Video: Andy Worthington and Ramzi Kassem Discuss Trump, Obama, Guantánamo and Torture at Revolution Books in Harlem
Please support my work! I’m currently trying to raise $2500 (£2000) to support my writing and campaigning on Guantánamo and related issues over the first two months of the Trump administration.
On Sunday I got back from my US tour to coincide with the 15th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, which was on January 11, and I’m posting the video below of a powerful event I took part in during my visit — a panel discussion, on “Trump, Torture and Guantánamo” (and Barack Obama’s legacy) at Revolution Books in Harlem.
I was delighted to take part in the event with another speaker I had invited, Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at City University of New York (CUNY), with whom I have appeared at events many times before (see here, for example), and who, back in 2012, provided me exclusively with unclassified notes of meetings with Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, which I published on my website and on the website of the Close Guantánamo campaign that I co-founded with the attorney Tom Wilner in January 2012, marking the 10th anniversary of the prison’s opening.
Because of the uncertainties surrounding the transition from Barack Obama’s presidency to that of Donald Trump’s, I was involved in fewer events than usual on this visit — my seventh in a row to coincide with the anniversary of Guantánamo’s opening, all of which have been arranged by Debra Sweet of the World Can’t Wait — although everything I took part in was extremely worthwhile. I have previously posted the video of my speech outside the Supreme Court on Jan. 11, and the video of the panel discussion I initiated on Jan. 11 at New America, which also featured Tom Wilner, former Congressman Jim Moran, and Rosa Brooks and Peter Bergen of New America, and I’m pleased to be posting the video below, via Vimeo: Read the rest of this entry »
Who's still at Guantánamo?
