Andy Worthington's Blog, page 108

Omar Khadr Urges Canadian Government to Respect the Law While Dealing with National Security Issues

In the wake of last week’s attacks in Ottawa by a lone gunman, Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who killed a soldier at the National War Memorial and also attacked Parliament Hill, and another attack in Quebec, where a warrant officer was run over and killed, the word “terrorism” has been used liberally, and the Canadian government has rushed to release a new bill, the “Protection of Canada from Terrorists Act,” which, if passed, “will expand the powers of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service,” as the Globe and Mail reported.

The paper stated that sources had told them that the government was “weighing new tools to deal with citizens who openly support terrorist attacks on Canadians or back groups that urge this goal,” and that “the country’s top Mountie”  — RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson — was “calling on the government to make it easier to restrict the liberties of suspects in terror cases.” When senior officials start talking openly about restricting liberties, alarm bells should always start ringing.

In another chilling passage, the Globe and Mail noted that the government “has already signalled it’s looking at lowering the threshold for preventive arrests.” That is chilling, of course, because “preventive arrests” overturns the accepted concept of the law as something that is designed to deal with crimes that have taken place, not crimes that may or may not take place in the future.

In response to the Ottawa attacks, there have also been many voices calling for restraint, not least Thomas Mulcair, the leader of the New Democrat Party, who yesterday took exception to the use of the word terrorism in relation to the attacks. “I don’t think that we have enough evidence to use that word,” he said after an NDP caucus meeting.

The Toronto Star, noting that Mulcair “said he based his opinion on reports that Zehaf-Bibeau had been struggling with mental illness, for which he had tried to seek help,” also noted that Mulcair said of the government, “They’ve used the word [terrorism] from the get-go. It was the word that they used immediately before any of this other information was out there and frankly the information that is now available to the public comforts me in my choice not to use the word terrorism in describing the act that took place here.”

He added, “It doesn’t take away from the horror of what took place. It doesn’t make it any less criminal, but I think there is a distinction to be used and when you look at the background of the individual and what was actually going on, that the use of that word was not the appropriate one. That’s our point of view. That’s my point of view.”

Anyone who has been looking closely at Canada’s counter-terrorism powers since 9/11 — or, perhaps more accurately, its powers in relation to what it claims to be terrorism, even if that term is inaccurate — will be alarmed by the tendency to hysteria of some of the current discourse.

After all, since 9/11, Canada has introduced a system of house arrest, on the basis of secret evidence, enforced by security certificates, even though the use of secret evidence ought to alarm anyone who believes in the necessity of open justice to prevent executive overreach or the protection of the intelligence services from scrutiny. This regime continues to blight the lives of people like Mohamed Harkat, persecuted by the government for 12 years, even though he has never been charged or tried with any offence.

Then there is the monstrous injustice of Canadian complicity with the Bush administration in the rendition of Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria, where he was tortured, and the betrayal of other Canadian citizens to the Syrian regime in the early years of the “war on terror” (see the section on Syria in my 2010 report for the UN about secret detention here).

Another glaring injustice is, of course, the case of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen abandoned for ten years in Guantánamo — with the exception of visits by Canadian agents that, the Canadian Supreme Court eventually ruled, violated his rights. Khadr’s story is a disgrace. He was just 15 years old at the time of his capture in Afghanistan in July 2002, but instead of recognizing their UN treaty obligations to recognize him as a juvenile who cannot have been responsible for his actions, because he was under the care of his father, and to rehabilitate him rather than punishing him, both the US and Canada treated him as though he was not a child, with the US abusing him while the Canadian government either turned a blind eye, or, with the visits by intelligence personnel, actively aided the Americans in their abuse.

Eventually, the US put Khadr forward for a kangaroo court trial on invented war crimes charges, and, in October 2010, he accepted a plea deal as the only means of guaranteeing his release from Guantánamo, which guaranteed him an eight-year sentence — with one more year to be served in Guantánamo, followed by seven years in Canada.

The Canadian government then dragged its heels on securing Khadr’s release for nearly a year, and, since his return, has continued to demonize him, and to oppose his transfer to a medium-security prison where he can apply for parole. That battle was finally won by Khadr, but he remains the victim of unacceptable lies and distortions by the government.

As a result, it was heartening to see that, on Tuesday, the Ottawa Citizen published an op-ed by Khadr in response to the latest fears about terrorism, entitled, “Misguided security laws take a human toll,” which I am cross-posting below. As well as reflecting on his own case, and its bearing on the current situation, Khadr also mentioned a conference on Wednesday, “Arar +10: National Security and Human Rights a Decade Later,” about which a short report was published in the Ottawa Citizen, providing a brief summary of what took place.

