Andy Worthington's Blog, page 105

Video: We Stand With Shaker – Andy Worthington on RT, and the Islam Channel on the Human Rights Day Event with Mark Rylance and Vanessa Redgrave

What a busy two weeks it has been — first with the launch of the We Stand With Shaker campaign outside Parliament on November 24, and then, this week, with the release of our short film for Shaker for Human Rights Day (featuring Juliet Stevenson and David Morrissey) and, rather tending to overshadow everything else, the release of the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report into CIA torture; in other words, the report examining — and condemning — the Bush administration’s torture program.

My first thoughts about that report are here, in an article for Al-Jazeera, entitled, “Punishment, not apology after CIA torture report,” which I’m glad to say has had over 6200 likes so far.

In addition, the We Stand With Shaker campaign continues to make waves. Just as revulsion at the torture inflicted in the “war on terror” seems to have become somewhat fashionable, so the unjust imprisonment of Shaker Aamer is awakening indignation within the British establishment. This week the Daily Mail got on board, calling for Shaker’s release from its front page!

Below I’m posting a short interview I did on RT, on the day of the launch, which was only made available a few days ago, but which, I believe, captures well Shaker’s plight and the unjustifiable nature of his ongoing imprisonment:

Also included here is Wednesday’s episode of “The Report” on the Islam Channel, a 25-minute programme that focused on Human Rights Day, when few other media outlets did, even though they were almost all covering the torture report. I’m glad to note that, as well as looking at Human Rights Day around the world, the Islam Channel also filmed our event outside Parliament, when Mark Rylance and Vanessa Redgrave read out passages from Shaker’s Declaration of Shaker’s Declaration of No Human Rights, written in Guantánamo in response to the US betrayal of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, ratified by the UN 66 years previously, on December 10, 1948 (the same topic covered in our short film for Human Rights Day featuring Juliet Stevenson and David Morrissey.

The whole show is below, and the sections dealing with the event for Shaker run from 12:44 to 14:36 and right at the end of the show, from 24:20 to 25:24. In between, Shaykh Suliman Ghani, the imam of the Tooting Islamic Centre, which is attended by Shaker’s family, also shares his thoughts about Shaker’s case with presenter John Rees:

I hope you have time to watch these shows, and to share them if you find them useful. We were also featured on Al-Jazeera and on RT, but those news stories do not appear to be online, unfortunately.

Please also visit and like our Facebook page (now with 1500 likes), follow us on Twitter, watch the campaign video featuring Andy’s “Song for Shaker Aamer,” played by his band The Four Fathers (now with over 1000 views), and send in photos of yourself to our website, holding up a sign that reads, “I Stand With Shaker.”

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Quarterly Fundraiser Day 5: Still Seeking $1500 (£900) to Support My Work on Guantánamo, Torture and Shaker Aamer for the Next Three Months

Please support my work!

Dear friends and supporters,

What a busy week it’s been — with major campaigning for the release of Shaker Aamer as part of the We Stand With Shaker campaign I launched two weeks ago, and the release of the executive summary of the Senate torture report, which has secured more condemnation of torture than I have ever seen before — even if Dick Cheney is still on the “dark side.”

It’s the end of my quarterly fundraising week, and this is my last request until February 2015 for financial support for my work on Guantánamo, the case of Shaker Aamer and investigating and analyzing the torture program. Most of the work I do to educate people about Guantánamo and torture, and to campaign to get the prison closed and prisoners released, is unpaid — or, rather, is unpaid unless it is funded by you.

If you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to donate via PayPal (and I should add that you don’t need to be a PayPal member to use PayPal).

All contributions to support my work are welcome, whether it’s $25, $100 or $500 — or, of course, the equivalent in pounds sterling or any other currency. You can also make a recurring payment on a monthly basis by ticking the box marked, “Make This Recurring (Monthly),” and if you are able to do so, it would be very much appreciated.

Back in December 2008, when the Senate Armed Services Committee issued a major report examining in forensic detail how torture became a key part of the post-9/11 detention program, and I wrote about it, I don’t recall much interest, and I also recall how, for years, the British abandonment of Shaker Aamer was accepted because the British government claimed it was doing all it could to get him back, but his fate was in the hands of the Americans.

As many of you know, I have spent nine years researching and writing about Guantánamo and the “war on terror,” and I will continue to do so — looking at the torture report in more detail when I get the chance, campaigning to get Shaker Aamer and other prisoners released from Guantánamo, and campaigning to get Guantánamo closed once and for all.

If you can help with a donation at all, it will be very gratefully appreciated.

With thanks, as ever, for your support.

Andy Worthington

London

December 12, 2014

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Come and See Andy Worthington and the Four Fathers Play the Campaign Song for We Stand With Shaker in London on Saturday

If you’re in London on Saturday and can get to Brockley (SE4, two stops from London Bridge, three stops from Canada Water), I’ll be showcasing another of my interests, in addition to being a human rights journalist and campaigner — singing in a band, playing the campaign song I wrote for the We Stand With Shaker campaign that I launched with Joanne MacInnes two weeks ago.

My band The Four Fathers are playing at the Brockley Christmas Market, on Coulgate Street, right next to Brockley Station, from 1.30 to 2pm, and everyone is welcome. The event is free, and there will be loads of welcoming stalls selling Christmas presents, food and drink.

The We Stand With Shaker campaign seeks to secure the release from Guantánamo, without further delay, of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, who is still held, despite being cleared for release in 2007 and 2009, and despite the British government’s official position — that it is seeking his release and his return to his family in London.

