In Liberia, the Horrors of Trump’s Third Country Migrant Deportation Program Are Shockingly Exposed
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Two days ago, on Channel 4 News in the UK, reporter Jamal Osman traveled to Liberia, in west Africa, to meet some of the 14 US migrants who were recently deported there from the US, as part of the Trump administration’s grotesque mass deportation program.
The program is overseen and tightly controlled by Stephen Miller, Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor, who, it is fair to say, is nothing less than a modern-day Nazi, obsessed with, and driving with fanatical enthusiasm his plans for the mass ethnic cleansing of the United States. I wrote about Miller’s profoundly baleful, racist influence on the US in an article in February, entitled, An Ever-Expanding Gulag of Concentration Camps for Immigrants: The US Under Stephen Miller.
More than half a million migrants have been deported to their home countries since Trump’s second term began, but those sent to Liberia are amongst another group — the estimated 25,000 migrants to date who have been sent to third countries, 28 in total, with which they have no connection whatsoever.
Photos and Report: 9,000 Days of Guantánamo, and the 44th Monthly Global Vigils for the Prison’s Closure
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Last Wednesday, the 44th monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay took place across the US and around the world — in New York, Los Angeles and Detroit, outside the Houses of Parliament in London, and outside the European Parliament in Brussels. Friends in San Francisco joined us, as did two former Guantánamo prisoners, Mansoor Adayfi in Belgrade, and Mohamedou Ould Slahi in the Netherlands.
Campaigners in Washington, D.C., outside the heart of the beast, the White House, were unable to make the “First Wednesday” date, and, instead, held a vigil on Friday September 11, the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks that led to the Bush administration’s sickening, brutal and counter-productive global “war on terror”, and the establishment of Guantánamo, the last physical manifestation of that failed war, whose polluting influence has contaminated US law to this day.
Last Wednesday’s vigils coincided with a grim milestone in Guantánamo’s history — 9,000 days of the prison’s existence, and at all the vigils supporters held up the Close Guantánamo campaign’s 9,000 days poster, the latest in an initiative that has been running since January 2018, marking every 100 days of the prison’s existence with photos of supporters standing with the posters to show support for our unsilenceable demand for the hellhole of Guantánamo to finally be closed.
We received over 50 photos in total, all of which can be found here on the Close Guantánamo website. Some of these photos are also posted below, along with photos from the vigils, and I hope you’ll also read on for my reflections on how and why Guantánamo has always been, and always will be a grotesque and irredeemable legal, moral and ethnical abomination that pollutes the soul of the US every day that it is open, and for profiles of the 15 men still held in varying states of fundamental lawlessness.
Photos and Report: The 43rd Monthly Global Vigils for the Closure of Guantánamo, the Source of So Much of the 21st Century’s Depravity
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In a world of endless, pointless distractions, of 24-hour rolling news that means that people can’t even remember what happened yesterday, of a gloating genocide in Gaza that is tearing our hearts apart, but that no one can stop, and of extreme heat and drought that is telling us, globally, that our days on our unique, miraculous planet are well and truly numbered, because of our inability to stop burning fossil fuels, it’s nothing short of a miracle that, once a month, a handful of diligent activists across the US and around the world get together to hold coordinated vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay.
The vigils — outside the White House in Washington, D.C., outside the Houses of Parliament in London, outside the European Parliament in Brussels, and in New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Cobleskill, NY, Mexico City and Belgrade — began 43 months ago, in February 2023, as a concerted effort to prevent Guantánamo, routinely engulfed in the collective amnesia of the political and media establishments, from being entirely forgotten.
Please see the photos below, of activists from, amongst other groups and organizations, Amnesty International, the UK Guantánamo Network, Witness Against Torture and the World Can’t Wait, and read on for my assessment of why remembering Guantánamo and calling for its closure is still so essential, followed by more photos.
Photos and Report: Close Guantánamo Vigils Undermine the US’s 250th Anniversary of Independence from Executive Tyranny
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Last Wednesday, July 1, campaigners across the US and around the world held the 42nd consecutive monthly “First Wednesday” global vigils calling for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay.