Below is Omar Khadr’s timely op-ed. Please do share it if you find it useful.

Misguided security laws take a human toll

By Omar Khadr, Ottawa Citizen, October 28, 2014

Ten years ago the Canadian government established a judicial inquiry into the case of Maher Arar. That inquiry, over the course of more than two years of ground-breaking work, examined how Canada’s post-Sept. 11 security practices led to serious human rights violations, including torture.

At that same time, 10 years ago and far away from a Canadian hearing room, I was mired in a nightmare of injustice, insidiously linked to national security. I have not yet escaped from that nightmare.

As Canada once again grapples with concerns about terrorism, my experience stands as a cautionary reminder. Security laws and practices that are excessive, misguided or tainted by prejudice can have a devastating human toll.

A conference Wednesday in Ottawa, convened by Amnesty International, the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group and the University of Ottawa, will reflect on these past 10 years of national security and human rights. I will be watching, hoping that an avenue opens to leave my decade of injustice behind.

I was apprehended by US forces during a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002. I was only 15 years old at the time, propelled into the middle of armed conflict I did not understand or want. I was detained first at the notorious US air base at Bagram, Afghanistan; and then I was imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay for close to 10 years. I have now been held in Canadian jails for the past two years.

From the very beginning, to this day, I have never been accorded the protection I deserve as a child soldier. And I have been through so many other human rights violations. I was held for years without being charged. I have been tortured and ill-treated. I have suffered through harsh prison conditions. And I went through an unfair trial process that sometimes felt like it would never end.

I am now halfway through serving an eight-year prison sentence imposed by a Guantánamo military commission; a process that has been decried as deeply unfair by UN human rights experts. That sentence is part of a plea deal I accepted in 2010.

Remarkably, the Supreme Court of Canada has decided in my favour on two separate occasions; unanimously both times. Over the years, in fact, I have turned to Canadian courts on many occasions, and they have almost always sided with me. That includes the Federal Court, the Federal Court of Appeal and the Alberta Court of Appeal.

In its second judgement, the Supreme Court found that Canadian officials violated the Charter of Rights when they interrogated me at Guantánamo Bay, knowing that I had been subjected to debilitating sleep deprivation through the notorious ‘frequent flyer’ program. The Court concluded that to interrogate a youth in those circumstances, without legal counsel, “offended the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.” That ruling was almost five years ago.

I had assumed that a forceful Supreme Court ruling, coming on top of an earlier Supreme Court win, would guarantee justice. Quite the contrary, it seemed to only unleash more injustice.

Rather than remedy the violation, the government delayed my return from Guantánamo to Canada for a year and aggressively opposed my request not to be held in a maximum security prison. It is appealing a recent Alberta Court of Appeal decision that I should be dealt with as a juvenile under the International Transfer of Offenders Act.

No matter how convincingly and frequently Canadian courts side with me, the government remains determined to deny me my rights.

I will not give up. I have a fundamental right to redress for what I have experienced.

But this isn’t just about me. I want accountability to ensure others will be spared the torment I have been through; and the suffering I continue to endure.

I hope that my experience — of 10 years ago and today — will be kept in mind as the government, Parliament and Canadians weigh new measures designed to boost national security. Canadians cannot settle for the easy rhetoric of affirming that human rights and civil liberties matter. There must be concrete action to ensure that rights are protected in our approach to national security.

National security laws and policies must live up to our national and international human rights obligations. I have come to realize how precious those obligations are.

That is particularly important when it comes to complicity in torture, which is unconditionally banned.

I have also seen how much of a gap there is in Canada when it comes to meaningful oversight of national security activities, to prevent violations.

And I certainly appreciate the importance of there being justice and accountability when violations occur.

I want to trust that the response to last week’s attacks will not once again leave human rights behind. Solid proof of that intention would be for the government to, at a minimum, end and redress the violations I have endured.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.

12 Nobel Peace Prize Winners Tell President Obama to Reveal Full Details of the US Torture Program and to Close Guantánamo

Yesterday (October 27), 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, sent a powerful and important letter to President Obama – himself a recipient of the prize — calling for him to disclose in full “the extent and use of torture and rendition by American soldiers, operatives, and contractors, as well as the authorization of torture and rendition by American officials,” and to provide “[c]lear planning and implementation for the closure of Guantánamo prison, putting an end to indefinite detention without due process.”

The 12 Nobel Peace Prize winners also called for verification that all “black sites” abroad have been closed, and also called for the “[a]doption of firm policy and oversight restating and upholding international law relating to conflict, including the Geneva Convention and the UN Convention against Torture, realigning the nation to the ideals and beliefs of their founders — the ideals that made the United States a standard to be emulated.”

