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Last Thursday, a powerful and historically significant event took place in London, when an exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork was launched at Rich Mix, a cultural and community space at 35-47 Bethnal Green Road in Shoreditch, London E1 6LA. The exhibition was supported by the UK Guantánamo Network (an umbrella group of organizations calling for Guantánamo’s closure), in collaboration with Amnesty International UK, and was curated by Lise Rossi and Dominique O’Neil, core team members of the UK Guantánamo Network, and Amnesty International members.

The exhibition, “Don’t Forget Us Here”, named after the compelling 2021 memoir of former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, runs until January 5, and the launch was, genuinely, historically significant because it is the first exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork in the UK, and because Mansoor himself attended, and gave a profoundly moving speech about the significance of art for the men held at Guantánamo.

If we lived in a world that cared about the continued existence of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, and the power of artwork to break through the sweeping isolation and dehumanization to which the men held there were subjected throughout the seven years that they were held under George W. Bush, until an easing of conditions under President Biden allowed “compliant” prisoners to take classes, including art classes, on a communal basis, Mansoor would have been featured on mainstream news channels, but, shamefully the world doesn’t care.

Since the prison at Guantánamo Bay opened nearly 23 years ago, holding Muslim men (and boys) for the most part indefinitely without charge or trial, most of the western mainstream media — and particular the US media — turned a blind eye to the dehumanization and brutalization of Muslims held there, and also held elsewhere in the US’s global network of “war on terror” prisons.

They also stayed largely silent as the west’s ruinous warmongering policies in Muslim countries created a global wave of refugees in 2015, which, in turn, exacerbated anti-refugee and anti-immigrant sentiment to such an extent that the UK left the EU via Brexit, Donald Trump was elected in the US, and racism and Islamophobia are now so deeply entrenched that western governments, and most of the western media, have failed to recognize Israel’s relentless 14-month long assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as genocide, even though, if it involved anyone but Muslims, they would have fallen over themselves to condemn it.

In this fundamentally racist media landscape, the only news channel that was present at the launch was the Turkish news channel TRT World. They interviewed Mansoor and produced the short feature below, which included footage from the launch. I hope that you have time to watch it, but I also hope that further footage eventually surfaces — perhaps of my introductory speech, providing a summary of the situation at Guantánamo now, of the urgent need for 16 men approved for release (including two artists) to be freed before President Biden leaves office, but especially of Mansoor’s charming, eloquent and heartfelt discussion of the meaning of the art.

For anyone wanting to know more, I urge you, if you haven’t done so already, to read Mansoor’s memoir, which contains a truly inspiring chapter on the liberating effects of creativity on the men deprived of free expression for so long.

One of these men is Moath al-Alwi, the only one of the six artists whose work is featured in the exhibition who is still held, even though he was unanimously approved for release by a high-level US government review process nearly three years ago. Moath’s speciality is making three-dimensional sculptures of sailing ships, which he creates, with extraordinary inventiveness, using recycled materials. As Mansoor explains in his memoir, “Moath could make anything once he set his mind to it.”

On display as part of the exhibition is a beautiful video of Moath’s ship-building techniques, made many years ago for the New York Times, and now available on the video creators’ YouTube channel, and posted below. It features an actor speaking Moath’s own words, and vividly brings to life his inventiveness.

This period in Guantánamo’s long history, when creativity was tolerated, or even encouraged, is referred to by Mansoor, in his memoir, as “the golden age”, and the following passage demonstrates wonderfully how Moath was able to liberate not only himself, but also his fellow prisoners, and even some of the guards, through his three-dimensional creations.

We were at the peak of the golden age when Moath made his own windows. One opened east to Makkah and the sun rising over a vast blue sea dotted with ships and palm trees swaying gently in the morning light. The other window opened west to the most beautiful sunset, palm trees so close you could touch them, birds flying freely, and the sea a deep and mysterious blue. People came from all over to enjoy those windows and his other work. No one was jealous, except maybe some of the guards. The camp admin didn’t know how to feel about them.

While the other five artists — Sabri Al-Qurashi, Muhammad Ansi, Ahmed Rabbani, Abdualmalik Abud (aka Abd Almalik) and Mansoor himself — have been released from Guantánamo, it would be unwise to conclude that their release has, necessarily, meant freedom. This is because many prisoners released from Guantánamo, and, in particular, many of those resettled in third countries because it was regarded as unsafe for them to be sent home, continue to suffer from the stigma of having been held at Guantánamo — regarded with suspicion, denied travel documents, unable to work, and prevented from being reunited with their families, to name just a few examples of the ways in which they remain marginalized and without fundamental rights — even though they were never charged with a crime.

As I explained when I posted an article about the art exhibition a few weeks ago, “For the men released from Guantánamo, life has not necessarily improved. While Mansoor, released in Serbia in 2016, has, in recent years, finally been allowed to travel freely, and Abd Almalik lives in Montenegro, and has a website making his artwork available to interested parties, Sabri Al-Qurashi, released in Kazakhstan in 2014, lives fundamentally without any basic rights, and Muhammad Ansi, resettled in Oman in 2017, was, recently, forcibly repatriated to his home country of Yemen,  where his status in unknown. Ahmed Rabbani, meanwhile, who was returned to his home country of Pakistan in February 2023, has found no support on his return, and recently suffered the loss of his brother, Abdul Rahim, also held with him in Guantánamo, and, previously, in CIA ‘black sites’, because of this lack of care.”

