Today, February 14,  2013, is the 11th anniversary of the day that Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who has a British wife and four British children, arrived at the Bush administration’s experimental “war on terror” prison from Afghanistan, where he had travelled with his family to engage in humanitarian aid. After the 9/11 attacks, however, having managed to get his family to safety, he was captured and sold to US forces by bounty hunters. Ironically, Shaker’s arrival at Guantánamo on February 14, 2002 was also the day that his youngest son was born.

To mark this dreadful anniversary, six years — six whole years! — since Shaker was first told that he would be going home to his family, the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign organised a protest outside Parliament yesterday, attended by activists and campaigners — myself  included — and also by MPs: Caroline Lucas (Green, Brighton Pavilion), Sadiq Khan (Labour, Tooting), John O’Donnell (Labour, Hayes and Harlington) and Shaker’s constituency MP, Jane Ellison (Conservative, Battersea).

We were all there to ask why it is that Shaker is still held, when he was not only cleared for release in 2007, under the Bush administration, but was also cleared for release again in 2009, under the Obama administration, a fact that was only made public in September, when the Justice Department publicly released a list containing the names of 55 cleared prisoners, of which he was one. Read the rest of this entry »

On Sunday October 21, 2012, almost three years since it first premiered in London, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” the documentary film I co-directed with Polly Nash, is being screened by Lewes Amnesty International Group, in a high-profile event that involves a panel discussion after the screening with myself, former Guantánamo prisoner Omar Deghayes, Caroline Lucas, the Green MP for Brighton Pavilion, and Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes. The event is at All Saints Community Centre, on Friars Walk in Lewes, and begins at 7 pm. Entry is free.

Although this was planned many months ago, the timing is particularly apt, because  it was recently confirmed publicly, for the first time ever, that Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, whose story features in the film, was cleared for release from the prison three years ago by President Obama’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force, which consisted of officials and lawyers from the relevant government departments and the intelligence agencies.

Anecdotally, it has been known since 2007 that Shaker was cleared for release — at the time under President  Bush — and also that he was cleared under Obama, but such is the secrecy imposed on Guantánamo, and on lawyers for the prisoners, that his legal team were not allowed to speak about it until a month ago, when, unexpectedly, the US Justice Department, for the first time, released the names of 55 prisoners cleared for release, as part of a court case — a list that featured Shaker. Read the rest of this entry »

As the cracks in the Tory-led coalition government grow more and more obvious, the biggest question may be whether it is incompetence or corruption that will depose the clowns who have been pretending to run the country for the last two years. In terms of the Olympics, which, two months ago, I described as a militarised, corporate, jingoistic disgrace, the incompetence particularly involves security and travel, and in terms of corruption, it involves the tax haven created for the duration of the Games, as reported last week.

On the security front, it was revealed that G4S, the biggest employer listed on the London Stock Exchange, with more than 650,000 staff worldwide, had spectacularly failed to fulfil its £284 million Olympics contract, in which it was supposed to provide 13,700 personnel for the Games. Just two months ago, it was reported that G4S had had 100,000 applications for 10,000 job vacancies, the inference being that all was proceeding smoothly.

That, however, was spectacularly untrue, as became apparent on Thursday, with just two weeks to go before the Games begin, when it was revealed that the government was arranging for 3,500 military personnel to be provided to make up for G4S’s inability to meet its commitment.

As the Guardian noted, “The news was met with disbelief. Diana Johnson, the shadow home office minister, tweeted: ‘This is the same G4S who aspire to win policing services through privatisation. Not reassuring.'” Read the rest of this entry »

In Truthout today, four British MPs — Jeremy Corbyn, John Leech, Caroline Lucas and Michael Meacher — wrote an open letter to Congress seeking the return to the UK of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison. Mr. Aamer’s story is familiar to those of us who have long campaigned for the closure of Guantánamo, and I have been covering his story since I began writing articles about Guantánamo on a regular basis in 2007.

His story features prominently in the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo,” that I co-directed with Polly Nash. In August, I publicised a report that he was on a hunger strike, and just last week I cross-posted, with my own commentary, an article by his lawyer, Ciive Stafford Smith, who had just paid his first visit to Guantánamo for a number of years, and a letter Stafford Smith had written to the British foreign secretary William Hague, revealing how ill Shaker Aamer is after ten years in US custody.

In their open letter, the MPs eloquently called for the return of Shaker Aamer to his wife and children in the UK, and mentioned, for the first time ever in public, that he was “cleared for transfer out of Guantánamo” as a result of the review of all the remaining prisoners’ cases that was conducted throughout 2009 by the Guantánamo Review Task Force, established by President Obama when he came into office. The document that contained that information also informed him, “The US government intends to transfer you as soon as possible.” Read the rest of this entry »

“‘Outside the Law’ is a powerful film that has helped ensure that Guantánamo and the men unlawfully held there have not been forgotten.”
Kate Allen, Director, Amnesty International UK

“[T]his is a strong movie examining the imprisonment and subsequent torture of those falsely accused of anti-American conspiracy.”
Joe Burnham, Time Out

“Every American needs to watch this film. Or at least every mouthpiece in the corporate media. They should broadcast this instead of the WWII Holocaust documentaries, which play on rotation on the cable networks.”
Alexa O’Brien, journalist, WL Central

As featured on Democracy Now!, ABC News and Truthout. Buy the DVD here (£10 + £2 postage in the UK, and worldwide) or here if in the US ($10 post free).

On Tuesday June 21, at 6 pm, there will be a special Parliamentary screening of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington), in the Attlee Suite in Portcullis House, opposite the House of Commons on Bridge St, London, SW1A 2LW (Please note that this venue change was announced on June 15, and amended accordingly). Read the rest of this entry »