It is unfortunate that these demands remain necessary — that, as the authors of the letter explain, “In recent decades, by accepting the flagrant use of torture and other violations of international law in the name of combating terrorism, American leaders have eroded the very freedoms and rights that generations of their young gave their lives to defend.”

From the very beginning, the letter, which I am posting below in its entirety, echoes everything that I and other campaigners — for the closure of Guantánamo and for those who authorized and implemented the US torture program to be held accountable — have been saying for many long years. The Nobel Peace Prize winners mention the importance of President Obama’s recent “open admission” that the US engaged in torture — when, in August, he said, with contrived casualness, “We tortured some folks,” and proceed to mention the current elephant in the room in America’s discussion with itself about torture — the 6,300-page Senate Intelligence Committee report into the torture program, commissioned in 2009, which was approved by the committee in December 2012. The intention was for a 480-page executive summary to be released, but it has been caught up in wrangling with the CIA, and it is still not known when it will be released — although the authors of the letter make a point of expressing their hope that it is imminent.

The authors then mention how some of them have experienced torture themselves — a powerful point that should not be lost on President Obama or the American people — and add that they “stand firmly with those Americans who are asking the US to bring its use of torture into the light of day, and for the United States to take the necessary steps to emerge from this dark period of its history, never to return.”

The letter then proceeds to examine how torture harms not just the tortured, but also the torturers — a point that is not made often enough — and then explains why it is so disappointing that America, founded on the rule of law, took a lawless trip to the “dark side” after the 9/11 attacks.

I hope you have time to read the letter, and to share it if you find it useful.

12 Nobel Peace Prize Winners’ Letter to President Obama about Torture, Rendition, Indefinite Detention and the Rule of Law

October 27, 2014

President Barack Obama

The White House

1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW

Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President,

The open admission by the President of the United States that the country engaged in torture is a first step in the US coming to terms with a grim chapter in its history. The subsequent release of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence summary report will be an opportunity for the country and the world to see, in at least some detail, the extent to which their government and its representatives authorized, ordered and inflicted torture on their fellow human beings.

We are encouraged by Senator Dianne Feinstein’s recognition that “the creation of long-term, clandestine ‘black sites’ and the use of so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ were terrible mistakes,” as well as the Senate Committee’s insistence that the report be truthful and not unnecessarily obscure the facts. They are important reminders that the justification of the torture of another human being is not a unanimous opinion in Washington, or among Americans as a whole.

We have reason to feel strongly about torture. Many of us among the Nobel Peace Prize laureates have seen firsthand the effects of the use of torture in our own countries. Some are torture survivors ourselves. Many have also been involved in the process of recovery, of helping to walk our countries and our regions out of the shadows of their own periods of conflict and abuse.

It is with this experience that we stand firmly with those Americans who are asking the US to bring its use of torture into the light of day, and for the United States to take the necessary steps to emerge from this dark period of its history, never to return.

The questions surrounding the use of torture are not as simple as how one should treat a suspected terrorist, or whether the highly dubious claim that torture produces “better” information than standard interrogation can justify its practice. Torture is, and always has been, justified in the minds of those who order it.

But the damage done by inflicting torture on a fellow human being cannot be so simplified. Nor is the harm done one-sided. Yes, the victims experience extreme physical and mental trauma, in some cases even losing their lives. But those inflicting the torture, as well as those ordering it, are nearly irreparably degraded by the practice. As torture continues to haunt the waking hours of its victims long after the conflict has passed, so it will continue to haunt its perpetrators.

When a nation’s leaders condone and even order torture, that nation has lost its way. One need only look to the regimes where torture became a systematic practice — from Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany to the French in Algeria, South Vietnam, the Khmer Rouge and others — to see the ultimate fate of a regime so divorced from their own humanity.

The practices of torture, rendition and imprisonment without due process by the United States have even greater ramifications. The United States, born of the concept of the inherent equality of all before the law, has been since its inception a hallmark that would be emulated by countries and entire regions of the world. For more than two centuries, it has been the enlightened ideals of America’s founders that changed civilization on Earth for the better, and made the US a giant among nations.

The conduct of the United States in the treatment of prisoners through two World Wars, upholding the tenets of the Geneva Convention while its own soldiers suffered greatly from violations at the hands of its enemies, again set a standard of treatment of prisoners that was emulated by other countries and regions. These are the Americans we know. And believing that most Americans still share these ideals, these are the Americans we speak to.