One other artist, not featured in the exhibition, also deserves mention, as he is also still held at Guantánamo, despite having been unanimously approved for release in July 2022. Khaled Qassim (aka Khalid Qassim, or Khalid Qasim), celebrated by Mansoor as a kind and caring person, a cellblock leader, a singer, a poet and a footballer, made sculptural paintings using the fabric of Guantánamo itself — the gravel on the ground — mixed with glue and then painted, as well as heavily lacquered allegorical paintings, and, along with Moath, the quality of his work is worthy of international attention.

As for the exhibition itself, its opening in the UK is in itself something of minor miracle. As Mansoor explains in his memoir, “the golden age” at Guantánamo didn’t last forever. Within just a few years, as the military leadership rotated and changed, another violent clampdown occurred, and by early 2013 the prisoners had embarked on a prison-wide hunger strike, which, after years of global media indifference, suddenly reawakened them to the prison’s ongoing existence, and finally prompted Obama to resume the release of prisoners, which had largely ground to a halt after Republicans had raised repeated obstacles to delay or prevent the ability of the administration to free anyone.

Despite this renewed clampdown, during the period when a certain openness held sway, the prisoners had been allowed to give their art to their lawyers, and, via them, to their families, and, as a result, in October 2017, the very first exhibition of prisoners’ artwork — including some of Moath’s sailing ships — opened at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Versions of it have since taken place in other locations in the US, as well as in Berlin and the European Parliament, and, most recently, with Mansoor’s involvement, in Belgrade, although that first exhibition prompted a horrible backlash from the Pentagon that had a profound impact on the artists still held.

As I explained in my recent article, “the existing arrangements — in which prisoners were allowed to give their art to their lawyers, and, via them, to their families — were abruptly cancelled, and the Pentagon claimed ownership of all the men’s art, the right to destroy it, if they wished, and the right to prevent any prisoner from leaving the prison with any of the work they had created. Prisoners were also — at least in some cases — prevented or restricted from making any new artwork.”

As I proceeded to explain, “These various threats and bans stayed in place until February 2023, when, finally, in response to a submission by two UN Special Mandates holders — the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism — they were lifted.”

The lifting of the ban allowed Ahmed Rabbani to return with his artwork to Pakistan, where he subsequently held an exhibition. However, although it must also have improved the mental health of Moath and Khaled, for both of whom art has become a part of themselves, it means nothing when they can still see no end to their imprisonment, because, as has been commonplace throughout Guantánamo’s history, despite them having been approved for release, they are still held by a captor — the US government — that has little or no interest in prioritizing the release of men it should never have held in the first place.

* * * * *

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 new Substack account, set up in November 2024, where he’ll be sending out a weekly newsletter, or his 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.

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.

 

I’m delighted to announce that, on Thursday December 5, an exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork, “Don’t Forget Us Here”, named after the 2021 memoir of former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, will be launching at Rich Mix, a cultural and community space in Shoreditch, at 35-47 Bethnal Green Road, London E1 6LA.

The exhibition will be running until January 5, with an opening event, starting at 6pm on December 5, featuring Mansoor and myself as speakers. It was organized by the UK Guantánamo Network (an umbrella group of organizations calling for Guantánamo’s closure), in collaboration with Amnesty International UK, and was put together by Lise Rossi and Dominique O’Neil, core team members of the UK Guantánamo Network, and Amnesty International members.

The exhibition — the first in the UK — is a version of an exhibition of artwork by current and former prisoners that first opened at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City in October 2017, and that has since toured across the US, as well as in Berlin and the European Parliament.

Read the rest of this entry »

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So there was great news from Guantánamo on Monday, when ten men — eight Yemenis and two Afghans — were released and sent to Oman, which has previously taken in 20 Yemenis. The Yemenis have been the most difficult category of prisoners to be freed from Guantánamo, because the entire US establishment is unwilling to repatriate them, fearing the security situation in their home country, meaning that third countries must be found that are prepared to offer them a new home — and are prepared to overlook the fact that the US itself is unwilling to do that, and, in fact, that Congress has, for many years, passed laws specifically preventing any Guantánamo prisoner from being brought to the US mainland for any reason.

The ten releases leave 45 men still held at Guantánamo, with three or four more releases expected before President Obama leaves office on Friday, according to the latest reports. At present, however, nine men approved for release are still held, and the release of those left behind when Obama leaves the White House must be a priority for campaigners as soon as Donald Trump takes office.

