Photos and Report: Global Vigils for Guantánamo’s Closure on March 6 Demand Freedom for 16 Men Long Approved for Release

Photos from the coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo on March 6, 2024. Clockwise, from top L, Washington, D.C., London, San Francisco and New York City.

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Campaigners outside the White House in Washington, D.C. on March 6, 2024. As Helen Schietinger of Witness Against Torture explained, “In the photo are Malachy Kilbride, Bob Cooke, Steve Lane, myself, Frank Panopoulos, and a friend.” As she also explained, “We’re not little leprechauns: the fence keeping us out is really that tall now!”
Campaigners with the UK Guantánamo Network in Parliament Square in London on March 6, 2024 (Photo: Andy Worthington).
Campaigners on the steps of the Public Library on Fifth Avenue in New York City on March 6, 2024. As Debra Sweet of the World Can’t Wait explained, “Amazingly, 14 people came out today in heavy rain.” (Photo: John Breitbart, Movement Sound Plus).

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Photos and Report: Eight Global Vigils for the Closure of Guantánamo on February 7, 2024

Photos from the coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo on February 7, 2024. Clockwise, from top L, Washington, D.C., London, Mexico City and Cobleskill, NY.

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. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.





 

As the prison at Guantánamo Bay continues its miserable existence, now in its 23rd year of denying justice to the men held, and betraying every legal principle that is supposed to distinguish the US from dictatorships, I’m grateful to the campaigners across the US, and around the world, who, following the annual protests for Guantánamo’s closure on January 11, the 22nd anniversary of its opening, have resumed the monthly vigils that I initiated a year ago to try to keep a light shining on Guantánamo once a month rather than just once a year.

Via organizations including numerous Amnesty International groups, the UK Guantánamo Network, Witness Against Torture and The World Can’t Wait, vigils took place on Wednesday (February 7) in Washington, D.C., Cobleskill, NY, Detroit and San Francisco, as well as in Mexico City and London, where I joined fellow campaigners outside the Houses of Parliament, and in Brussels and Copenhagen, where campaigners held their vigils on the preceding days.

Campaigners outside the White House in Washington, D.C. on February 7, 2024.
Campaigners in Parliament Square in London on February 7, 2024 (Photo: Andy Worthington).
Campaigners at the Palacio de Bellas Artes in Mexico City on February 7, 2024.
Campaigners in San Francisco, at United Nations Plaza, San Francisco Civic Center, on February 7, 2024.
Campaigners in Veterans Park, in Cobleskill, NY, on February 7, 2024.
Campaigners with Detroit Amnesty outside the Federal Building on Michigan Avenue in Detroit on February 7, 2024.
Campaigners in Brussels with the Comité Free.Assange.Belgium.
Campaigners in Copenhagen, with Amnesty Events Copenhagen.

My friends in Mexico City, Natalia Rivera Scott and Alli McCracken, describe these monthly events as “Small vigils, big hearts,” and I’ve recently taken the liberty of paraphrasing that particular motto as “Our numbers may be small, but our hearts are big, and our message is still so very important.”

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Photos and Report: The Close Guantánamo March and Rally in Central London, Jan. 20, 2024

Campaigners with the UK Guantánamo Network in Parliament Square during the march and rally for the closure of Guantánamo on January 20, 2024 (Photo: Sinai Noor).

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On Saturday (January 20), a colourful and inspiring march and rally for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay took place in central London, organized by the UK Guantánamo Network, which consists of members of a number of local Amnesty International groups from across London and the south east, plus other campaigners, myself included.

The event was organized to mark the recent 22nd anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, on January 11, when a handful of campaigners braved bitterly cold weather to stage a vigil outside the US Embassy in Nine Elms, as part of the monthly coordinated global vigils for Guantánamo’s closure that I initiated a year ago. See here for my report about, and photos from the 16 vigils that took place in the US and around the world to mark the anniversary.

Complementing that vigil, the march and rally took place on a Saturday for maximum visibility, and would have taken place on Saturday January 13 had it not been for the fact that a massive March for Palestine was scheduled for that particular date, which I posted photos of — and commentary about — here.

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Photos and Report: The Global Vigils for the Closure of Guantánamo on the 22nd Anniversary of the Prison’s Opening

Coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo on January 11, 2024. Clockwise from top left: New York, Washington, D.C., Mexico City and London.

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. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.