The video for the campaign, made by the talented film student Billy Dudley, is below, via YouTube. It features the first verse and chorus of “Song for Shaker Aamer,” and those who come along on Saturday will be able to hear all three verses — the entire song, which will be available in the new year on The Four Fathers’ debut album, “Love and War.” Let Andy know if you want to pre-order a copy.

Please feel free to share it widely!

The Four Fathers features Andy on vocals and guitar, Richard Clare on guitar and backing vocals, Bren Horstead on drums, Andrew Fifield on flute and harmonica, and — not a father — the deft but rather more youthful Louis Sills-Clare on bass.

If you’re in London, I hope to see you on Saturday!

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Video: Juliet Stevenson and David Morrissey Star in New Film About Shaker Aamer for Human Rights Day, Calling for His Release from Guantánamo

Watch the video of Juliet Stevenson and David Morrissey reading from Shaker Aamer’s “Declaration of No Human Rights” below.

Yesterday, December 10, was Human Rights Day, marking the 66th anniversary of the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the United Nations (on December 10, 1948). Its 30 articles provided a benchmark for decent behaviour following the atrocities of the Second World War, and they have been enormously influential, leading, for example, to the UN Convention Against Torture, which was ratified in 1987.

However, after the dreadful terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the US swept aside laws and treaties dealing with the treatment of prisoners, embracing torture — as revealed on Tuesday in the executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA torture program, which I wrote about here — and engaging in a widespread program of kidnapping (“extraordinary rendition”) and indefinite detention without charge or trial.

A bleakly iconic manifestation of the US governments post-9/11 flight from the law is Guantánamo, where 136 men still languish, hoping that the uproar over the CIA’s torture program and its network of”black sites” will not mean that they — who have also suffered, and continue to suffer the torture of open-ended arbitrary detention, and, in some cases, brutal force-feeding — will be overlooked.

Shaker Aamer is one of these men. The last British resident in Guantánamo, he has been approved for release twice — in 2007 and 2009 — and the British government has been requesting his return since 2007, and yet, inexplicably and unacceptably, he is still held.

Two weeks ago, with a colleague, Joanne MacInnes, I launched a campaign, We Stand With Shaker, to secure the return of Shaker Aamer to the UK as soon as possible. We launched the campaign in London on November 24, with high-profile support, including music legend Roger Waters (ex-Pink Floyd), and our celebrity supporters can be seen here standing with the giant inflatable figure of Shaker (the “elephant in the room” of US-UK relations) that is a key part of the campaign.

Yesterday we released a short film featuring actors Juliet Stevenson and David Morrissey — and with contributions from Bill Paterson, Gillian Slovo, Janet Ellis and Andy Worthington and Joanne MacInnes of We Stand With Shaker — reading from the “Declaration of No Human Rights” that Shaker Aamer wrote in Guantánamo, in response to the US betrayal of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The film is posted below, via YouTube, and we hope you will watch it and share it widely:

With our high-profile support, and the timing of our campaign, we seem to be in a position to exert leverage that hasn’t existed before, and that, we hope, will lead to Shaker’s release. First, there was a flurry of releases from Guantánamo, and then the damning 500-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,700-page report on the CIA torture program was released, with its shocking details of cruelty, ineptitude and unaccountability, which seems to have managed to also focus some much-needed attention on Guantánamo.

We are delighted to report that today, unexpectedly, the Daily Mail joined the pressure to release Shaker, with the whole of its front page given over to Shaker’s story, under the headline, “Held in a hell hole for 13 years without trial,” and an editorial calling for his release.

In conclusion, for now, we hope you like the Human Rights Day video, and will share it as widely as possible.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Quarterly Fundraiser: Still Seeking $2000 (£1200) to Support My Work on Guantánamo, Shaker Aamer and Torture

Please support my work!

Dear friends and supporters,

Can you help to support my work on Guantánamo and torture — including the case of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison?

My work — my writing, my campaigning, my media appearances and personal appearances — is largely unfunded: or, to put it another way, is only funded if you, my readers and supporters, provide donations to support me.

If you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to donate via PayPal (and I should add that you don’t need to be a PayPal member to use PayPal).

All contributions to support my work are welcome, whether it’s $25, $100 or $500 — or, of course, the equivalent in pounds sterling or any other currency. You can also make a recurring payment on a monthly basis by ticking the box marked, “Make This Recurring (Monthly),” and if you are able to do so, it would be very much appreciated.

Readers can pay via PayPal from anywhere in the world, but if you’re in the UK and want to help without using PayPal, you can send me a cheque (address here — scroll down to the bottom of the page), and if you’re not a PayPal user and want to send a check from the US (or from anywhere else in the world, for that matter), please feel free to do so, but bear in mind that I have to pay a $10/£6.50 processing fee on every transaction. Securely packaged cash is also an option!

In addition to the writing published on my site, and all my campaigning and educational efforts, I am currently being called upon to discuss the Senate Intelligence Committee torture report, published yesterday — on TV news broadcasts and on the radio, appearances which are all unpaid — and I’m also busy with a campaign I launched two weeks ago, called We Stand With Shaker, specifically to try and secure the release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo. This entire campaign is completely unfunded, and is taking up a huge amount of time, but it is all part of the necessary work involved in trying to get men who are unjustly detained released from Guantánamo, and in trying to get the prison closed down, once for all.

Thanks, as ever, for your interest in my work. Without you, I simply can’t do what I do — and have been doing for nearly nine years — and with your support I hope to continue working on Guantánamo, the case of Shaker Aamer and the US torture program into 2015 and beyond.

