Photos from the monthly global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo on July 1, 2026. Clockwise, from top left: outside the White House in Washington, D.C., outside the US Embassy in London, outside the European Parliament in Brussels, and former Guantánamo prisoner Mansoor Adayfi at an OSCE event in Vienna (the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe).
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Last Wednesday, July 1, campaigners across the US and around the world held the 42nd consecutive monthly “First Wednesday” global vigils calling for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay.
Three vigils took place at key locations — outside the White House in Washington, D.C., outside the US Embassy in London, and outside the European Parliament in Brussels — and others took place in Detroit and Los Angeles. The regular New York vigil, on the steps of the central library in Manhattan, was cancelled because of an extreme heat warning, but, in Vienna, former Guantánamo prisoner marked the occasion while speaking at a supplementary meeting of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), and, on Saturday July 4, campaigners in Cobleskill, NY marked the occasion during their weekly vigil for peace and justice, which has been ongoing since the Iraq War.
This month, in particular, all the vigils had special relevance because of their proximity to July 4, the anniversary of US Declaration of Independence, which, this year, was marking its 250th anniversary, under the sickeningly unsuitable leadership of Donald Trump. Please see the photos below, and read on for my assessment of why the continued existence of Guantánamo so fatally undermines efforts to celebrate the 250th anniversary as marking a beacon of freedom from the executive tyranny of the British government under King George III.
Campaigners outside the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 1, 2026. Regular attendee Art Laffin (2nd from left) was joined by David, on the left, and Elspeth from Minneapolis, Catherine from Sacramento, and Gavrilah Wells from San Francisco. A mainstay of the global vigils for many years, Gavrilah explained that she, Art, Catherine and Elspeth were “all attending the 33rd annual Starvin’ for Justice Fast and Vigil to End the Death Penalty, taking place in front of the US Supreme Court, and calling for abolition of the Death Penalty on July 2, marking the 50th anniversary of Gregg v. Georgia, when the Death Penalty was reinstated state-by-state.” See the website of the Abolitionist Action Committee (AAC) for more information.Campaigners with the UK Guantánamo Network outside the entrance to the US Embassy in Nine Elms, London on July 1, 2026. Andy Worthington says, “We normally hold our vigils in Parliament Square, but twice a year we visit the US Embassy to make sure that they know that we haven’t forgotten them, and to mark key events in the US calendar; this time, of course, the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, for which I made a poster that some of the campaigners are holding (and see below for close-ups). Our next visit will coincide with the midterm elections in November. We were also pleased to be joined by a campaigner for the long-running peace camp for Gaza, across the road from the Embassy.” (Photo: Andy Worthington).Former Guantánamo prisoner Mansoor Adayfi holds up Andy Worthington’s poster to mark the hypocrisy of the US’s 250th anniversary of independence from executive tyranny at a “Supplementary Human Dimension Meeting” of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in Vienna on June 30, discussing “The US Torture Programs.” Posting this photo on X, Mansoor wrote, “250 years of what you call Independence. I have no idea what Independence means. All I know is your history started with a genocide against the Indigenous people whose land this was — and it never really stopped. It just changed shape. In Guantánamo, they denied me a book about US history. I didn’t need one. I lived it. I watched it from a cage. CIA black sites. Torture. Indefinite detention. No charge. No trial. No apology. All of it was built on a lie you called the ‘War on Terror.’ That prison is still open. 24 years later. Now it cages migrants too. This year alone, you killed Cuban soldiers and dragged a foreign president out of his own country in Venezuela. You attacked Iran and killed children in their school. You kept arming Israel’s genocide in Gaza. You helped erase a sixth of Lebanon from its own homes. Same flag. Same lies. Same bodies. Two hundred and fifty years, and you still haven’t run out of people to point the guns at. You call this freedom. I call it an empire that finally admitted, on its own anniversary, that it never stopped.”Campaigners in Brussels, outside the European Parliament on July 1, 2026, continue to expose its lies that it embodies “democracy in action”, as it continues to ignore the egregious crimes of the US government at Guantánamo, and to ignore its own governments’ historic complicity in the prison’s operations.Campaigners with Detroit Amnesty outside the Federal Building in Detroit on July 1, 2026. Geraldine Grunow wrote, “A photo from our small presence at the Federal Building in Detroit today, where we had several honks, including a puzzling one from an ICE van. It was nearly 100°F today, and it dawned on us that the temperatures at the Federal Building reflect the fact that there’s a 100°F degree range in temperature here in Detroit from midwinter to midsummer! Very best wishes to everyone who could make it to a vigil today.”Jon Krampner held a solo vigil outside a Post Office in Los Angeles on July 1, 2026. He wrote, “I didn’t have time to go to the Westside today or even downtown. So I went to my local post office, as I did once before. I recently bought a point-and-shoot camera, so when, soon after I got there, a woman said, ‘I agree with you’, I pressed my camera into her hands and had her take a photo. Later on, three people took photos of me standing there (two separate people almost back to back). One person. possibly a post office employee, said, ‘You can’t stand here and you have to leave.’ I said, ‘The First Amendment applies in front of federal buildings.’ He said, ‘No it doesn’t and I’m calling the police.’ ‘Go ahead’, I told him, and didn’t budge. He disappeared into the post office, never to return. The police, unsurprisingly, never showed up. I think — I don’t see that clearly through my hood — that he had some sort of ID on a lanyard around his neck, which is why I think he might have been a clerk or something.”
Campaigners in Cobleskill, NY on July 4, 2026, with a variety of posters and placards, including the “USA 250” poster relating to Guantánamo. Sue Spivack wrote, “12 Peacemakers of Schoharie County showed up to advocate for justice, equal rights and our 250 year old democracy today in Cobleskill, NY. They called for the closure of Guantánamo Bay prison, an end to the illegal confinement without due process rights of the current 15 prisoners, and the urgent need to close down all GITMO-style ICE prisons across the USA. As of July 4, ICE prisons are reported to hold 63,000 migrants and asylum seekers, many of whom have been legally living, working and raising families for years in the USA. Thanks for coordinating these monthly actions.”
From Oakland, CA, Ed Charles, the editor of the World Can’t Wait’s Spanish website, sent this supportive photo, also showing how long Guantánamo has been open, via the Close Guantánamo campaign’s Gitmo Clock website. Spanish readers can find a wealth of articles about Guantánamo on the site, including a comprehensive Spanish archive of my work.
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, singer/songwriter (The Four Fathers). Email Andy Worthington
Who's still at Guantánamo?
