Life after Guantanamo

Linking to the video of a recent Q&A, featuring Mohamedou Ould Slahi, John Goetz and myself, following a screening of Goetz’s powerful documentary film, “Guantánamo Diary Revisited,” made available by its distributors in the US and Canada, Cinema Libre Studio. In the film, Goetz assists Slahi in tracking down some of those involved in his torture, the intention being to invite them to tea, and to let them know that he has forgiven everyone responsible for his torture.

Linking to and discussing the video of the powerful Q&A session that followed a screening of ‘The Mauritanian’ in Tunbridge Wells on March 20, 2022, featuring former Guantánamo prisoner Mohamedou Ould Salahi, whose story is told in the film.

My reflections on meeting the author and former Guantánamo prisoner Mohamedou Ould Salahi for the very first time in London last week, during his ongoing UK speaking tour, 16 years after I first began following his case, and 13 years after Mohamedou first saw me on TV in Guantánamo calling for the prison’s closure.

I’m delighted to publicise the first ever UK speaking tour — throughout March 2022 — by former Guantánamo prisoner, torture victim and best-selling author Mohamedou Ould Salahi (aka Slahi), with events in cities including London, Cambridge and Edinburgh, and also in Brighton and Tunbridge Wells, where I’ll be joining him. Some of the events will also feature screenings of ‘The Mauritanian’, the film based on Mohamedou’s memoir, ‘Guantánamo Diary’, featuring Tahar Rahim, Jodie Foster and Benedict Cumberbatch.

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.

Videos from ‘Guantánamo: 20 Years After’, the online conference, hosted by the University of Brighton, which took place on Nov. 12-13, 2021, and which I helped to organize. I was also a keynote speaker, along with former prisoner Shaker Aamer. Included here are videos of the keynote speeches, a presentation by Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture, and the conference’s three panel discussions.

The video of “Life After Guantánamo,” an online discussion between myself and former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, hosted by the Justice for Muslims Collective, which took place last week, and was intended primarily as a fundraiser for Mansoor. We discussed resistance at Guantánamo, the deaths of prisoners, art classes, and how the “taint” of Guantánamo haunts former prisoners, and is an ongoing part of the dehumanization process established at the prison nearly 20 years ago. It is also an injustice that I hope to address through establishing a new organization aimed at removing the “enemy combatant” stigma, and, ultimately, holding the US to account for the fundamental lawlessness of Guantánamo.

Promoting my live interview, this Thursday, Dec. 9, on Zoom, with former Guantánamo prisoner and author Mansoor Adayfi, whose compelling memoir “Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo” was published in August.

My report about the seemingly unending ordeal of former Guantánamo prisoner Abdulqadir al-Madhfari. Held at Guantánamo for 14 years, and then for another five years in the UAE (where he was supposed to be freed, but where his imprisonment continued), he was recently forcibly repatriated to Yemen, with eleven of his compatriots, but after just one week reunited with his family, who were alarmed at the decline in his mental health, he was seized by Houthi militia at a checkpoint in Sana’a, and is now being held incommunicado in an undisclosed location.

My report about ‘Guantánamo: 20 Years After’, the successful two-day international online conference hosted by the University of Brighton, which took place on November 12-13, 2021, and which I helped to organize with law lecturer and activist Sara Birch.