Andy Worthington

London

December 10, 2014

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Prosecutions Now! Please Read My New Article for Al-Jazeera About the Release of the Senate Torture Report

Dear friends and supporters,

I hope you have time to read my new article for Al-Jazeera English, “Punishment, not apology after CIA torture report” looking at yesterday’s release of the 500-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 6,700-page report into the CIA’s “Detention and Interrogation Program,” which took five years to complete, and cost $40m; or, in other words, the release of the summary of the Committee’s report about the Bush administration’s torture program, as run by the CIA.

In the article, I run through the history of the secretive program and how knowledge of it became public, from 2004 onwards (and including a mention of the report on secret detention for the UN in 2010, on which I was the lead writer and researcher), and I also look at a few of the genuinely shocking stories that emerge from the executive summary, some of which are shocking even for those of us who have spent years — in my case nearly nine years — researching and writing about the torture program.

I remain worried, however, that the Committee’s important work will be swept under the carpet, and that no one will be held accountable — by which I don’t just mean CIA officials, and James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, the former SERE psychologists who designed the program (and earned $81m as a result!), as much as those who gave them their orders in the first place; namely, President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and the various lawyers around them — David Addington, William J. Haynes II, John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales, for example — who did so much to initiate the torture program and to attempt to justify it.

If you have the time to read my article — and if you like it — then please feel free to share it. I have been looking at the US torture program in its various forms — in the “black sites,” in proxy sites, in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at Guantánamo — for nearly nine years, and I remain as concerned as I have all along that those who initiated and approved the torture program be held accountable; otherwise, the poison of torture will continue to infect US society as a whole — and as Article 2.2 of the UN Convention Against Torture states:

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

That part of the Torture Convention could almost have been written to refer specifically to the 9/11 attacks, and the hideous response of the Bush administration, so thoroughly documented in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s torture report. However, it was written in the 1980s, and ratified by the US — and now there must be accountability for those who claimed, wrongly, that the trauma of 9/11 was an excuse for torture to become official US policy, as it was while the CIA torture program existed — and, it should be noted, from February 7, 2002, when George W. Bush issued a memo depriving the prisoners at Guantánamo of their Geneva Convention rights, until June 29, 2006, when the Supreme Court reminded the Bush administration, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that all prisoners seized in wartime — without any exceptions — are protected from torture and ill-treatment by Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Quarterly Fundraiser: Please Help Me Raise $2500 to Support My Guantánamo Work

Please support my work!

Dear friends and supporters,

Every three months I ask you, if you can, to support my work on Guantánamo and the “war on terror” by making a donation. Most of the work I do to educate people about Guantánamo, and to campaign to get the prison closed, is unpaid — or, rather, it is unpaid unless it is funded by you, my readers — and this quarter is no exception.

I recently launched a campaign called We Stand With Shaker, specifically to try and secure the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison. With a colleague, Joanne MacInnes, we launched it two weeks ago, and we seem to be getting noticed, in particular through our photos of celebrities — including actors, comedians, politicians, journalists and musicians — standing with a giant inflatable figure of Shaker. Some of you may also be surprised to discover that I also wrote and sang the campaign song, featured in the official video for the campaign.

This project has been taking up a huge amount of time, although, like so much of my work, it is completely unfunded, so any assistance you can provide will be very gratefully received, as the campaign continues, with new initiatives planned for the next few months, as well as the daily updates of celebrities standing with Shaker.

If you can help out at all, please click on the “Donate” button above to donate via PayPal (and I should add that you don’t need to be a PayPal member to use PayPal).

All contributions to support my work are welcome, whether it’s $25, $100 or $500 — or, of course, the equivalent in pounds sterling or any other currency. You can also make a recurring payment on a monthly basis by ticking the box marked, “Make This Recurring (Monthly),” and if you are able to do so, it would be very much appreciated.

Readers can pay via PayPal from anywhere in the world, but if you’re in the UK and want to help without using PayPal, you can send me a cheque (address here — scroll down to the bottom of the page), and if you’re not a PayPal user and want to send a check from the US (or from anywhere else in the world, for that matter), please feel free to do so, but bear in mind that I have to pay a $10/£6.50 processing fee on every transaction. Securely packaged cash is also an option!

I realize that there are probably many causes calling out for your support at this time of year, and if you can’t help out, I completely understand, but now is a particularly good time to maintain pressure on the Obama administration — and on David Cameron in Shaker Aamer’s case — as President Obama has been showing a willingness to release prisoners recently, and I am hopeful that my annual visit to the US — to coincide with the anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, on January 11 — will be an opportunity to attract more attention that usual. I will be in the US for around two weeks, and although my flights will be paid for, no one will be paying for my time — unless you can help out by donating to support me.

In closing, thank you for your interest in my work. As ever, it is true to say that I genuinely can’t do what I do without your help.

Andy Worthington

London

December 8, 2014

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

Who Are the Six Men Freed from Guantánamo and Given New Homes in Uruguay?

Great news regarding Guantánamo, as yesterday the Pentagon announced that six men, long cleared for release from the prison — four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian — have been resettled in Uruguay as refugees.

Back in March, President José Mujica of Uruguay — a former political prisoner — announced that he had been approached by the Obama administration regarding the resettlement of Guantánamo prisoners and had offered new homes to a number of men, cleared for release from the prison in 2009 by President Obama’s high-level Guantánamo Review Task Force, who could not be safely repatriated.