 

Campaigners in Washington, D.C., including representatives of Amnesty International, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT), Witness Against Torture and Dorothy Day Catholic Worker held a vigil outside the White House on January 11, 2024. (Photo: NRCAT).
Campaigners in New York City held a vigil on the steps of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue on January 11, 2024. The event was organized by the World Can’t Wait, whose National Director, Debra Sweet, is on the mike. Other supporters included Brooklyn for Peace, Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace and NY War Resisters League. Around 60 people attended in total, and other speakers were Daphne Eviatar of Amnesty International USA, Jeremy Varon of Witness Against Torture, Jessica Murphy of September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Imam Saffet Catovic, and Rosemarie Pace and Mary Yelenick of Pax Christi. A video by Joe Friendly is here. The event also raised money for the Guantánamo Survivors Fund. (Photo: Felton Davis).
Campaigners in San Francisco held a vigil outside the Ferry Building on January 11, 2024, organized by Gavrilah Wells of Amnesty International and Curt Wechsler of the World Can’t Wait. Gavrilah wrote, “Curt and I organized a small and poignant event at the SF Ferry Building today. We had a few speakers, a couple chalkers, a table with flyers, postcards and actions to take including donating to the Guantánamo Survivors Fund. Curt made a fantastic board with enlarged photos of 15 of the detainees cleared for release and Amnesty colleague Ron Malveaux read the names and their dates of incarceration and dates they were cleared for release, which was very moving. Faisal, another Amnesty colleague, told his personal story of leaving Afghanistan and spoke about human rights and the history of prisons through the centuries. We also read Mansoor Adayfi’s beautiful words about his dear brother Khalid Qasim — he sounds like such a beautiful and amazing person. I pray he gets safely released ASAP.”
Campaigners in Los Angeles held a vigil outside the Federal Building in Downtown L.A. on January 11, 2024, organized by Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, with speakers including Mohammad Tajsar of the ACLU of Southern California, Jim Lafferty of the Lawyers Guild, Rev. Kelvin Sauls and Vincent DeStefano of the Assange Defense Network.
Campaigners in London, with the UK Guantánamo Network, held a vigil outside the US Embassy in Nine Elms, London on January 11, 2024. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
Campaigners in Mexico City (Natalia Rivera Scott, Alli McCracken and Mary) held a vigil outside the US Embassy on January 11, 2024.
Campaigners in Cobleskill, NY held a vigil on January 11, 2024, organized by the Peacemakers of Schoharie County.
Campaigners in Minneapolis held a vigil on January 11, 2024 outside the Federal Building on 3rd Avenue S, organized by the Minneapolis-St Paul chapter of Amnesty International. Amy Blumenshine took this photo of Aaron Tovo and Wilbur Ince.
Campaigners in Detroit held a vigil on January 11, 2024 outside the Federal Building on Michigan Avenue, organized by Detroit Amnesty. Geraldine Grunow wrote, “We’ll continue to protest the existence of Guantánamo and to lobby for the release of cleared detainees and ‘forever prisoners,’ as well as for adequate support for those already released.”
Campaigners in Raleigh, NC held a vigil on January 11, 2024, organized by NC Stop Torture Now. Christina Cowger wrote, “We had about 25 people outside Rep. Deborah Ross’ office; she’s a Democrat in a safe seat and her constituents have long called on her to speak out about rendition, torture, and Guantánamo, but so far she’s done zilch.” (Photo: Beth Brockman).
Campaigners in Greenfield, MA held a vigil on January 11, 2024, organized by No More Guantanamos, CODEPINK and the World Can’t Wait, and then held a second vigil in Northampton, MA. Around three dozen campaigners had photos taken with Close Guantánamo’s poster marking 8,036 days of the prison’s existence. Photo via the Witness Against Torture Facebook page.
Campaigners in Northampton, MA on January 11, 2024. Photo via the Witness Against Torture Facebook page.
Campaigners outside the State Armory in Augusta, Maine on January 11, 2024. Photo via the Witness Against Torture Facebook page.
Campaigners with the Northwest Ohio Peace Coalition, American Muslims for Palestine Toledo and other groups at Lucas County Courthouse in Toledo, Ohio on January 11, 2024. Photo via the Witness Against Torture Facebook page.
Campaigners in Berkeley, LA held a vigil at Berkeley Law School on January 10, 2024, organized by CODEPINK S.F. Bay Area, followed by a bake sale for the Guantánamo Survivors Fund, and, as Cynthia Papermaster explained, to “get signatures on a petition to 1) request that John Yoo [a law professor at UC Berkeley] donate a year’s salary, about $500,000, to the fund and 2) call for Yoo’s prosecution for complicity in torture.” As she asked, “Shouldn’t the author of the legal opinions giving the green light to torture ‘enemy combatants’ feel some responsibilty for the torture of Guantánamo prisoners, most of whom were never charged with crimes?”
Campaigners in Boston, MA (Susan McLucas and Christopher Spicer Hinkle) held a vigil on January 11, 2024 at Boston Common.
Kady Manneh sent this photo of “From Guantánamo to Gaza: War is Terror”, a vigil on January 11, 2024 outside the Celebrezze Federal Building in Cleveland, Ohio.
Campaigners with the Comité Free.Assange.Belgium in Brussels.
Campaigners with Amnesty Events Copenhagen.
In Dublin, former Guantánamo prisoner Mansoor Adayfi sent this photo for the vigils during his book tour in Ireland for his compelling memoir, Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo.