In recent decades, by accepting the flagrant use of torture and other violations of international law in the name of combating terrorism, American leaders have eroded the very freedoms and rights that generations of their young gave their lives to defend. They have again set an example that will be followed by others; only now, it is one that will be used to justify the use of torture by regimes around the world, including against American soldiers in foreign lands. In losing their way, they have made us all vulnerable.

From around the world, we will watch in the coming weeks as the release of the Senate findings on the United States torture program brings the country to a crossroads. It remains to be seen whether the United States will turn a blind eye to the effects of its actions on its own people and on the rest of the world, or if it will take the necessary steps to recover the standards on which the country was founded, and to once again adhere to the international conventions it helped to bring into being.

It is our hope that the United States will take the latter path, and we jointly suggest that the steps include:

a. Full disclosure to the American people of the extent and use of torture and rendition by American soldiers, operatives, and contractors, as well as the authorization of torture and rendition by American officials.

b. Full verification of the closure and dismantling of ‘black sites” abroad for the use of torture and interrogation.

c. Clear planning and implementation for the closure of Guantánamo prison, putting an end to indefinite detention without due process.

d. Adoption of firm policy and oversight restating and upholding international law relating to conflict, including the Geneva Convention and the UN Convention against Torture, realigning the nation to the ideals and beliefs of their founders – the ideals that made the United States a standard to be emulated.

Respectfully,

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, South Africa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1984

President José Ramos-Horta, Timor-Leste, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1996

Mohammad ElBaradei, Egypt, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2005

Leymah Gbowee, Liberia, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2011

Muhammad Yunus, Bangladesh, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 2006

Oscar Arias Sanchez, Costa Rica, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1987

John Hume, Northern Ireland, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1998

F.W. De Klerk, South Africa, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1993

Jody Williams, USA, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1997

Bishop Carlos X. Belo, Timor-Leste, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1996

Betty Williams, Northern Ireland, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1976

Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Argentina, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, 1980

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.

Fifth Guantánamo Prisoner’s Release Recommended by Periodic Review Board, But When Will These Men Be Released?

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.

“What does it take to get out of Guantánamo?” is a question I have asked before, but it remains, sadly, one of permanent relevance. Last week it surfaced again when two decisions were announced regarding men — both Saudis — whose cases had been considered by Periodic Review Boards (PRBs), a process established last year to review the cases of the Guantánamo prisoners who have not been approved for release, and are not facing trials. At the time the PRBs were set up, that involved 71 men, but some of those men have since been freed.

The PRBs decided that one man, Muhammad Murdi lssa al-Zahrani, whose review took place in June, should be freed. The board explained that they “considered the uncorroborated nature of the information about the detainee’s level of involvement with al-Qaeda, the detainee and his family’s lack of ongoing contacts or ties with at-large extremists, the detainee’s behavior while in detention, and the detainee’s candor with the board about his presence on the battlefield, expressions of regret, and desires for a peaceful life after Guantánamo.”

The board members also stated that they had “considered the Saudi rehabilitation program,” and were “confident in the efficacy of the program for a detainee with his particular mindset,” adding, “The detainee demonstrated an understanding of the Saudi rehabilitation program and a willingness to participate, and his family also expressed support for the program.”

However, any joy Muhammad al-Zahrani might have felt at this news would certainly have been tempered by the fact that, although he is the fifth man to have his release recommended by a PRB since January this year, all of these men are still held.

The other man, Muhammad Abd al-Rahman al-Shumrani, whose review took place in May, and who refused to attend, because of his objection to intimate physical searches, had his continued imprisonment recommended by the PRB, on the basis that “continued law of war detention of the detainee remains necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”

However, it is by no means certain that the review board’s reasoning, as stated in its Final Determination, is accurate. The board described him as “a recruiter and facilitator for al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Saudi Arabia,” who fought in Afghanistan, and has demonstrated “problematic and unpredictable behavior in detention, including significant disciplinary infractions.”

The latter may be true, but may only demonstrate that he is unhappy with his imprisonment without charge or trial for nearly 13 years, and his abusive conditions of confinement during those years. On the former points, however, the conclusions sound much more grave than they did at the time of his PRB, when, as I described it at the time, they noted that:

he was “recruited for jihad while working as a high school teacher in Saudi Arabia,” and subsequently traveled to Afghanistan, where he underwent military training and fought against the Northern Alliance for a few months. The US authorities allege that, in addition, he “almost certainly” also fought against US forces, but no proof is provided for this additional allegation.

Moreover, I worry that the PRBs provide a veneer of legitimacy to the ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial of almost all of the remaining 149 prisoners, when, after 13 years, there is no legitimate reason for them to continue to be held without charge or trial. They should either be put on trial, or the US should be preparing to release them, as the rationale for holding them — America’s major military presence in Afghanistan — will soon be coming to an end.