In May, President Mujica’s offer was confirmed, as I explained in an article entitled, “Uruguay’s President Mujica Confirms Offer of New Home for Six Guantánamo Prisoners,” but the releases were then delayed. The Obama administration ran into problems with Congress after releasing five Taliban prisoners in exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, the sole US prisoner of war in Afghanistan, and, according to various reports, defense secretary Chuck Hagel dragged his heels when it came to notifying Congress of any proposed releases, as required by law. In addition President Mujica ran up against hostility from his political opponents — which was particularly difficult in an election year.

Now, however, the election is over, with victory going to Tabaré Vázquez, an ally of Mr. Mujica’s, and the delays attributed to Chuck Hagel have also been overcome. As the New York Times reported, “the deal was ready to go in March,” but “Mr. Hagel waited until July to notify Congress that he was approving” it. Then, in August, “when the United States sent a plane to Guantánamo to bring the men out, Mr. Mujica balked, preferring to avoid the media spectacle of their arrival in the middle of an election campaign to choose his successor.”

Speaking after the men’s release, Mr. Mujica “emphasised that Uruguay would not place restrictions on the mobility of the six men,” as the New York Times described it, “saying that their arrival with refugee status meant that ‘the first day they want to leave, they can go.'” The Times also noted that, “When they arrived in Uruguay early Sunday morning, five of the men were taken to a military hospital for examinations. A sixth who was described as in more fragile health was taken to a civilian facility, Hospital Maciel, according to a report the Uruguayan radio station Monte Carlo.”

Meanwhile, Chuck Hagel’s reluctance to approve prisoner releases apparently contributed to his resignation last month. As the New York Times reported:

Mr. Hagel approved a flurry of transfers in late 2013, but in 2014 the process ground to a halt as he did not move on the Uruguay deal, nor on a proposal to repatriate four low-level Afghans and make other arrangements in the pipeline.

His reluctance to sign off on these agreements contributed to a deterioration in his relations with the White House. In May, President Obama’s national security adviser, Susan Rice, sent Mr. Hagel a memo pressuring him to pick up the pace, and Mr. Hagel, in an interview, explained that he was in no hurry to approve deals.

“My name is going on that document; that’s a big responsibility,” Mr. Hagel said at the time, adding: “What I’m doing is, I am taking my time. I owe that to the American people, to ensure that any decision I make is, in my mind, responsible.”

Recently, however, there has been movement on Guantánamo that is reassuring. Fawzi al-Odah, one of the last two Kuwaitis in the prison, was sent home a month ago, then five men — four Yemenis and a Tunisian — were given new homes in Georgia and Slovakia, and then a Saudi was repatriated.

136 men are now held in Guantánamo, 67 of whom have also been approved for release. The majority are Yemenis, still held because of a reluctance throughout the US establishment to overcome their fears about the security situation in Yemen. One notable prisoner still held is Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, whose ongoing imprisonment is inexplicable, and last week I set up a new campaign, We Stand With Shaker, in an effort to secure his release.

The case of Abu Wa’el Dhiab

The best-known of the six men is Abu Wa’el Dhiab (ISN 722), a Syrian approved for release in 2009, who has been on a hunger strike because of his despair at ever being released, and who, as a result, has been force-fed. A father of three children — originally four, but one child died during his long years in US custody — Mr. Dhiab is in a wheelchair because of the decline in his health during 12 years in US custody, and he has, this year, been involved in a high-profile legal challenge against the US government.

Mr. Dhiab’s case was turned down in the District Court last summer, but revived after a favourable ruling in the D.C. Circuit Court in February, and in May, as I explained in a recent article:

[District Judge Gladys Kessler, in Washington D.C.,] briefly ordered the government to stop force-feeding Mr. Dhiab. This order was swiftly rescinded, as Judge Kessler feared for his life, but she also ordered videotapes of his “forcible cell extractions” (FCEs) and his force-feeding to be made available to his lawyers, who had to travel to the Pentagon’s secure facility outside Washington D.C. to see them. After viewing them, Cori Crider, his lawyer at Reprieve, said, “While I’m not allowed to discuss the contents of these videos, I can say that I had trouble sleeping after viewing them,” and added, “I have no doubt that if President Obama forced himself to watch them, he would release my client tomorrow.”

Mr. Dhiab himself said, “I want Americans to see what is going on at the prison today, so they will understand why we are hunger-striking, and why the prison should be closed. If the American people stand for freedom, they should watch these tapes. If they truly believe in human rights, they need to see these tapes.”

More recently, Judge Kessler — disappointingly — upheld the authorities’ right to force-feed Mr. Dhiab, and also granted the government a delay in releasing the videotapes, but Mr. Dhiab’s case has been a profound embarrassment for the authorities, and, as the New York Times reported, although Mr. Dhiab’s release “may make most of that case moot … a dispute over whether videotapes of the procedure must be disclosed to the public is expected to continue” — and other prisoners, still held, are also queuing up to challenge their treatment and to seek the release of videotapes.

Commenting on his release, Cori Crider, a director at the legal action charity Reprieve and one of Mr. Dhiab’s lawyers, said, “We are grateful to the government of Uruguay — and President Mujica in particular — for this historic stand. Very few people can truly comprehend what the cleared men in Guantánamo suffer every day, but I believe Mr. Mujica is one of them. Like President Mujica, Mr. Dhiab spent over a dozen years as a political prisoner. Mr Dhiab was never charged, never tried. President Mujica spent two years at the bottom of a well; for most of the past two years, Mr. Dhiab has had a team of US soldiers truss him up like an animal, haul him to a restraint chair, and force-feed him through a tube in his nose. The President’s compassion has ended that torture.”