For those of us who care about quaint notions like the rule of law, due process, habeas corpus, the Geneva Conventions, the prohibition on the use of torture, the right to a fair trial, and the right not to be indefinitely imprisoned without charge or trial, the arrival, every year, of January 11 is always a difficult occasion.

January 11, 2002 was when the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay first opened, when all of the above were jettisoned by the Bush administration in a bonfire of all domestic and international laws and treaties regarding the imprisonment of individuals.

This year marked the 22nd anniversary of the opening of the prison, and yet, alarmingly, all of the violations outlined above are still largely in place, and, just as alarmingly, almost no one in the United States — in the government, the media and the population as a whole — even cares, even though, in the last seven years, just eleven men have been freed from the prison.

The violations of all domestic and international norms regarding the imprisonment of individuals at Guantánamo are so severe that last June, after Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the UN Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, became the first UN Rapporteur to be allowed to visit the prison, she wrote in a devastating report that the systemic legal and medical problems at Guantánamo, as well as the ongoing dehumanization of the men held, and the restrictions on contact with their families, were so severe that they amount to “ongoing cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment” that “may also meet the legal threshold for torture.”

30 men are still held at Guantánamo — out of the 779 men and boys held at the prison since it first opened — and yet all are still trapped in circumstances that would be intolerable if they were applied anywhere else in the US justice system, or, indeed, anywhere else in the world.

16 of these men have been unanimously approved for release by high-level US government review processes, and yet they have continued to be held for years since the US authorities first decided that they no longer wanted to hold them indefinitely without charge or trial. In the cases of 13 of these men, they had been held for between 475 and 1,169 days since these decisions were taken, as of January 11, and in the other three cases for an unforgivable 5,102 days.

There is is still no sign of when, if ever, they will be freed, because the decisions taken to release them were purely administrative, and therefore have no legal weight, meaning that there is no one they can appeal to if, as is clearly the case, the executive branch has demonstrably failed to regard the restoration of their freedom as any kind of priority.

Three others remain as “forever prisoners” — neither charged nor approved for release — and, although the remaining eleven have been charged with crimes, they are caught up in the broken military commission trial system, which has proven to be incapable of delivering justice — fundamentally because the men in question were brutally and extensively tortured in CIA “black sites,” and the use of torture is incompatible with any practical implementation of justice.

Last year, in other opinions by the UN Special Mandates, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a devastating opinion in the case of one of the “forever prisoners,” Abu Zubaydah, for whom the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program was first implemented, in which they condemned his ongoing imprisonment as arbitrary detention, ordered his release and compensation, and also expressed “grave concern” that the very basis of the detention system at Guantánamo “may constitute crimes against humanity.”

The Working Group also issued another devastating opinion in the case of one of the men charged, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, also calling for his release and compensation, and quoting a medical expert, Dr. Sondra Crosby, who, after visiting him several years ago, described him as “one of the most severely traumatized individuals I have ever seen.” Al-Nashiri’s trial judge later condemned efforts by the government to erase the effects of his torture via testimony obtained “non-coercively” after his arrival at Guantánamo, and yet, although these stories (and Fionnuala’s report) caused brief ripples of interest in the media, the Biden administration’s response has been one of almost total indifference.

