In the third of a series of articles linking to and promoting videos and recordings of events held to mark the 20th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay on January 11, 2022 (see the first two here and here), I’m posting links to two radio shows in which I was interviewed, and also to a Turkish TV show in which I was joined by other critics of the prison’s ongoing existence.
On January 11 itself — the 20th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo — I was delighted to be part of a discussion, “20 Years On: What Will It Take to Close Guantánamo Bay?” on “The Newsmakers,” a regular feature on TRT World, the English language channel of the Turkish national broadcaster TRT.
I appeared with Mark Fallon, the author of Unjustifiable Means: The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon, and US Government Conspired to Torture, and Tracy Doig of the UK-based Freedom from Torture (formerly the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture). From 2002 to 2004, Fallon was the director of the Criminal Investigative Task Force (CITF) at Guantánamo, whose organization tried to build criminal cases against prisoners using non-coercive interrogations, while other agencies were engaged in the use of torture and other forms of abuse, which he strongly opposed. He was also one of the authors of a report, “13 Recommendations to Close the Guantánamo Bay Detention Facility,” which was published on the anniversary by the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL) at theUniversity of Pennsylvania.
With just twelve days to go until the 20th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, this would seem like a good time to make available some of the videos from ‘Guantánamo: 20 Years After’, the online conference on November 12 and 13, hosted by the University of Brighton, which I helped to organize.
The conference featured two keynote speakers (myself and former prisoner Shaker Aamer, standing in at the last minute for Mohamedou Ould Slahi), guest speakers Mansoor Adayfi (another former prisoner) and Antonio Aiello (who worked with Mansoor on his memoir, Don’t Forget Us Here, published this summer), ten academics delivering papers, and three panel discussions.
I posted a report about the conference just after it had taken place, although at the time videos of the presentations weren’t available, so I’m delighted to be able to present them now for those of you who weren’t able to attend the conference — or even for those of you who were, and will appreciate seeing them again.
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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