She added, “Despite years of suffering, Mr. Dhiab is focused on building a positive future for himself in Uruguay. He looks forward to being reunited with his family and beginning his life again. Let’s not forget that Mr. Dhiab and the others freed today leave behind many men just like them: cleared prisoners warehoused in Guantánamo for years. Reprieve hopes that other countries will follow the positive example set by the Uruguayan government today, and help President Obama close this shameful prison.”

The stories of the five other men

The three other Syrians — Abdelhadi Faraj (ISN 329), described by the Pentagon as Omar Mahmoud Faraj, Ali Hussein al-Shaaban (ISN 327), described as Ali Hussain Shaabaan, and Ahmed Adnan Ahjam (ISN 326) — had been living together in Kabul, and, as I explained in my article in May, “were captured together crossing from Afghanistan to Pakistan in December 2001, along with another man, Maasoum Mouhammed, who was given a new home in Bulgaria in May 2010. Last year, Abdelhadi Faraj took part in the prison-wide hunger strike, and his account of that can be found here, and in February 2013 Ali Hussein al-Shaaban’s lawyer, Michael E. Mone Jr., wrote a brief article about his client’s plight for the Boston Globe. Also see here for an interview with David Marshall, the lawyer for Ahmed Adnan Ahjam, conducted in 2013 by The Talking Dog.”

As I explained in my book The Guantánamo Files in 2007, “The four men certainly matched the profiles of economic migrants, drifting from country to country in search of employment, and drawn to Afghanistan by its Arab-influenced reputation for welcoming Muslims from all around the world. They said that only seven people lived at the house (themselves, the owner, and two other Syrians), and that they all put money in to keep the place running.”

According to his account in Guantánamo, Ahmed Adnan Ahjam worked for a Saudi humanitarian aid charity, Ali Hussein al-Shaaban, who was just 19 years old when he was seized, came from a poor family in Syria and had been an ironsmith in his father’s store, and told his tribunal at Guantánamo that he went to Afghanistan because he wanted to move there to seek a new life, and Abdelhadi Faraj, who was just 20 years old when he was seized, told his tribunal at Guantánamo that he had been working at a store in Kabul, but that he planned to move on to Pakistan when a friend sent him money from Syria.

As I also explained in my article in May:

The Palestinian is Mohammed Taha Mattan (ISN 684) [described by the Pentagon as Mohammed Tahanmatan] who, like the handful of other Palestinians held at Guantánamo and subsequently released, is essentially stateless, as he can only return with the blessing of the Israeli government, which has no intention of allowing any former Guantánamo prisoner to return home. I most recently profiled his case here, mentioning how he was not only cleared for release by President Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force in 2009 … but had also been cleared for release under President Bush in October 2007. I also mentioned how, sadly, he was one of three prisoners that the German government was planning to accept in 2010, but was the only one left behind in Guantánamo when, for political reasons, a decision was taken to accept just two men instead.

The sixth man is Abdul Bin Mohammed Abis Ourgy (ISN 502), aka Abdul bin Ourgy, a Tunisian, who had been an Italian resident before he traveled to Afghanistan and was captured and sent to Guantánamo. He had apparently married an Afghan woman in 2000, and was first cleared for release by a military review board under the Bush administration.

What now?

In its coverage of the release of the prisoners, the New York Times noted, “The Obama administration hopes that if it can shrink the inmate population to two digits, Congress will revoke a law that bars the transfer of detainees into the United States. It would be far cheaper for taxpayers to house the inmates on domestic soil, and the White House argues that closing Guantánamo would eliminate a propaganda symbol for terrorists to use against the country.”

As I noted in an article last week, Congress has passed legislation preventing prisoners from being moved to the US mainland for many years (in the annual National Defense Authorization Act), and recently did so again. As a result, reducing the population by making sure that all the men approved for release are actually released is a good way for President Obama to argue that keeping Guantánamo open for less than 70 men is unjustifiably expensive.

That ought to be obvious, as should Guantánamo’s damaging role as a propaganda symbol. However, the prison — and the fate of those held there — has become part of a cynical game of political football, which not only costs a fortune and inflames tensions abroad. In addition, the existence of Guantánamo also causes inestimable damage to the US’s claim that it is a nation that respects the rule of law, and after nearly 13 years that terrible situation needs to be brought to an end.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