For the moment, though, the main concern, for those of us working towards the closure of Guantánamo, is those men whose release has been approved, but who are still held, and they number not just the five men approved for release by PRBs, but 75 others, whose release was approved five years ago — in 2009 — by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established to review all the prisoners’ cases shortly after he took office in January 2009.

The majority of these 80 men — 58 in total — are Yemenis (including three recommended for release by the PRBs), and the Obama administration needs to find the courage to send these men home, and to overcome the general reluctance of the US establishment to put aside its fears regarding the security situation in Yemen; otherwise, the review processes at Guantánamo are meaningless.

The other 22 men are from other countries — and include Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo. For some of these men, negotiations are certainly underway, as in the cases of six men who cannot be safely repatriated, and who are hoping that Uruguay will offer them a new home.

However, there are now two other men — not Yemenis — who have had their release approved by PRBs; not just Muhammad al-Zahrani, but also Fawzi al-Odah, one of the last two Kuwaitis in Guantánamo, who was cleared for release in July (while his compatriot, Fayiz al-Kandari, was recommended for ongoing imprisonment). No one has provided a valid reason why Fawzi al-Odah has not been freed — to Kuwait, a solid US ally — and that is because there is no good reason.

For the Periodic Review Boards to claim any integrity, all five men approved for release need to be released as soon as possible — and for the Obama administration’s credibility, it is also important that the 75 other men cleared for release should also be freed.

What you can do now

To call for the release of all the men approved for release from Guantánamo, please phone the White House on 202-456-1111 or 202-456-1414 or submit a comment online.

You can also call the Department of Defense and ask Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to issue certifications, as required by Congress, for prisoners cleared for release who are still held: 703-571-3343.

You can also call Cliff Sloan, the envoy for the closure of Guantánamo at the State Department, who was appointed by President Obama last year, to ask him to do more to secure the release of men long cleared for release: 202-647-4000.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.

Judge Grants Government a Month’s Delay in Release of Guantánamo Force-Feeding Videotapes

[image error]Last Thursday, in the latest development in Guantánamo prisoner Abu Wa’el Dhiab’s quest to stop his force-feeding, District Judge Gladys Kessler gave the US government a one-month delay in complying with her recent order for videotapes of Mr. Dhiab’s force-feeding and his “forcible cell extractions” — in which armored guards violently remove prisoners from their cells — to be publicly released.

The challenge by Mr. Dhiab — one of 80 prisoners approved for release but still held — has been putting pressure on the Guantánamo authorities, and on the Obama administration, for many months, as I explained at the time of the ruling about releasing the videotapes, three weeks ago, when I wrote:

This ruling is the latest in a string of powerful rulings by Judge Kessler, who, in May, 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.”

As Spencer Ackerman explained for the Guardian, Judge Kessler “permitted the 30-day delay, requested by the Justice Department, in advance of a widely anticipated decision by the government to appeal Kessler’s earlier order for the redacted release of the tapes.” Ackerman added, “Should it take its case to the federal court of appeals, it will be gambling on a bigger victory against disclosure” — although there is, of course, no way of knowing which way the appeals court will  swing. From 2009 to 2011, the court was disgracefully hostile to the Guantánamo prisoners, via their habeas corpus petitions, but in recent years judges have surprised critics by delivering rulings undermining the authorities — regarding the military commissions, for example.

Explaining the month’s delay granted by Judge Kessler, Spencer Ackerman noted that, in her order three weeks ago, Judge Kessler “did not specify a timeline for the tapes’ release, a measure lawyers believed constrained the Justice Department’s appeal options.” Last week, however, Judge Kessler provided some dates — October 17 to finish preparing the videotapes for disclosure, by redacting the identities of US personnel, and October 20 for the government and the coalition of media organizations who had sought the release of the tapes to agree on terms for their release.

With dates in place, the Justice Department argued in its request for a stay, which was submitted to the court last Wednesday, that meeting the deadlines “would preclude its right to appeal against Kessler’s decision,” as Spencer Ackerman put it, adding that, in addition, “it cannot meet her deadline for redacting voluminous video footage.”

In their submission, Justice Department lawyers wrote, “Two weeks is not enough time for respondents to review more than 11 hours of video and implement the complex redaction process necessary to comply with the court’s order.”

Adding further details — of rather poor arguments advanced by the Justice Department lawyers, the Washington Post stated:

Government attorneys did not commit to filing appeal, but they argued in asking for a stay that the videos might help detainees or other US enemies develop “countermeasures” or reveal the physical layout of Guantánamo Bay in such a way that it could “disrupt good order” there. They also said the videos might be used to “increase anti-American sentiment and inflame Muslim sensitivities overseas.”

