guantánamo campaign, about our long struggle to get the prison closed.

Celebrating the release from Guantánamo of Sufyian Barhoumi, an Algerian who was approved for release nearly five and a half years ago. 37 men now remain at the prison, but over half of them — 19 men — have also been approved for release, and President Biden also needs to arrange for these men to be given their freedom.

The second of a number of articles covering events marking the 20th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay on Jan. 11, 2022 — a “Virtual Rally,” entitled, “Disrupt, Confront, and Close Guantánamo,” featuring numerous speakers, myself included, and also including moving videos of former prisoners, and the family of one of the 39 men still held.

The first of a number of articles covering events marking the 20th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay on Jan. 11, 2022 — an online panel discussion, hosted by New America, at which I joined Tom Wilner, Karen Greenberg and Peter Bergen to discuss whether President Biden can or will finally close the prison.

My article marking the 20th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, providing a recap of its many grievous injustices, past and present, and calling on President Biden to find the political will to finally close it for good.

Events taking place to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay on Jan. 11, 2022, featuring myself and Tom Wilner, with whom I co-founded the Close Guantánamo campaign in 2012. Some of these events are in the US, some are in the UK, and they are mostly online but with a few carefully managed Iive events.

My analysis of the appeal by the US government, heard in the High Court in London this week, against a judge’s refusal in January to allow the extradition to the US of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, on the basis that, because of his mental health issues, the risk of him committing suicide if extradited is too severe to allow the extradition to go ahead.