Although few people care about Guantánamo, those who do — and who recognize that last year’s reports have quite definitively portrayed the prison as an active crime scene — have persistently taken upon themselves the weight of everyone else’s abdication of responsibility, campaigning, petitioning and contacting their elected representatives, and persistently highlighting both the legal, moral and ethical abominations of Guantánamo, and its impact of the men held, who they have persistently sought to humanize.

Every year, on the anniversary, vigils take place across the US and around the world calling for the closure of Guantánamo. For ten years, from 2011 to 2020, I traveled to the US to take part in the annual vigil outside the White House, organized by numerous groups including Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Witness Against Torture and the World Can’t Wait.

Covid brought those annual visits to an end, but by the time that crisis had passed the interest in Guantánamo had dwindled to such an extent that it didn’t seem worthwhile any longer for me to contribute to the pollution caused by air travel to visit the country that is responsible for Guantánamo, but where the opportunities to use my vast knowledge of the prison, and those held there, to express my indignation and to try and reach out to people has become almost non-existent.

A year ago, after the typical flurry of activity on and around the anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, I decided to try to amplify the voices of activists on a more regular basis, following up on the monthly vigils that a group of activists, myself included, had recently started holding in London (largely involving activists with various local Amnesty International groups, coming together with other campaigners as the UK Guantánamo Network) by reaching out to friends and colleagues in the US and elsewhere around the world to encourage them to join us in holding monthly coordinated global vigils for Guantánamo’s closure.

With the support of Amnesty International USA and other groups (most noticeably Witness Against Torture and the World Can’t Wait), these have become a regular occurrence, typically involving coordinated protests in Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Cobleskill, NY, Detroit and Minneapolis, as well as London, Mexico City, Copenhagen and Brussels, and on January 11 these protests were augmented by other protests in Raleigh, NC, in Greenfield and Northampton, MA, in Augusta, Maine, in Toledo, Ohio, in Cleveland, Ohio, in Boston and in Berkeley.

Please see below for more photos from these vigils, at which campaigners also took photos with the Close Guantánamo campaign’s poster marking 8,036 days of the prison’s existence on January 11, as part of an ongoing campaign that began six years ago, and that involves posters marking every 100 days of Guantánamo’s existence, as well as marking the anniversaries of its opening. We received over 100 photos for January 11, and in December, when we marked 8,000 days, we received 170 photos.

I hope that as many people as possible will join us in 2024, as we resume our monthly vigils in February, on Wednesday February 7, continuing on the first Wednesday of every month thereafter, and that you’ll also join us for the ongoing photo campaign, marking 8,100 days of Guantánamo’s existence on March 15, 8,200 days on June 23, 8,300 days on October 1, and, sadly, 8,400 days on January 9, 2025, just two days before the 23rd anniversary of the prison’s opening. Hopefully, by then, the population of Guantánamo will be significantly smaller than it is now.

The vigil outside the White House on January 11, 2024. (Photo: NRCAT).
A very appropriate banner at the vigil outside the White House on January 11, 2024. (Photo: NRCAT).
Another important banner at the vigil outside the White House on January 11, 2024. (Photo: NRCAT).
Campaigners at the vigil outside the White House on January 11, 2024. (Photo: NRCAT).
The vigil in New York City on January 11, 2024. (Photo: Felton Davis).
The vigil in New York City on January 11, 2024. (Photo: Felton Davis).
The vigil in New York City on January 11, 2024. (Photo: Felton Davis).
Curt Wechsler with the display showing 15 of the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo at the vigil in San Francisco on January 11, 2024.
Andy Worthington with the poster showing the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo at the vigil in London on January 11, 2024. As Andy said on the day, “It may be deeply unfashionable to focus on the animosity towards Muslims of all four presidents who have been in charge of Guantánamo, but it is undeniably true. In President Biden’s case, having facilitated the deaths of tens of thousands of Muslim civilians in Gaza over the last three months, it would be helpful if he not only called for an immediate ceasefire, but also tried to at least repair some of the damage by releasing the 16 Muslim men at Guantánamo who have long been approved for release but who are still held.”
Rosemary, at the vigil in London, holding up the poster showing how long the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo have been held since the US authorities first decided that they no longer wanted to hold them. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
Ciaron O’Reilly, a long-standing campaigner for Julian Assange, with a poster he made for the 22nd anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo outside the US Embassy in London on January 11, 2024.
The vigil in Mexico City on January 11, 2024.
A great aerial shot of the vigil in Mexico City on January 11, 2024.
Another great aerial shot of the vigil in Mexico City on January 11, 2024.
A placard at the vigil in Detroit on January 11, 2024, adjusted over the last 12 years, since 2012, to reflect how long Guantánamo has been open.
The vigil in Raleigh, NC on January 11, 2024. (Photo: Beth Brockman).
The vigil at Boston Common on January 11, 2024.
A call to arrest UC Berkeley law professor John Yoo, the author of the notorious “torture memos” of August 2002, at the vigil in Berkeley on January 10, 2024.
The check for $500,000 for the Guantánamo Survivors Fund that campaigners in Berkeley sought to have signed by John Yoo at their vigil on January 10, 2024. As Cynthia Papermaster explained, “At the end of our action we went to Dean Chermerinsky’s office to ask him to get John Yoo’s signature on the check for $500,000. We left the check with Erwin’s assistant and she said she would give it to the Dean with our request. Significantly, in 2014, Dean Chemerinsky told the Nation that Yoo should be criminally prosecuted. “I think he [John Yoo] should be,” Chemerinsky said. “All who planned, all who implemented, all who carried out the torture should be criminally prosecuted. How else do we as a society express our outrage? How else do we deter it in the future, except by criminal prosecutions?”