Of the ten men released, two were approved for release in 2009 by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established shortly after first taking office, while the other eight were approved for release between May 2014 and December 2016 by Periodic Review Boards, another high-level, inter-agency review process, and one that campaigners must also press Donald Trump to keep. Read the rest of this entry »

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Just before Christmas, it was announced that Mohammed al-Ansi aka Muhammad al-Ansi (ISN 029), a Yemeni prisoner at Guantánamo, had been approved for release by a Periodic Review Board. The decision made al-Ansi the 38th prisoner to be approved for release by a PRB, and the seventh to be approved for release not after a first review, but after a second review. The decision also means that, of the 59 men still held, 23 have been approved for release.

The PRBs — consisting of representatives of the Departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, as well as the office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — were set up in 2013 to review the cases of all the prisoners not already approved for release or facing trials, and 64 men have had their cases reviewed, with just 26, to date, having their ongoing imprisonment upheld. That’s a success rate of 59% for the prisoners, which rather undermines the alleged basis of their ongoing imprisonment when the PRBs were set up.

41 of the 64 men had been described as “too dangerous to release” by the previous review process, the Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established shortly after taking office in 2009, even though the task force acknowledged that there was insufficient evidence to put them on trial, while the 23 other men had been recommended for prosecution until the basis for prosecutions largely collapsed under judicial scrutiny. For further information, see my definitive Periodic Review Board list on the Close Guantánamo website. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, the Periodic Review Boards at Guantánamo made two decisions — to recommend one prisoner for release, and to recommend another for ongoing imprisonment. The decisions mean that, since the PRBs began in November 2013, 20 prisoners have now been approved for release, while five have had their ongoing imprisonment recommended, a success rate, for the prisoners, of 80%.

This is all the more remarkable — and all the more damaging for the government’s credibility — because the PRBs were established to review the cases of all the men not recommended for trials, and not already approved for release (by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established when he took office in 2009) — men who were described as “too dangerous to release”; a description that, it now transpires, was patently untrue, as myself and other commentators remarked at the time.

The task force itself acknowledged that it had insufficient evidence to put these men on trial, which alarmed those of us paying close attention, as it obviously meant that what purported to be evidence was not evidence at all, but a collection of dubious statements made by the prisoners themselves, or by their fellow prisoners, possibly involving the use of torture or other forms of abuse, or assessments that, because of their behavior, and threats they may have made while at Guantánamo, it was unsafe to release them. It should be noted that these assessments of the threat level may or may not have been true, because, of course, men treated as appallingly as the Guantánamo prisoners have been might not have posed a threat, but might only have been extremely indignant about the circumstances of their imprisonment. Read the rest of this entry »

As the dust settles on President Obama’s plan to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay before he leaves office, and defense secretary Ashton Carter urges Congress to drop its ban on bringing prisoners to the US mainland, one key element of the plan — Periodic Review Boards, assessing, on a case by case basis, whether or not around half of the 91 men still held can be released — continue to deliver significant results.

Two weeks ago, a Yemeni, Majid Ahmad — once, I believe, mistakenly described as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden — was approved for release, and last week the Periodic Review Secretariat announced another release, bringing the total number of men approved for release to 19, out of 22 results, a success rate of 86%. 36 of the 91 men still held have now been approved for release, 24 since 2010, and 12 through the PRBs (to add to the seven men already freed as a result of the PRBs).

As I noted last week, the success rate “reveals the extent to which dangerous hyperbole has played such a significant part in the story of Guantánamo, as these are men regarded six years ago as ‘too dangerous to release’ by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established shortly after taking office, even though the task force also conceded that insufficient evidence existed to put them on trial,” which “should have been a sign that the information used to continued imprisoning these men was profoundly unreliable, produced through the use of torture or other forms of abuse, or through bribing prisoners with better living conditions.” Read the rest of this entry »

Three weeks ago, my colleague Jeffrey Kaye, a full-time psychologist in California who also manages to find time to pursue a second career as a blogger producing important work on America’s torture program, wrote an article for Truthout about the use of water torture at Guantánamo, which pulled together information that was previously available, but scattered around a number of different sources, and which, I’m delighted to note, secured a wide audience online, also attracting interest in the mainstream media.

As a follow-up, Jeff recently wrote another article for Truthout, providing further examples of the use of water as a torture technique, not only in Guantánamo, but also in Afghanistan and Iraq, and to mark my return to work after two weeks away in Greece, I’m cross-posting his latest article as my own follow-up, because I cross-posted his earlier article just before my departure for Athens and Agistri, and I hope that making both articles available here will ensure that they reach new readers who have not yet come across Jeff’s work.

More Evidence of Water Torture “Depravity” in Rumsfeld’s Military
By Jeffrey Kaye, Truthout, August 18, 2011

There have been a number of cases of detainees held by the Department of Defense (DoD) who have been subjected to water torture, including some that come very close to waterboarding, according to an investigation by Truthout. The prisoners have been held in a number of settings, from Afghanistan and Iraq to Guantánamo Bay.

In a number of settings, DoD spokespeople in the past — most notably former secretary of defense Donald Rumsfeld — have denied the use of waterboarding by DoD personnel. But as examples of DoD water torture have multiplied, it appears government denials about “waterboarding” were overly legalistic, and that behind them, DoD personnel were hiding torture involving similar methods of choking, suffocation or near-drowning by water. Read the rest of this entry »