Three vigils took place at key locations — outside the White House in Washington, D.C., outside the US Embassy in London, and outside the European Parliament in Brussels — and others took place in Detroit and Los Angeles. The regular New York vigil, on the steps of the central library in Manhattan, was cancelled because of an extreme heat warning, but, in Vienna, former Guantánamo prisoner marked the occasion while speaking at a supplementary meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and, on Saturday July 4, campaigners in Cobleskill, NY marked the occasion during their weekly vigil for peace and justice, which has been ongoing since the Iraq War.
This month, in particular, all the vigils had special relevance because of their proximity to July 4, the anniversary of US Declaration of Independence, which, this year, was marking its 250th anniversary, under the sickeningly unsuitable leadership of Donald Trump. Please see the photos below, and read on for my assessment of why the continued existence of Guantánamo so fatally undermines efforts to celebrate the 250th anniversary as marking a beacon of freedom from the executive tyranny of the British government under King George III.
The Persistence of Memory: The 41st Monthly Global Vigils for the Closure of Guantánamo, June 3, 2026
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In a variation on a famous quote, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”, which is widely but apparently incorrectly attributed to George Orwell, I recently came up with a phrase that, on an ongoing basis, I’ll be using to describe those of us who continue to try to remind the world of the existence of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, and of the 15 men still held there in varying states of fundamental lawlessness:
“In a time of universal deceit, even the act of remembering is a revolutionary act.”
Guantánamo has long been engulfed in a kind of collective amnesia, barely mentioned by US lawmakers, and largely ignored by the mainstream media, which is why our monthly “First Wednesday” vigils, though small in number, continue to be important. If a grave and ongoing injustice isn’t even mentioned, or marked with people in orange jumpsuits bearing witness to it as an internationally significant ongoing crime scene, how is anyone supposed to even remember that it still exists?
This month, nine vigils took place across the US and around the world — in London, New York, Brussels, Mexico City, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Innsbruck, Austria, and Cobleskill, NY. Our most politically resonant campaigners — at the heart of the dysfunctional warmongering beast, outside the White House, in Washington, D.C. — were largely unable to join us this month, with only one stalwart, longtime Close Guantánamo supporter Steve Lane, attending, and without any photos being taken, but they’ll be back next month, and individual campaigners also sent photos from Oakland, CA and Liège in Belgium.
Israel Approves Lawless Show Trials and Mass Executions for Palestinians Seized on Oct. 7, 2023
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As the beleaguered International Criminal Court seeks an arrest warrant for Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben-Gvir, in charge of Israel’s torture prisons, and a key driver of legislation approving the death penalty for Palestinians, and establishing a special military tribunal to prosecute and execute those seized on Oct. 7 , 2023, continues to evade accountability.
When the Nazis held the Wannsee Conference on January 1942 to co-ordinate the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question” — the extermination of all the Jews in German-controlled Europe — it was attended by 15 high-level administrators in the relevant government departments, and the SS.
When senior officials in Israel were planning the genocide of the Palestinian people of the Gaza Strip, after October 7, 2023, no single conference was convened to facilitate what it would be appropriate to call Israel’s “Final Solution to the Palestinian Question”, but key officials can be readily identified.
The first two are Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the former Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, for whom arrest warrants were issued by the International Criminal Court on November 21, 2024, for war crimes and crimes against humanity — the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.
Bearing Witness to Unending Injustice: The 40th Global Monthly Close Guantánamo Vigils, May 6, 2026
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The monthly “First Wednesday” vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, on Wednesday May 6, marked the 40th successive month that campaigners across the US, in Washington, D.C., New York, Detroit and Los Angeles, and around the world, in London, Brussels and Belgrade, have come together to call for freedom or justice for the 15 men still held — down from 34 when our vigils started — and for the prison to be closed.
Campaigners in San Francisco joined us on Friday May 8, and in Cobleskill, NY on Saturday May 9, and Ed Charles in Oakland, and Lizzy in Arizona, also sent photos. Campaigners in Mexico City had to postpone their vigil, while, in Los Angeles, Jon Krampner held an unrecorded solo vigil, and wrote, “Neither Julie nor Kate could make it, so I was by myself and went to the Downtown LA Federal Building from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., with my jumpsuit, hood and Amnesty ‘Close Guantánamo’ sign. One young man hurrying into the building said he supported me, but, being in a hurry, declined my request for him to photograph me. Not much interaction beyond that; just a few people pausing to look at me and the sign. This is not much of a report, but at least I showed up.”