See the following for articles about the 142 prisoners released from Guantánamo from June 2007 to January 2009 (out of the 532 released by President Bush), and the 95 prisoners released from February 2009 to November 2014 (by President Obama), whose stories are covered in more detail than is available anywhere else –- either in print or on the internet –- although many of them, of course, are also covered in The Guantánamo Files, and for the stories of the other 390 prisoners released by President Bush, see my archive of articles based on the classified military files released by WikiLeaks in 2011: June 2007 –- 2 Tunisians, 4 Yemenis (here, here and here); July 2007 –- 16 Saudis; August 2007 –- 1 Bahraini, 5 Afghans; September 2007 –- 16 Saudis; September 2007 –- 1 Mauritanian; September 2007 –- 1 Libyan, 1 Yemeni, 6 Afghans; November 2007 –- 3 Jordanians, 8 Afghans; November 2007 –- 14 Saudis; December 2007 –- 2 Sudanese; December 2007 –- 13 Afghans (here and here); December 2007 –- 3 British residents; December 2007 –- 10 Saudis; May 2008 –- 3 Sudanese, 1 Moroccan, 5 Afghans (here, here and here); July 2008 –- 2 Algerians; July 2008 –- 1 Qatari, 1 United Arab Emirati, 1 Afghan; August 2008 –- 2 Algerians; September 2008 –- 1 Pakistani, 2 Afghans (here and here); September 2008 –- 1 Sudanese, 1 Algerian; November 2008 –- 1 Kazakh, 1 Somali, 1 Tajik; November 2008 –- 2 Algerians; November 2008 –- 1 Yemeni (Salim Hamdan) repatriated to serve out the last month of his sentence; December 2008 –- 3 Bosnian Algerians; January 2009 –- 1 Afghan, 1 Algerian, 4 Iraqis; February 2009 — 1 British resident (Binyam Mohamed); May 2009 —1 Bosnian Algerian (Lakhdar Boumediene); June 2009 — 1 Chadian (Mohammed El-Gharani), 4 Uighurs to Bermuda, 1 Iraqi, 3 Saudis (here and here); August 2009 — 1 Afghan (Mohamed Jawad), 2 Syrians to Portugal; September 2009 — 1 Yemeni, 2 Uzbeks to Ireland (here and here); October 2009 — 1 Kuwaiti, 1 prisoner of undisclosed nationality to Belgium; October 2009 — 6 Uighurs to Palau; November 2009 — 1 Bosnian Algerian to France, 1 unidentified Palestinian to Hungary, 2 Tunisians to Italian custody; December 2009 — 1 Kuwaiti (Fouad al-Rabiah); December 2009 — 2 Somalis, 4 Afghans, 6 Yemenis; January 2010 — 2 Algerians, 1 Uzbek to Switzerland, 1 Egyptian, 1 Azerbaijani and 1 Tunisian to Slovakia; February 2010 — 1 Egyptian, 1 Libyan, 1 Tunisian to Albania, 1 Palestinian to Spain; March 2010 — 1 Libyan, 2 unidentified prisoners to Georgia, 2 Uighurs to Switzerland; May 2010 — 1 Syrian to Bulgaria, 1 Yemeni to Spain; July 2010 — 1 Yemeni (Mohammed Hassan Odaini); July 2010 — 1 Algerian, 1 Syrian to Cape Verde, 1 Uzbek to Latvia, 1 unidentified Afghan to Spain; September 2010 — 1 Palestinian, 1 Syrian to Germany; January 2011 — 1 Algerian; April 2012 — 2 Uighurs to El Salvador; July 2012 — 1 Sudanese; September 2012 — 1 Canadian (Omar Khadr) to ongoing imprisonment in Canada; August 2013 — 2 Algerians; December 2013 — 2 Algerians, 2 Saudis, 2 Sudanese, 3 Uighurs to Slovakia; March 2014 — 1 Algerian (Ahmed Belbacha); May 2014 — 5 Afghans to Qatar (in a prisoner swap for US PoW Bowe Bergdahl); November 2014 — 1 Kuwaiti (Fawzi al-Odah); November 2014 — 3 Yemenis to Georgia, 1 Yemeni and 1 Tunisian to Slovakia, and 1 Saudi.

UN Says Force-Feeding at Guantánamo Constitutes Ill-Treatment in Violation of the Convention Against Torture

I’ve been so busy lately with the launch of We Stand With Shaker, the new campaign to secure the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, that I haven’t had time to write anything — until now — about the United States’ recent appearance before the United Nations Committee Against Torture to explain its position on the torture and ill-treatment of prisoners in its custody.

The session — which took place on November 12 and 13, and was the first US report to the Committee Against Torture since 2006, when George W. Bush was president — led to numerous criticisms in the Committee’s response, adopted on November 20; in the Guardian‘s words, of “indefinite detention without trial; force-feeding of Guantánamo prisoners; the holding of asylum seekers in prison-like facilities; widespread use of solitary confinement; excessive use of force and brutality by police; shootings of unarmed black individuals; and cruel and inhumane executions.”

The Committee was also concerned about the US record on torture, expressing “its grave concern over the extraordinary rendition, secret detention and interrogation programme operated by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) between 2001 and 2008, which involved numerous human rights violations, including torture, ill-treatment and enforced disappearance of persons suspected of involvement in terrorism-related crimes” — concerns expressed in a 2010 UN report about secret detention on which I was the lead author (and also see here, here and here) — and reminded the US about “the absolute prohibition of torture reflected in article 2, paragraph 2, of the Convention [Against Torture], stating that ‘no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.'” The Committee also called for the long-delayed Senate Intelligence Committee torture report — or, more accurately, its executive summary — to be issued without further delay.

The Committee also focused on a loophole allowing torture in Appendix M of the Army Field Manual — as assiduously covered by my colleague Jeff Kaye for many years (and I’ll shortly be cross-posting his analysis of the Committee’s findings) — and also expressed concerns that the US has still not adequately ratified every aspect of the Convention Against Torture — which came into force in 1987. The Committee was specifically disappointed that “a specific offence of torture has not been introduced yet at the federal level,” adding that they were “of the view that the introduction of such offence, in full conformity with article 1 of the Convention, would strengthen the human rights protection framework” in the US. The Committee was also disappointed that the US “maintains a restrictive interpretation of the provisions of the Convention and does not intend to withdraw any of its interpretative understandings lodged at the time of ratification,” adding, “In particular, the concept of ‘prolonged mental harm’ introduces a subjective non-measurable element which undermines the application of the treaty.”