On Thursday, the day after the Justice Department submitted its motion, the coalition of media organizations argued, as Ackerman described it, that “an ‘open-ended’ request for a stay would run afoul of ‘significant, on-going harm to the public’s constitutional right of access that a stay would inflict.’” The Washington Post noted they had stated, “Months from now, the evidence will still be of historic interest, but during the pendency of this proceeding, it is news.”

On Friday, lawyers for Mr. Dhiab submitted what the Post called “their final, written pitch” to Judge Kessler, calling their client’s force-feeding akin to “torture,” and requesting the judge to “order them to use what they view as more humane practices.”

The lawyers — Cori Crider and Alka Pradhan of Reprieve, and Jon B. Eisenberg — also “said the judge should step in to prevent the military from causing the 43-year-old detainee ‘gratuitous pain‘ as a response to his hunger strike,” as the Post described it, adding that they said Mr. Dhiab “does not wish to die, but his on-and-off hunger strike is his only avenue to protest his prolonged detention without a trial.”

The lawyers also explained, “Mr. Dhiab’s English is rudimentary, but his plea — ‘I am human!’ — is clear enough. So are his cries of pain.”

The Post also noted that it is “possible — even likely — Kessler could rule on how Dhiab is being force-fed before the dispute about their release [the release of the videos] is settled,” noting that Mr. Dhiab “wants a doctor — not prison officials — to determine when the feedings are absolutely necessary. He wants to be able to go to the sessions in a wheelchair. He wants fewer restraints used. And he wants the tube that is inserted in his nose for the feedings to be left in for days, rather than taken out after each time it is used.”

As the lawyers described it, “At Guantánamo Bay, the solution to so many problems — including a hunger strike — is an overwhelming show of brute force. This mistreatment of Mr. Dhiab serves no legitimate penological interests, and indeed rises to the level of deliberate indifference. It should be stopped.”

Whatever happens with the release of the videotapes, I hope Judge Kessler agrees with Abu Wa’el Dhiab’s lawyers that his current abuse must be brought to an end, and that, shortly after, he will be given a new home in Uruguay, as promised earlier this year.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.

Andy Worthington Takes Part in UCLU Amnesty Event, “Why Did I Become An Activist?” on Tuesday October 28, 2014

[image error]Recently, I was delighted to be asked to take part in an event organised by UCLU Amnesty International Society, entitled, “Why Did I Become An Activist?” which takes place next Tuesday. Details are below.

As the group states on the Facebook page for the event, “Unsure about how human rights relates to you? Want to take action but uncertain where to start? Come along to our ‘Why Should I Be An Activist?’ event. With speakers from a range of backgrounds, this will be an evening of talks and discussions aimed at guiding us, as students, through the first steps of becoming activists in our own right.”

I was pleased to have my work on Guantánamo and related issues as an independent investigative journalist and commentator recognised, and I hope I will be able to provide some young people with examples of the many ways to undertake journalism in the internet age, and also why we need campaigning journalists, and not just those working for the mainstream media, in which, far too often, the many injustices of the world are not adequately addressed, because of an obsession with “objectivity” (not shared by right-wing media outlets) and a refusal to accept that — sometimes, at least — campaigning ought to be part of the mainstream media’s job.

I still recall how, after the illegal invasion of Iraq in March 2003, the Daily Mirror featured on its front cover, every day, a WMD-o-meter showing how many days it was that weapons of mass destruction (the original spurious rationale for the invasion) had not been found. I saluted that initiative then, and wish we could see something similar again.

Here are the details of the event. Perhaps I will see some of you there.

Tuesday October 28, 2014, 6.30 to 8.30pm: Panel discussion – Why Did I Become An Activist? Personal perspectives on activism from educational rights in Palestine, LGBT+, and Guantánamo Bay campaigners

Drayton B20 Jevons LT, Drayton House, 30 Gordon Street, London WC1H 0AX.

With Mai Abu Moghli, Andy Worthington and Wesley Gryk. See the building location here.

Mai Abu Moghli has years of experience striving for human rights, often in the MENA region, and currently works in advocacy for greater education in Palestine.

Andy Worthington is a historian, investigative journalist, photographer and author of The Guantánamo Files, and has a wealth of experience in working for social justice throughout the world.

Wesley Gryk is senior partner and founder of Wesley Gryk Solicitors, a law firm specialising in immigration cases, and has been Legal Advisor to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and Deputy Head of the International Secretariat of Amnesty International’s research department. Alongside his involvement in international human rights cases, he is also exceptionally experienced in gay rights cases.

