Please support my work as a reader-funded investigative journalist, commentator and activist. If you can help, please click on the button below to donate via PayPal.

 

Weariness mingled with determination marked the mood at the nine monthly coordinated vigils for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay that took place across the US, and in London and Brussels, on November 6, 2024, the day after the US Presidential Election, when it had already become clear that Donald Trump would be the next president of the United States. Those involved represent organizations including Amnesty International, Close Guantánamo, Witness Against Torture, the World Can’t Wait, NRCAT (the National Religious Campaign Against Torture), Veterans for Peace and the UK Guantánamo Network.

Photos of these vigils are posted below, along with comments from those involved in organizing them, reflecting on their feelings as the news began to sink in that, in just ten weeks’ time, Guantánamo’s biggest supporter will be back in the White House. Please enjoy the photos and the commentary, and continue reading for my reflections on what this particular result means for the 30 men still held at Guantánamo. The next vigils are on Wednesday December 4, and in January we’ll break from our normal vigils on the first Wednesday of every month to join with other groups on Saturday January 11, the 23rd anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, when we’ll also be marking 8,400 days of Guantánamo’s existence.

While we all fear the worst for Trump’s second term as president — in connection with the already apocalyptic reality of climate collapse, women’s reproductive rights, the safety of immigrants and refugees, and, quite probably, unfettered support for Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip, and its predatory actions in the West Bank and Lebanon — what all of us gathered on Wednesday also knew immediately was that, specifically on Guantánamo, Trump will be an unmitigated disaster, sealing the prison shut as he did in his first term in office, so that no one will leave the prison unless, by some miracle, they secure a victory in a habeas corpus petition in a US court.

For nearly two years, since I initiated the monthly global vigils on the first Wednesday of every month in February 2023, campaigners have been working tirelessly to try to get the Biden administration to address the plight of the men still held at Guantánamo, in particular by releasing the men still held who have long been approved for release.

At the time of Trump’s victory, of the 30 men still held at Guantánamo, 16 of them, to Biden’s shame, have been approved for release for between two and four years, and in three outlying cases for nearly 15 years. All are still held because the decisions to release them were taken by high-level US government review boards, whose decisions were purely administrative, meaning that no legal mechanism exists to compel the government to actually free them, if, as has become increasingly apparent, the Biden administration has had no interest in doing so.

An additional complication is that, for the most part, these men cannot be sent back to their home countries, because of provisions created by Republicans, proscribing the return of prisoners to certain countries, which are included every year in the annual National Defense Authorization Act. As a result, third countries must be found that are prepared to offer them new homes.

A year ago, eleven of these men were meant to have been resettled in Oman, but their planned release coincided with the October 7 attacks in Israel, and was called off after the Biden administration decided that the “political optics” were not appropriate for their release.

No new date has been set for these men’s release, but what is desperately needed right now is for President Biden to recognize that, having failed to free anyone from Guantánamo since April 2023, and with the imminent horrors of Trump’s animosity towards everyone held there creeping closer with ever passing day, he needs to act with great urgency to locate a suitable destination for resettlement, and to finalize negotiations with the host country, or host countries, before December 19, so that they can freed on January 19, the day before Trump’s inauguration. The month’s delay relates to another act of Republican obstruction, requiring that Congress be notified 30 days before the release of anyone from Guantánamo.

In the coming weeks, I anticipate that lawyers and human rights organizations will be pooling resources to try to exert pressure on Biden in his last two months in office, and I intend to work with them as much as possible, and to do what I can to facilitate the involvement of activists and campaigners, who have been so important in trying to keep the injustice of Guantánamo in the public eye, to hold back the amnesia that otherwise threatens to engulf it entirely.

Please feel free to watch the video below, via YouTube, in which, at the London vigil, I explained the situation at Guantánamo right now, and why it is so imperative for President Biden to take swift action to free the men still held who have long been approved for release.

Further photos from the vigils are below.

The ninth vigil that took place on November 6 was in Los Angeles, via solitary campaigner Jon Krampner, who sent the following message: “I stood in front of the Downtown Los Angeles Federal Building for an hour today in my orange jumpsuit and black hood with my AI ‘Close Guantánamo’ sign. It seemed like there were a few more people than usual today. Apparently there were a lot of people there for their citizenship reviews, as I could occasionally hear building security officers tell prospective interviewees not to bring in any weapons, guns, knives, illegal drugs or alcohol. It seems counterintuitive to me that someone would show up to a citizenship interview with a bazooka, Bowie knife, line of coke and a pint of Jim Beam, but the federal government wants to have all bases covered. I did get one person to take a picture of me. I gave him a slip of paper with my e-mail address printed in 18-point boldface type and he appeared to send it to me while I was standing there. But, as is so often the case, when I got home, there was no e-mail from him.”

In Minneapolis, Amnesty campaigners canceled their proposed vigil, because, as they explained, “We have just left daylight savings time, so our event would have been in darkness.” Instead, however, they held a Virtual Guantánamo event instead, with members of the group urged to contact President Biden.