The question of police brutality — in which the Committee expressed “deep concern” about the “frequent and recurrent police shootings or fatal pursuits of unarmed black individuals,” and also noted the “difficulties to hold police officers and their employers accountable for abuses” — has, of course, come to the fore in recent weeks, through the lack of prosecutions for the killing of black men — firstly in Ferguson, with the shooting of Michael Brown, and most recently in New York, with the choking to death of Eric Garner — and it is no surprise that the streets of the US have erupted with demands for change in huge numbers.

I also concur with the Committee’s concerns about the death penalty, the shockingly widespread use of solitary confinement, the poor treatment of asylum seekers, and deaths as a result of poor prison conditions — the Committee was “particularly concerned about reports of inmate deaths [that] occurred as a result of extreme heat exposure while imprisoned in unbearably hot and poor ventilated prison facilities in Arizona, California, Florida, New York, Michigan and Texas.” However, as my particular area of expertise is Guantánamo, here’s my detailed analysis of what the Committee had to say about Guantánamo.

On Guantánamo, the Committee began with some positive comments, welcoming the fact that, since 2006, the Supreme Court had recognized “the extraterritorial application of constitutional habeas corpus rights to aliens detained by the military as enemy combatants at Guantánamo Bay,” in Boumediene v. Bush in June 2008; and that, on January 22, 2009, President Obama had issued “Presidential Executive Orders 13491 — Ensuring Lawful Interrogations, 13492 — Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base and Closure of Detention Facilities, and 13493 — Review of Detention Policy Options,” and, on March 7, 2011, “Presidential Executive Order 13567 establishing a periodic review of detainees at the Guantánamo Bay detention facility who have not been charged, convicted or designated for transfer.”

So much for the good news — although, in the end, that involved a Supreme Court ruling gutted by the D.C. Circuit Court after a couple of golden years of judges ordering prisoners released through a lack of evidence of any wrongdoing whatsoever; an unfulfilled promise to close Guantánamo; a periodic review process that is horribly slow; and some dubious posturing about “lawful interrogations,” specifically through the Appendix M loophole mentioned above.

Following on, the Committee expressed its “deep concern” about the fact that the US “continues to hold a number of individuals without charge at Guantánamo Bay detention facilities,” adding, “Notwithstanding the State party’s position that these individuals have been captured and detained as ‘enemy belligerents’ and that under the law of war is permitted ‘to hold them until the end of the hostilities’, the Committee reiterates that indefinite detention constitutes per se a violation of the Convention [Against Torture].”

The Committee also expressed concern that, of the men still held — 148 at the time; 142 now — “only 33 have been designated for potential prosecution, either in federal court or by military commissions – a system that fails to meet international fair trial standards,” and that “36 others have been designated for ‘continued law of war detention.'” The Committee added, “While noting that detainees held in Guantánamo have the constitutional privilege of the writ of habeas corpus, the Committee is concerned at reports that indicate that federal courts have rejected a significant number of habeas corpus petitions” —  echoing the dismay felt by advocates for the prison’s closure when the D.C. Circuit Court cynically shut down habeas corpus for the Guantánamo prisoners in a number of rulings from 2009 to 2011, which the Supreme Court refused to challenge.

The Committee also noted that, although the US government had provided “explanations … concerning the conditions of detention at Guantánamo,” they remained “concerned about the secrecy surrounding conditions of confinement, especially in Camp 7 where high-value detainees are housed.”

The Committee also noted “studies received on the cumulative effect that the conditions of detention and treatment in Guantánamo have had on the psychological health of detainees” — echoing what Christophe Girod of the International Committee of the Red Cross had pointed out in October 2003, when he said, ”The open-endedness of the situation and its impact on the mental health of the population has become a major problem.”

The Committee also mentioned the “nine deaths in Guantánamo during the period under review, including seven suicides,” adding, “In this respect, another cause of concern is the repeated suicide attempts and recurrent mass hunger strike protests by detainees over indefinite detention and conditions of detention.”

Crucially, it was added, “In this connection, the Committee considers that force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike constitutes ill-treatment in violation of the Convention [emphasis added]. Furthermore, it notes that detainees’ lawyers have argued in court that force feedings are allegedly administered in an unnecessarily brutal and painful manner (arts. 2, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16).”

The reference to “force-feeding of prisoners on hunger strike” as “ill-treatment in violation of the Convention” is particularly damaging, as, last year, a prison-wide hunger strike attracted global concern, and, this year, the Obama administration has been resisting efforts by a number of prisoners (in particular a Syrian man, Abu Wa’el Dhiab) to get a judge to order an end to his force-feeding.

In conclusion, the Committee called on the US to “take immediate and effective measures” to:

(a) Cease the use of indefinite detention without charge or trial for individuals suspected of terrorism-related activities;

(b) Ensure that detainees held at Guantánamo who are designated for potential prosecution be charged and tried in ordinary federal civilian courts. Any other detainees who are not to be charged or tried should be immediately released. Detainees and their counsels must have access to all evidence used to justify the detention;

(c) Investigate allegations of detainee abuse, including torture and ill- treatment, appropriately prosecute those responsible, and ensure effective redress for victims;

(d) Improve the detainees’ situation so as to persuade them to cease the hunger strike;

(e) Put an end to force-feeding of detainees in hunger strike as long as they are able to take informed decisions;

(f) Invite the UN Special Rapporteur on torture to visit Guantánamo Bay detention facilities, with full access to the detainees, including private meetings with them, in conformity with the terms of reference for fact-finding missions by Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights Council.

The Committee added that it “reiterates its earlier recommendation (CAT/C/USA/CO/2, para 22) that the State party should close the detention facilities at Guantánamo Bay, as instructed in section 3 of Executive Order 13492 of 22 January 2009.”

