Cliff Sloan, Former Envoy for Guantánamo Closure, On Why Cleared Prisoners, Including Shaker Aamer, Must Be Freed

Campaigners with Witness Against Torture show their support for Shaker Aamer in an action outside the British Embassy in Washington D.C. in January 2015.Last Wednesday, the Washington Post reawakened discussions about the future of Guantánamo, in an article entitled “Facing threat in Congress, Pentagon races to resettle Guantánamo inmates.” As I described it in my analysis of the article, the Post aired “the suggestion … that all the men approved for release in Guantánamo — 57 out of the 122 men still held — will be freed by the end of the year, and, if Congress proves obstructive, the Obama administration might close the facility before the end of Obama’s presidency by unilaterally moving the remaining prisoners to the US mainland.”

I was at pains to point out that, “[r]ealistically … it might be wisest to view these suggestions as the administration stating its best-case scenario,” but I found it convincing that, “[a]s a first step, officials plan to send up to 10 prisoners overseas, possibly in June,” and that one of these prisoners is Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, and I was reassured when a journalist friend explained that a source within the administration had told her that there was “cautious optimism” that these releases will indeed take place.

Following up on the story, Ian Woods of Sky News interviewed Cliff Sloan, the former State Department envoy for the closure of Guantánamo, who was appointed by President Obama in 2013. A veteran diplomat, Sloan left his job at the end of last year, but has continued to discuss Guantánamo, and the need for the prison’s closure, ever since. See his op-ed in the New York Times in January, for example. Read the rest of this entry »

“There’s a Part of Our Heart That’s Missing”: Shaker Aamer’s Sons Speak to Sky News on 13th Anniversary of His Arrival at Guantánamo

A screenshot of Ian Woods of Sky News interviewing two of Shaker Aamer's sons, Mikhail and Faris, in the presence of Saeed Siddique, Shaker's father-in-law, and Shaykh Suliman Ghani, the family's former imam.Yesterday (February 13) began with Sky News broadcasting an interview with two of the three sons of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who is still held despite being approved for release from the prison by the US authorities in 2007 and 2009. The two boys who were interviewed are Mikhail (or Micheal), 15 and Faris, who is 13 on Saturday, and whose birth, extraordinarily, took place on the day that his father arrived at Guantánamo. Shaker’s other son is Saif, and he also has a daughter, Johaina.

In their first TV interview, Shaker’s sons spoke about their father, and below is a transcript I’ve put together.

Ian Woods: Boys, I’d like to begin by showing you an interview that we arranged to have done yesterday at Guantánamo with a US officer explaining why your father is still detained. Read the rest of this entry »

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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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