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Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.

Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

8,000 Days of Guantánamo: Vigils Take Place Around the World and 170 Former Prisoners, Lawyers, Politicians and Campaigners Join Photo Campaign

Coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo on December 6, 2023. Clockwise from top left: London, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Mexico City.

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. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.




Wednesday December 6 was a big day for Guantánamo activism, as it marked 8,000 days since the prison opened, and also coincided with the date for the latest global vigils, calling for the closure of Guantánamo, which I initiated in February, and which have been taking place across the US, in London, Mexico City, and elsewhere, every month since.

To mark 8,000 wretched and unforgivably long days of the prison’s existence, I encouraged anti-Guantánamo campaigners around the world to take a photo with the 8,000 days poster, hosted on the Gitmo Clock website, an initiative of the Close Guantánamo campaign, which I established nearly 12 years ago, on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo.

The Gitmo Clock has been counting, in real time, how long Guantánamo has been open for nearly six years, since the 16th anniversary of the prison’s opening, on January 11, 2018, when the lamentable Donald Trump was president, and when the prison had been open for 5,845 days.

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Celebrating 2,400 Days of ‘The State of London’: Please Donate to Support This Unique Photo-Journalism Project

The most recent photos posted in Andy Worthington’s ongoing photo-journalism project ‘The State of London.’

Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’.





 

Dear friends and supporters,

Today marks 2,400 days — or a little over six and a half years — since I first set up ‘The State of London’ Facebook page, and began posting a photo a day, with an accompanying essay, drawn from the photos I had been taking since I first began cycling around London and taking photos throughout the capital’s 120 geographic postcodes five years before — on May 11, 2012, to be precise. I also post the photos on X (formerly Twitter).

From the beginning, this has been something of a deranged hobby. I have no financial backing for the project and, as a result, am reliant on you, my readers and followers, to provide me with any kind of monetary recompense for the ridiculous amount of time that I’ve spent cycling around London with a camera over the last eleven and a half years — and, in particular, the many hours I spend researching and writing about the photos that I post to entertain and inform you about London’s history, its social housing, its takeover, in recent decades, by predatory capitalism, the changing seasons, forgotten corners, rivers, hills and canals, parks and graveyards, seats of power, poverty and protests.

In the last six months, for example, I’ve celebrated pubs and cafes, inter-war council estates, Art Deco and Brutalist triumphs, delved through the archive for coverage of lost or soon to be lost reminders of London’s history — Coal Drops Yard in King’s Cross, prior to redevelopment, slipper baths in South Bermondsey, council flats in Homerton, a lodge in Archway and a prefab in Stepney Green, and have also posted about horrible new developments in Pimlico, Canary Wharf, the City, Vauxhall and Lewisham, as well as covering the massive and frequent protests against Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.

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Photos and Report: The Coordinated Global Vigils for the Closure of Guantánamo on November 1, 2023

Photos from the coordinated global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo on November 1, 2023. Clockwise from top left: London, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and New York City.

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. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.




