Welcome to Andy Worthington

The third article in my ongoing series about the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo, noting how long they have been held since those decisions were taken, telling their stories, and tying publication of these articles into significant dates in their long ordeal. This particular article highlights the three especially unfortunate men who were approved for release over 14 years ago.

My report about last month’s military commission hearings at Guantánamo, at which the prison’s only Malaysian prisoners, Mohammed Farik Bin Amin and Mohammed Nazir Bin Lep, accepted a plea deal, admitting that they were involved as accomplices in the Bali nightclub bombings in 2002, as members of the terrorist group Jemaah Islamiya, and agreeing to provide information in the forthcoming trial of the group’s alleged leader, Hambali (Riduan Isamuddin), in exchange for a reduced sentence. As I explain, the two men are largely unknown to the general public, even though they are “high-value detainees” who were held and tortured in CIA “black sites” for three years, from 2003 to 2006, and have been held at Guantánamo for over 17 years.

Linking to, and discussing the significance of ‘Warriors’, the new release by The Four Fathers, which I wrote about Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, and which was released to coincide with Julian’s last UK appeal against his proposed — and grotesquely unfair — extradition to the US to face espionage charges relating to the files that he published, with some of the world’s most significant newspapers, which had been leaked by Chelsea Manning, including the Guantánamo files, on which I worked a media partner.

My latest long read about Israel’s still-ongoing genocide in Gaza, the unimaginable horror of being in Gaza itself, and the permanently unsettling psychic repercussions reverberating around the world, plus a comprehensive overview of how and why it is a genocide, and my shock that so many people are so openly and publicly supportive of what ought to be readily recognized as “the most abysmal darkness, the most startling failure of the human spirit, and the very definition of collective evil”, as I describe it. I also express my disgust at western complicity in the genocide, discuss the huge importance of not allowing Hamas’ attacks on October 7 to be perceived as having taken place in a vacuum, and conclude with the hope that, as Israel prepares to attack the last refuge of Gaza’s displaced population in Rafah, and to push for the permanent expulsion of all the survivors, western indulgence of Israel — especially with complicity in genocide hovering over them via the International Court of Justice — will finally cease and, somehow, bring this otherwise unending slaughter to an end.

My report about “über Guantánamo hinaus”, the first exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ original artwork outside the US, currently taking place at Humboldt University of Berlin, and featuring artwork by one prisoner still held, Moath al-Alwi, and three former prisoners, Sabri al-Qurashi, Mohammed al-Ansi and Ghalib al-Bihani.

Photos from, and my report about the eight vigils for the closure of Guantánamo that took place across the US and around the world on February 7, 2024, the latest in an ongoing series of monthly coordinated global vigils that began last year. The vigils take place on the first Wednesday of every month, and the next date is March 6.

The first of a series of articles focusing on the 16 men still held at Guantánamo who have long been approved for release by high-level US government review processes. Published to coincide with significant dates in these men’s long wait for freedom, this first article focuses on Uthman Abd Al-Rahim Muhammad Uthman, a Yemeni who was approved for release 1,000 days ago.

The video of Andy Worthington’s speech calling for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay at the London rally for the prison’s closure on January 20, 2024, organized by the UK Guantánamo Network, and marking the 22nd anniversary of the prison’s opening on January 11.

My detailed examination of Israel’s dismissive response to the provisional measures imposed on it by the International Court of Justice last week regarding its genocidal intent in Gaza, and, in particular, its shameful targeting of UNRWA (the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) with unsubstantiated allegations that a very small number of its staff were involved in the Hamas attacks on October 7. To their shame, over a dozen countries, led by the US, have responded by cutting funding for UNRWA, disregarding the need for actual evidence, and apparently with no consideration that, by cutting off funding to the primary supplier of humanitarian aid in Gaza, they are making themselves directly complicit in the ongoing genocide.

My review of Guantánamo in 2023, events marking the 22nd anniversary of the prison’s opening on January 11, 2024, and hopes, plans, actions and possibilities for 2024. As this is the last year of President Biden’s term as president, those us seeking to exert pressure on the administration to make progress towards the closure of Guantánamo need to do all we can to highlight its many ongoing crimes, including the continued imprisonment of 16 men approved for release, conditions at the prison, and the plight of men released from Guantánamo under “diplomatic assurances” that have often turned out to be worthless.