US prisons

Photos from, and my report about the 30th coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, which took place across the US and in London, Brussels, Mexico City and Belgrade on July 2, 2025. As we continue to call for justice for the 15 remaining prisoners in the “war on terror” prison, I point out how our vigils are assuming increasing importance because of the “Gitmoization” of Donald Trump’s vile, racist “war on migrants”, in which new detention facilities are being established on the US mainland that look suspiciously like Guantánamo, or even like concentration camps, with the first notable example having just opened in the Florida Everglades, gleefully dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.” I also point out how the horrors of the “war on terror” that are being replicated in Trump’s USA extend to the “extraordinary rendition” program that is being revived through the deportation of migrants to uncertain fates in third countries, with the most recent alarming example being the deportation of eight migrants from various nationalities to the war-wracked country of South Sudan.

My assessment of the almost inestimably important case of Mahmoud Khalil, the legal US resident abducted on March 8 and taken to an ICE detention facility in Louisiana for deportation. Targeted for his involvement in student protests against Israel’s genocide in Gaza at Columbia University, Khalil’s abduction and his intended deportation are a glaring example of the Trump administration’s intention to shred the First Amendment to support Israel and its ongoing genocide in Gaza, although they are framing it as a “national security” matter. The Secretary of State, the pliant and dim-witted Marco Rubio, seeks to justify Khalil’s deportation by invoking a barely-used provision of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952, which gives him the authority to deport non-citizens if he has “reasonable ground to believe that [their] presence or activities in the United States would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” If successful, the Trump administration will be able to deport any green card holder or visa holder who has engaged in any kind of non-violent opposition to Israel’s genocide, a startling development which would not only formally make the US into a dictatorship, in which freedom of speech (or even thought) is not allowed; it would also do so in the service of a foreign country, Israel. This is a position that, as I describe it, “lays bare how the Trump administration, like the Biden administration before it, prioritizes Israel’s interests over its own, in what really ought to be seen as a betrayal of America’s self-interest — or even as an act of treason.” Although an immigration judge rubber-stamped Khalil’s deportation on Friday, a legal challenge is ongoing in federal court in New Jersey, and we must all hope that it is successful, although it seems certain that it will be a protracted process that will last for many years. Its importance, however, cannot be underestimated. As I say, “It’s no exaggeration to say that the future of the US depends on it.”

As the UK High Court allows the extradition to the US of WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, overturning a lower court’s ruling regarding his suicide risk, I explain my disappointment with the ruling, not only because US assurances regarding his treatment are unreliable, but also because the key element of the case wasn’t under discussion: the US’s reprehensible efforts to prosecute a publisher for making available leaked information that it is in the public interest to know about, which sends a chilling message to the world about the US’s disregard for press freedom.

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.

As Judge Vanessa Baraitser denies bail to Julian Assange, I point out how necessary it is for the incoming Biden administration to conclude, as Barack Obama did, that prosecuting Assange poses too grave a threat to press freedoms to proceed with, and to drop the extradition request.

My response to the totally unexpected ruling today by Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who refused to approve WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition to the US, on the basis that “his autism spectrum disorder” would “caus[e] him to commit suicide.”

My thoughts as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange’s extradition hearing begins at the Old Bailey in London, with the US government, under Donald Trump, seeking to extradite him to face espionage charges that would lead to him spending the rest of his life in a US prison, if convicted.

Good news for a change, as Uzair Paracha, convicted of terrorism-related charges in 2005, and given a 30-year sentence, has been freed and repatriated to Pakistan. In 2018, the judge who presided over his initial trial ordered a new trial after concluding that allowing the existing conviction to stand would be a “manifest injustice,” a decision based on serious doubts about the veracity of testimony against him that had been provided by prisoners at Guantánamo, previously held in CIA “black sites,” including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Sadly, although Uzair has been freed, his father, Saifullah, held on the basis of similar discredited testimony, is still held at Guantánamo, with no sign of when, if ever, he too will be freed.

Some good news for a change, as a US judge orders the release from jail of whistleblower Chelsea Manning, who has been imprisoned for a year for refusing to cooperate with a Grand Jury investigation into WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange. The judge, however, refused to waive the $256,000 that Manning was charged for refusing to cooperate with the investigation. I also draw parallels with the ongoing efforts in the UK to extradite Assange to the US to face espionage charges relating to WikiLeaks’ publication of the documents leaked by Manning.

This year, on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, which I’ve been writing about most years since 2007, generally in relation to Guantánamo and the CIA torture program, I examine the latest horror story to emerge from the US, via Donald Trump’s migrant detention program, recently described by a visiting doctor as comparable “to torture facilities.”