In Mexico City, meanwhile, campaigners were unable to hold their monthly vigil, but Natalia Rivera Scott wrote, “I took some photos with my altar for the Día de Muertos. Every year I put the names of the men of Guantánamo that have died so I hope it’s meaningful.” One of those photos is posted below.

* * * * *

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.

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.

 

For 20 months now, campaigners around the world — from organizations including Amnesty International, Close Guantánamo, Witness Against Torture, the World Can’t Wait, NRCAT (the National Religious Campaign Against Torture), Veterans for Peace and the UK Guantánamo Network — have held coordinated vigils across the US and around the world, on the first Wednesday of every month, calling for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay.

On October 2, campaigners held vigils outside the White House in Washington, D.C., in London, New York City, San Francisco, Brussels, Cobleskill, NY, Detroit, Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon. Campaigners in Mexico City weren’t able to take part this month, but secured photos of a former prisoner and of supporters holding up “Cierren Guantánamo” signs, and in Strasbourg, at the Council of Europe, a Belgian campaigner successfully persuaded delegates at a meeting to have a photo taken in solidarity with those holding vigils worldwide. Many of the campaigners also held up posters marking 8,300 days of Guantánamo’s existence the day before. The posters, an initiative of the Close Guantánamo campaign, mark every 100 days of the prison’s existence, and all of the 8,300 days photos — 70 in total — can be found here.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

 

Huge thanks to everyone who took part in the latest coordinated global monthly vigils for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay on September 4, 2024. My apologies for taking so long to collate the photos and to post this report, but on the day of the vigils I flew out to Sicily on a family holiday, where I was offline as part of a ten-day digital detox — a pause in the relentlessness of the bad news that plagues us on so many fronts, which I can heartily recommend to all activists and campaigners at risk of burnout from atrocity overload.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

 

On Wednesday (August 7) campaigners for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay marked 18 months of monthly coordinated global vigils for the prison’s closure at seven locations across the US — Washington, D.C., New York, San Francisco, Detroit, Minneapolis, Cobleskill, NY and Los Angeles — and in London and Brussels, with a delayed vigil taking place the day after in Mexico City. The campaigners represent numerous organizations committed to the closure of Guantánamo, including Amnesty International, Witness Against Torture, the World Can’t Wait, NRCAT (the National Religious Campaign Against Torture) and the UK Guantánamo Network, with numerous other supporting organizations.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

 

My thanks, as always, to the campaigners in ten different locations across the US and around the world who came together on Wednesday (July 3), to call for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay — in Washington, D.C., London, New York City, Mexico City, Brussels, San Francisco, Detroit, Cobleskill, NY, Minneapolis and Los Angeles, from organizations including Amnesty International, Witness Against Torture, the World Can’t Wait and the UK Guantánamo Network, and with supporting organizations including the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, the Center for Constitutional Rights and September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

 

On Wednesday, campaigners in ten locations across the US and around the world held the latest monthly coordinated global vigils calling for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, which, on June 23, will have been open for 8,200 days.

The monthly vigils, which I initiated last February, took place in Washington, D.C., New York, London, Mexico City, Brussels, San Francisco, Cobleskill, NY, Detroit, Minneapolis and Los Angeles, and focused, as usual, not just on calls for the prison’s eventual closure, but also for the immediate release of 16 men (out of the 30 still held) who have long been approved for release, but are still held because the decisions to release them — taken unanimously by high-level US government review processes — were, nevertheless, purely administrative. This means that no legal mechanism exists to compel the Biden administration to free them, if, as is increasingly apparent, President Biden and Antony Blinken have no interest in prioritizing their release.

As the poster that I update every month shows, as of June 5, these men had been held for between 621 and 1,315 days since the decisions were taken to release them, and, in three outlying cases, for 5,248 days. Any country that tolerates this cannot be said to have the slightest respect for the law, or, indeed, for any fundamental human notions of decency.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

 

With Gaza, understandably, dominating the news, as Israel’s genocide continues, and peaceful pro-Palestinian protestors at campuses across the US are being violently assaulted by police on behalf of their universities’ administrators, it’s a tribute to the tenacity of human rights campaigners at five locations across the US — and in London and Brussels — that, on Wednesday, they came out onto the streets to also try to remind people of the ongoing existence of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, and, in particular, the plight of the 16 men (out of 30 still held in total), who have long been approved for release but are still held.

Coordinated monthly vigils for the closure of Guantánamo have been taking place across the US and around the world on the first Wednesday of every month since I began organizing them last February, and on Wednesday, May 1, vigils took place in Washington, D.C., New York, London, Brussels, Cobleskill, NY, Detroit and Los Angeles.

San Francisco didn’t hold a vigil this month, but coordinator Gavrilah Wells took photos at two events at the weekend, and campaigners in Mexico City were also unable to take part, although Natalia Rivera Scott arranged instead for two former prisoners to take photos with posters calling for the prison’s closure.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

 

On Wednesday (April 3), the latest monthly coordinated vigils for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay took place at five locations across the US, in London, in Mexico City, and, as a special one-off event, in the European Parliament in Brussels.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

 

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

 

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.

Read the rest of this entry »