Please see below for the photos, and read on for my now monthly reflections on what the vigils mean, and why they continue to be important, followed by further photos. Next month’s vigils will take place on Wednesday June 3, when you’re welcome to join us, and I hope will also take part in the latest phase of Close Guantánamo’s ongoing photo campaign, making every 100 days of the prison’s existence, by taking a photo with the poster marking 8,900 days of Guantánamo’s existence on May 24, and sending it here. All this year’s photos can be found on a dedicated page on the Close Guantánamo website here.
The Guantánamo Document That Changed My Life 20 Years Ago Today
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20 years ago today, on April 20, 2006, a document was released by the Pentagon that changed my life, launching me on what has become the defining struggle (or jihad, in Arabic) of my time here on earth as an independent journalist and human rights activist: exposing the horrific injustice of the US’s “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, telling the stories of the 779 men — and boys — held there by the US military, and calling for the prison’s closure.
The document in question was a list of 558 prisoners held at Guantánamo at the time (see here or here), unwillingly released by the Pentagon through Freedom of Information legislation.
It was the first ever list of prisoners released by the US government, which, for four years and three months, since Guantánamo first opened on January 11, 2002 — to hold prisoners seized in connection with the global “war on terror” declared by the Bush administration after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 — had sought to shroud the prison and those held there in a veil of the utmost secrecy, behind which it could completely disregard all international and domestic laws and treaties concerning the treatment of those deprived of their liberty.
Photos and Report: Amidst Unprecedented Chaos, the Monthly Global Vigils for Guantánamo’s Closure Continue
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Despite unprecedented global chaos caused by just two rogue nations — the US and Israel — who have wilfully eviscerated all the rules regarding the conduct of warfare over the last two and a half years, and massively increasing the geographical scope of their illegal actions over the last six weeks, campaigners across the US and around the world held their 39th monthly consecutive global vigils for the closure of the US’s “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay last week.
On Wednesday April 1, campaigners gathered outside the White House in Washington, D.C., in New York City and Detroit, while other campaigners were outside the Houses of Parliament in London, the European Parliament in Brussels, and in Mexico City. The Saturday before, on “No Kings Day”, campaigners in San Francisco highlighted the rank injustice of the prison’s continued existence, with other campaigners, in Cobleskill, NY, joining on Saturday April 4, as part of weekly protests reflecting the demands of the times that have been running every Saturday for the last 25 years. There were also solo participants in Oakland, CA and in Liège, Belgium.
Please see below for photos from all of the vigils, and read on for my assessment of the importance of the vigils as part of wider resistance to the collapse into depravity of all notions of any kind of moral order since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza 30 achingly long months ago.
Israel Plumbs New Depths of Depravity, as the Knesset Passes a Death Penalty Bill for Palestinians
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For the last two and a half years, the State of Israel has been engaged in an unspeakably horrific genocide in Gaza, in which, at a bare minimum, over 70,000 people — mostly civilians — have been murdered, as well as massively increasing the number of Palestinians, to over 9,000, who are held in a grotesque and largely arbitrary apartheid prison system, for Palestinians only, in which torture is mandatory, rape is widespread, and over a hundred Palestinians have been murdered in that same time period.
With Israel also engaged, over the last month, in the largely indiscriminate carpet-bombing of civilians in Lebanon and Iran, it’s hard to imagine that this brutal, sickeningly and knowingly lawless and permanently warmongering entity could sink any lower into the depths of depravity, but yesterday the Israeli Knesset managed just that, passing a “Death Penalty for Terrorists” amendment to its already bloated and draconian prison legislation regarding Palestinians.
As Amnesty International explained in a news release today, “The new law explicitly creates two legal frameworks for the use of the death penalty in the occupied West Bank, excluding the illegally annexed East Jerusalem, and in Israel.”
Who's still at Guantánamo?