For further information about the event, please contact Nerthika Paramsothy.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.

Shaker Aamer’s Abuse in Guantánamo Dismissed by British Foreign Secretary

In disappointing but predictable news, the British foreign secretary Philip Hammond, who replaced William Hague on July 15 this year, has “dismissed concerns over the abuse” of Shaker Aamer, the last British prisoner in Guantánamo, in a letter to his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, the founder and director of the legal action charity Reprieve, as described by the charity in a press release.

In August, as I explained at the time, Clive Stafford Smith wrote to Philip Hammond after he had “received a series of unclassified letters from various detainees who we represent in Guantánamo Bay,” which told “a disturbingly consistent story” — of “a new ‘standard procedure’” whereby the FCE team (the armored guards responsible for violently removing prisoners from their cells through “forcible cell extractions”) was being “used to abuse the prisoners with particular severity because of the on-going non-violent hunger strike protest against their unconscionable treatment.”

Stafford Smith also explained how one of Shaker Aamer’s fellow prisoners, Emad Hassan, a Yemeni who, like Shaker, has long been cleared for release, described how, on the Sunday before he wrote his letter, “Shaker ISN 239 was beaten when the medical people wanted to draw blood.”

In a letter dated October 7, Philip Hammond told Stafford Smith in a letter that “we made enquiries with US Government officials who assured us that the report of an incident, relayed to you by another detainee, is not accurate.” As the Guardian described it, Philip Hammond also insisted that Shaker Aamer’s release “remains a high priority for the government.” and “said UK officials have no access to the British resident and are solely reliant on US sources for information.”

It is, of course, 100% predictable that the US authorities would deny allegations of abuse at Guantánamo — although that is not to say that all allegations made by prisoners are necessarily credible. However, as Stafford Smith explained, “similar descriptions of escalating punitive abuse at Guantánamo, which would appear to corroborate Mr. Hassan’s allegations, have for some time been emerging from the prison.”

He proceeded to explain how, in a letter to William Hague in May, he included testimony from Mr. Aamer, in which he stated that “he is sometimes FCEd up to eight times a day,” and included an excerpt from a recent letter of from Shaker Aamer, in which he stated, “Last night, as I came back from my legal call, I was FCEd in much the same way I always am, as I peacefully refused to cooperate with them again. This time they did not just force me down on the floor of the room. They apparently decided that they had to get me dirty, so they threw me down in the passage way.”

Responding to the letter from Philip Hammond, Clive Stafford Smith said, “The US military is not telling Mr. Hammond the truth about the abuse of Mr. Aamer, any more than they did to Judge Kessler, who had the good sense to demand to see the video footage” — a reference to the ongoing case of Abu Wa’el Dhiab, a Syrian prisoner, also long cleared for release, who had the release of videotapes to his lawyers showing his force-feeding and “forcible cell extractions” ordered by District Judge Gladys Kessler in May this year.

Stafford Smith added, “I have just returned from a visit and the brutal nature of the FCEing — to which Shaker is subjected probably more than any other prisoner — is only getting worse. Mr. Hammond says that the UK is doing all it can to help Shaker but if it were his son or brother being beaten up every day, he would show a little more interest in evidence, and a little less in bland and false denials. It is far past time that Shaker was home with his wife and children.”

What you can do now

To call for the British government to do more to secure Shaker Aamer’s release, please contact Philip Hammond, the foreign secretary, and ask him to take urgent action on Shaker’s behalf. You can email him here via his Private Office at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO). A general phone number for the FCO is 020 7008 1500.

If you’re in the US, you can call the White House on 202-456-1111 or 202-456-1414 or submit a comment online.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.

Q&A with Andy Worthington After Screening of “Doctors of the Dark Side” in Balham, October 26, 2014

[image error]If you’re in London on Sunday afternoon, and want to attend a free screening of the documentary film “Doctors of the Dark Side” followed by a Q&A session in which I’m speaking, then please come along to a screening put on by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign (the campaign to free Shaker Aamer, the last British prisoner in Guantánamo) in Balham, in south London — and RSVP (all details below). You can also click on the image of the poster on the left to see a larger version of it.

“Doctors of the Dark Side,” directed by Martha Davis, a clinical psychologist, and narrated by the actress Mercedes Ruehl, explores the role of physicians and psychologists in the torture of prisoners in the “war on terror” — not just the ordinary personnel who served as the foot soldiers of torture, and who continue to do so in their role force-feeding hunger strikers at Guantánamo, but also the more senior individuals who recommended the torture program that was subsequently approved at the highest levels of the Bush administration — men like James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, psychologists who worked on military programs to teach US personnel to resist torture if captured by a hostile enemy, and who reverse-engineered the techniques they taught for the torture of prisoners in the “war on terror.”