I’m glad to see such robust criticism from the UN, although I expected no less, and I await, in particular, to see if the Committee’s criticism of force-feeding will have any impact as the Obama administration, cynically, seeks to prevent the judge-ordered release of videotapes showing the force-feeding and “forcible cell extractions” of Abu Wa’el Dhiab, mentioned above.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.

More Guantánamo Releases Planned Despite Hostility in Congress

[image error] I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012 with US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

In a hopeful sign of ongoing progress on Guantánamo, following the recent release of six prisoners, Julian Barnes of the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that defense and congressional officials had told him that the Pentagon was “preparing to transfer additional detainees” from Guantánamo “in the coming weeks.”

After four Yemenis and a Tunisian were given new homes in Georgia and Slovakia, and a Saudi was repatriated, defense officials “said there would be more transfers in December, but declined to detail their numbers or nationalities.”

Laura Pitter, the senior national security counsel for Human Rights Watch, said in response, “There does seem to be a renewed effort to make the transfers happen,” which, she added, seems to indicate a desire on the president’s part to continue working towards closing the prison, as he promised when he took office in January 2009, before Republicans raised obstacles that he has, in general, not wished to spend political will overcoming.

There is clearly a flurry of activity on Guantánamo right now, because Rep. Howard “Buck” McKeon (R-Calif.), the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and a staunch supporter of Guantánamo, recently complained, at a congressional hearing, about “an increase in the number of notifications by the administration to lawmakers on coming Guantánamo transfers.”

For prisoners to be released from Guantánamo, passages inserted by lawmakers into the National Defense Authorization Act over the last few years have stipulated that the defense secretary must certify to Congress that anyone to be released will not pose a significant threat to US national security.

Reports in September indicated that Chuck Hagel, the defense secretary, had been dragging his heels when it came to approving prisoners for release. In May, speaking of the certification process, he said, “My name is going on that document. That’s a big responsibility.”

The Wall Street Journal‘s take on this was that administration officials “privately complained that Mr. Hagel [had] moved too slowly to certify detainees for release,” whereas Hagel’s aides said he was “committed to thorough reviews before releases.”

Last week, Chuck Hagel announced his resignation as defense secretary, apparently under pressure from the White House — for reasons that, it seems, involve the unrelated desire of the White House to step up military action against ISIS/ISIL in the Middle East in spite of Hagel’s reticence.

The Wall Street Journal noted that officials told them that senior White House officials “are growing impatient as the clock ticks down on the Obama administration and the president’s promise of closing Guantánamo remains unfulfilled,” despite an increase in the release of prisoners since a major speech on national security issues last May — and a promise to resume releasing prisoners that we are monitoring here, at the Gitmo Clock website.

However, despite Hagel’s pending departure, defense officials said that he “would continue to review and approve proposals to transfer detainees out of the prison.”

“He will continue apace,” one particular defense official said, adding, “It will be business as usual.”

According to the New York Times, Hagel notified Congress that he had “approved 11 other detainee transfers,” with six of those expected to be to Uruguay. Earlier this year, the outgoing president, José Mujica, agreed to take six men — apparently  four Syrians, a stateless Palestinian and a Tunisian — but their arrival was delayed because of the presidential election. That has now ended favourably, with the election of another leftist president, albeit one less radical than José Mujica.

It is not known what Hagel’s as yet unknown successor will make of Guantánamo, of course, but the Wall Street Journal suggested it “could mean that Pentagon reviews of transfers must start anew.” However, I would find that a little surprising.

Of greater concern, I think, is what Congress will do. The day before yesterday, Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told reporters that a deal between House and Senate negotiators on passages relating to Guantánamo in the annual National Defense Authorization Act had led to a final bill that “omits a provision giving the president the authority to transfer [prisoners] to the United States if Congress signs off on a comprehensive plan to close the prison,” as the Associated Press described it.

In May, the Senate Armed Services Committee had come up with a plan that Sen. Levin hailed at the time as a path to close Guantánamo,” with a provision allowing prisoners to be sent to a facility on US soil “for detention, trial and incarceration, subject to stringent security measures and legal protections, once the president has submitted a plan to Congress for closing Guantánamo and Congress has had an opportunity to vote to disapprove that plan under expedited procedures.”

That same month, however, the version of the bill passed by the House of Representatives maintained the prohibition on the transfer of prisoners to the US mainland, and with Democrats now in a minority in the Senate, it is unsurprising — though still bitterly disappointing — that Sen. Levin’s plan failed.

It remains to be seen what wording will prevail in the final version of the bill to be passed by the House and then the Senate in the near future, but it is clear that it will not make the promise to close Guantánamo any easier.

As the Wall Street Journal noted, however, those calling for the closure of Guantánamo point out that, “even in the face of a Republican Congress, there are some points of leverage for the Obama administration” — for example, the extraordinary cost of running the prison. Human rights advocates, the newspaper stated, “note that as the number declines, the per-inmate cost rises, increasing pressure to close the prison.” As Laura Pitter of Human Rights Watch explained, it currently costs around $3 million a year per prisoner to hold the 142 men still held, compared to a fraction of that cost on the US mainland — plus, of course, 73 of these men have been approved for transfer, and yet are still being held, at a cost of nearly $220 million a year.

Getting these men out must remain a priority, and if Congress maintains its opposition to the transfer of the other men to the US mainland so that Guantánamo can be closed, then President Obama must come up with some other options. It is imperative that he fulfills his promise before leaving office.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, the director of “We Stand With Shaker,” calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) 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 here for the US).

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, and “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see 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.