UK complicity in torture

My report about what I describe as “the single most devastating condemnation by an international body that has ever been issued with regard to the US’s detention policies in the ‘war on terror’, both in CIA ‘black sites’ and at Guantánamo” — an opinion issued by the the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention about Abu Zubaydah, the first victim of the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program. The condemnation is not only of the US government, but also the governments of Pakistan, Thailand, Poland, Morocco, Lithuania, Afghanistan and the UK, although the most severe criticisms are directed at the US government, which is ordered to release him and to pay him compensation. The Working Group also expresses “grave concern” that the very basis of the detention system at Guantánamo — involving “widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty in violation of fundamental rules of international law” — “may constitute crimes against humanity.”

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.

News of an important complaint filed with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, on behalf of Abu Zubaydah, held in CIA “black sites” for four and a half years, and at Guantánamo since September 2006, without ever being charged. The complaint is not only against the US, but also against Thailand, Poland, Morocco, Lithuania and Afghanistan (the five countries in which he was held in “black sites”), as well as the UK, which is regarded as complicit in his torture.

The latest news regarding Julian Assange, held at Belmarsh maximum-security prison since April, pending his proposed extradition to the US, to face trumped-up espionage charges regarding WikiLeaks’ work as a publisher, making available classified US documents – including the Guantánamo files, which I worked on with WikiLeaks as a media partner – for which there is a compelling case that the public should be informed. Assange’s role was as a publisher, and his proposed extradition is a chilling assault on press freedoms, and freedom of speech. The UK government shouldn’t be going along with it, but in fact they seem to be working very closely with US officials, and at Assange’s latest case management hearing his conditions of confinement seemed to be taking their toll, as he was frail and often appeared confused.

My report about an application for a judicial review, submitted by the NGO Reprieve and the MPs Dan Jarvis and David Davis, regarding the British government’s refusal to hold a judge-led inquiry into the UK’s post-9/11 complicity in torture, first promised by David Cameron over nine years ago, but not delivered.

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   How short memories are in this goldfish world of ours. Less than a month ago, Parliament’s Intelligence and Security […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   June 26 is the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, and today marks its 20th anniversary. When […]

Please support my work as a reader-funded journalist! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the next three months of the Trump administration.   I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012, on the 10th anniversary […]

See all my photos from the Festival of Resistance against the DSEI arms fair  on Flickr here! Yesterday (September 9, 2017), the Campaign Against Arms Trade and Stop the Arms Fair organised a Festival of Resistance against the bi-annual international arms fair that takes place in London’s Docklands at the ExCeL exhibition centre, which I […]

Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo until the end of the year.   So last week was an interesting week for events focused on Guantánamo, torture and the military commissions in London, as Alka Pradhan, a lawyer with the defense team for […]