Campaigners with the UK Guantánamo Network outside the US Embassy in Nine Elms, London on November 1, 2023. Normally in Parliament Square, we move to the US Embassy every six months, but we had no idea that, yesterday, the US Vice President Kamala Harris would be visiting at the same time. As her cavalcade passed by after her visit to the Embassy, to visit Rishi Sunak, we all stood with ‘Close Guantanamo’ placards, which must have been noticed! (Photo: Andy Worthington).
Campaigners in Washington, D.C., on November 1, 2023, moved from their previous location, on Capitol Hill, to the White House, to attract more attention. Helen Schietinger of Witness Against Torture wrote, “We were five at the White House for our November Close Guantánamo Vigil in Washington D.C.: Steve Lane, Frank Panopoulos, Judith Kelly, David Barrows and myself. President Biden never showed up.”
Campaigners in New York City, on the steps of the Public Library on Fifth Avenue, on November 1, 2023, including, in the purple jacket, Debra Sweet, the National Director of the World Can’t Wait. The New York vigils always involve speeches, and on the mic is blogger The Talking Dog.

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Grenfell Six Years On: Still Crying Out for Justice

Posters on Bramley Road in North Kensington, close to Grenfell Tower, June 14, 2023 (Photo: Andy Worthington).

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Six years ago today, on June 14, 2017, I watched in horror on the news as an inferno engulfed Grenfell Tower, a 24-storey block of council flats in North Kensington, in west London.

London — and the UK as a whole — would never be the same again.

Compelled to visit, as a photo-journalist covering London for my project ‘The State of London’, I cycled from my home in south east London on what was, objectively, a radiant sunny day, through a city that was going about its everyday business as though nothing had happened. It was only as I got closer and the charred, still smouldering skeleton of the tower finally rose up, make me feel slightly queasy and, disturbingly, rather ghoulish, that the enormity of what had occurred struck home.

On the ground, the local community had gone into overdrive to help the survivors, donating vast amounts of food and clothing, and seeking to do all they could to help, but, throughout this heartfelt humanitarian effort, it was clear that they were alone; no one in a position of authority was anywhere to be seen.

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Join Us on Wednesday June 7 for the Next Monthly Coordinated Global Vigils for the Closure of Guantánamo

A flyer for next week’s vigils (and those on July 5) put together by Amnesty International USA.

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. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.





 

Since February, on the first Wednesday of every month, campaigners around the world have been holding coordinated vigils calling for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, which, as of today, has been open for 7,810 days. The next vigils take place next Wednesday, June 7, and we hope you’ll join us, either by joining an existing vigil, or by setting up your own! And please, if you are taking part in a vigil, take photos and send them to me, as the cumulative visual effect of many vigils taking place on the same day is really quite powerful.

Campaigners in London, who had held weekly vigils outside Parliament for many years to call for the release of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who was finally freed in October 2015, resumed vigils (on a monthly basis) last September, largely due to the tenacity of Sara Birch of the Lewes Amnesty Group, who is also the Convenor of the UK Guantánamo Network, comprising members of various Amnesty groups, Close Guantánamo and other organizations.

After global protests for the closure of Guantánamo on and around the 21st anniversary of its opening, on January 11 this year, I thought it would make sense to try to get campaigners in the US and elsewhere to join with us in holding coordinated vigils on the first Wednesday of every month, and so a movement was born.

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Marking 11 Years of ‘The State of London’, An Appeal for £1000 to Support My Unique Photo-Journalism Project For the Next Three Months

The most recent photos from Andy Worthington’s ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London.’

Please click on the ‘Donate’ button below to make a donation to support my photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’.





 

Dear friends and supporters of ’The State of London’,

Every three months I ask you, if you can, to make a donation to support my unique, reader-funded photo-journalism project ‘The State of London’, which has just reached 6,200 followers on Facebook, and has over 1,550 followers on Twitter. As I have no institutional backing whatsoever, I’m entirely dependent on your generosity to enable me to continue this project, which takes up a considerable amount of otherwise entirely unpaid time.

If you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to make a payment via PayPal. Any amount will be gratefully received — whether it’s £10, £20, £50 or more!

You can also make a recurring payment on a monthly basis by ticking the box marked, “Make this a monthly donation,” and filling in the amount you wish to donate every month. If you are able to do so, a regular, monthly donation would be very much appreciated.

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Andy Worthington

Investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. Recognized as an authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror.” Co-founder, Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker. Also, photo-journalist (The State of London), and singer and songwriter (The Four Fathers).
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