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On Saturday (January 14), the UK Guantánamo Network held a powerful and inspiring march and vigil for the closure of Guantánamo in central London.

The UK Guantánamo Network, formed in 2021, comprises representatives of various Amnesty International groups, Close Guantánamo, the Guantánamo Justice Campaign, the London Guantánamo Campaign and Freedom From Torture, and under the inspiring leadership of Convenor Sara Birch (of Lewes Amnesty Group), representatives of at least seven Amnesty groups (Lewes, the Kent Network, Reading, Blackheath and Greenwich, Ealing, Brighton and Hillington) turned up, as well as myself, representing Close Guantánamo, members of the Guantánamo Justice Campaign, and supporters of Julian Assange, whose extradition case is intimately tied in with Guantánamo, as it involves charges relating to the classified military files from the prison that were released by WikiLeaks in 2011, and on which I worked as a media partner.

We gathered in Old Palace Yard opposite the Houses of Parliament at 11.30am, dressing up in orange jumpsuits and hoods, and then, holding placards calling for the closure of the prison and photos of the 35 men still held, we marched in single file, and in silence, up Whitehall, via Parliament Square and 10 Downing Street, to Trafalgar Square, with various photo opportunities along the way.

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Good news for a change, as the Tories definitively lose control of London (OK, I’m slightly jumping the gun, but the Guardian is reporting that “Sadiq Khan ‘has won’ London mayoral race,” and Jeremy Corbyn has already sent Khan his congratulations). The Tories, who were already down in terms of MPs after last year’s General Election (when 45 of the capital’s 73 Parliamentary seats went to Labour), have now lost the Mayor, with Labour’s Sadiq Khan soundly beating Zac Goldsmith, and in the capital-wide elections for members of the Greater London Assembly, with 14 of the 25 seats counted, Labour had nine seats (a gain of one), and the Tories had five (a loss of one). The BBC reported that 43% of Londoners had voted Labour, 31% had voted Tory, and the Green Party had come third.

This is good news for Sadiq Khan, of course, but also for Jeremy Corbyn, in his first electoral test as Labour Party leader, and for the Labour Party as a whole the results are a vindication of his leadership — especially satisfying after the artificial anti-Semitism row that Labour right-wingers and a throughly unprincipled mainstream media were all too delighted to promote. At the time of writing Labour had held almost all its council seats across England, and had also held 29 seats in Wales (just short of a majority). The only dimmed light is in Scotland, where the SNP continues to replace them as the party of the left — and where, shockingly, the Tories pushed them into third place.

In London, of course, the Tories persistently shot themselves in the foot. Zac Goldsmith failed to connect with people and looked like he didn’t want the job — and it’s interesting to see how people aren’t fooled by a lack of desire for the job. However, his woes multiplied in the last few weeks when he hired the black propagandist Lynton Crosby, the Australian who has been behind the Tories’ relentlessly black propaganda for the last six years, which, it is important to note, is single-handedly responsible for the horrendous increase in the petty hatreds that have come to typify modern Britain — dominated, in particular, by racism, but also targeting anyone vulnerable, as can be seen by the government’s relentless assault on the unemployed and the disabled. Read the rest of this entry »

Please sign and share the petition, calling for David Cameron to apologise to Suliman Gani, which currently has over 1,100 signatures.

Yesterday evening, friends of Suliman Gani launched a petition on Change.org, urging Prime Minister David Cameron to retract allegations he made two weeks ago about Muslim community organiser Suliman Gani. At Prime Minister’s Questions, David Cameron called him a supporter of Islamic State (IS), when nothing could be further from the truth. Mr Gani has, in fact, appeared at an event called ‘The Evils of Isis’, at which he condemned their actions, and has repeatedly explained how their actions are un-Islamic.

The Prime Minister’s false allegations were part of an effort to undermine Sadiq Khan prior to today’s London Mayoral elections, which also involved Zac Goldsmith, who called Mr. Gani “one of the most repellent figures in this country”, while failing to remember that he had a photo taken with Mr. Gani at an event last year, and also failing to recognise that Mr. Gani has long expressed support for and interest in the Conservative Party.

Today, as Londoners go to the polls to vote for the capital’s next Mayor, please sign and share the petition, and please vote wisely. Read the rest of this entry »

What a disgrace the Tories are. With Zac Goldsmith consistently trailing Sadiq Khan in the polls, prior to the election of London’s Mayor on May 5, campaign managers — including PR guru Lynton Crosby, who specialises only in the kind of black propaganda that has dragged politics into the gutter for the last six years — decided to play the race card, accusing Khan, a Muslim, of sharing platforms with Muslim extremists, and singling out, for particular attention, Suliman Gani, a teacher and broadcaster, and formerly the imam of Tooting Islamic Centre.

This was an odd choice, as anyone who knows Suliman Gani can confirm, because he is no extremist, but, rather, a community leader who tries to build bridges between communities, and a tireless advocate for human rights. I have known him for many years through my work on Guantánamo and the campaign to free Shaker Aamer, and have always found him to be thoroughly decent. Although he is socially conservative, and opposed to gay marriage, which is not a position I take, it is one that many Tories do, but I have no reason to suspect that he views women as “subservient,” as alleged, or, crucially, to believe that he is at all supportive of terrorism.

So it came as a real shock when, last Thursday, speaking of individuals Sadiq Khan has shared a platform with, Zac Goldsmith said, “To share a platform nine times with Suliman Gani, one of the most repellent figures in this country, you don’t do it by accident.” Read the rest of this entry »