I saw the film almost a year ago, at UCL in London, where I was privileged to meet Martha Davis, and I also attended a couple of screenings in the US in January, during my annual visit to campaign for the closure of Guantánamo on the anniversary of its opening, where I also met Martha again — and I can wholeheartedly recommend the film to anyone who wants to thoroughly comprehend the role of psychologists and physicians in the Bush administration’s “war on terror” torture program, and to understand how significant and depressing it is that no one has been held accountable for the torture program — with the exception of the “few bad apples” held responsible for abuse in Abu Ghraib in Iraq, and Bagram in Afghanistan, who, of course, were not working unsupervised, and were part of a chain of command that went right to the very top of the Bush administration.

Shockingly, as this film is shown, which was released five years ago, and yet is still as relevant as ever, we still await transparency, let alone accountability for those who ordered, justified and implemented the “war on terror” torture program — awaiting the public release of a major report on the torture program, undertaken by the Senate Committee on Intelligence — or rather, that 6,300-page report’s executive summary, which is being held up because of obstruction by the CIA.

Here are the details of the screening. I hope to see some of you there.

Sunday 26 October, 1pm: Film Screening – Doctors of the Darkside. Followed by Q&A with Andy Worthington.

Exhibit Cinema, 12 Balham Station Road, London SW12 9SG.

Please note that seating is limited to 28 people, so booking is on a first come first served basis. Please book by ringing or texting 07756 493877, stating the number of seats required, and leave your contact details. The Save Shaker Aamer Campaign will then get back to you.

Please also see the trailer for the film below:

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.

Photos: “Britain Needs A Pay Rise,” The TUC-Led Protest in London, October 18, 2014 (2/2)

[image error] See my second set of photos of “Britain Needs A Pay Rise” on Flickr.

On Saturday October 18, 2014, after I took part in “Britain Needs A Pay Rise,” a march and rally in London organised by the TUC (Trades Union Congress), I posted a photo set on Flickr, and an accompanying article. I have now posted a second set of photos, and, to accompany that set, this article follows up on some of the themes of the march and rally, which, I was glad to note, was attended by around 90,000 people.

The event was called by the TUC to highlight the growing inequality in the UK, and to call for an increase in pay for those who are not in the top 10% of earners, who, it was recently revealed, now control 54.1% of the country’s wealth.

In the Observer on Sunday, Cambridge University economist Ha-Joon Chang addressed some of the issues addressed by the TUC event — and, more generally, by those of us who are dismayed by the failure of the Labour Party to challenge the myths peddled by the Tories and their Lib Dem facilitators regarding the need for savage austerity programmes, which, it seems, will be as endless as the “war on terror.”

Chang begins his article, “Why did Britain’s political class buy into the Tories’ economic fairytale?” by pointing out that a large proportion of the British voting public has bought into the Tories’ narrative about the economy — that only an ongoing programme of savage cuts has put the economy on the road to recovery after the previous Labour government’s irresponsibility. As a recent IBM poll showed, people “trust the Conservatives more than Labour by a big margin when it comes to economic management,” as Chang put it — and the situation has become so ridiculous that the Labour Party “has come to subscribe to this narrative and tried to match, if not outdo, the Conservatives in pledging continued austerity.”

And yet, the root of the problem is, of course, not the need for cuts in government spending, but the repercussions of the 2008 financial crisis, brought about not by welfare claimants and immigrants, as the current narrative insists, but by criminally irresponsible investment banks, aided, it should be noted, by politicians (of all the major parties), who had been doing all they could to deregulate financial dealings since the 1980s.

As Chang points out in his article, the Labour Party has lost control of the narrative, even though all of Britain’s financial woes can be traced not to their spending policies, but to the recession that followed the 2008 crash. As he explains:

First, the recession reduced government revenue by the equivalent of 2.4% of GDP — from 42.1% to 39.7% — between 2008 and 2009-10. Second, it raised social spending (social benefit plus health spending). Economic downturn automatically increases spending on many social benefits, such as unemployment benefit and income support, but it also increases spending on things like disability benefit and healthcare, as increased unemployment and poverty lead to more physical and mental health problems. In 2009-10, at the height of the recession, UK public social spending rose by the equivalent of 3.2% of GDP compared with its 2008 level (from 21.8% to 24%).

When you add together the recession-triggered fall in tax revenue and rise in social spending, they amount to 5.6% of GDP – almost the same as the rise in the deficit between 2008 and 2009-10 (5.7% of GDP). Even though some of the rise in social spending was due to factors other than the recession, such as an ageing population, it would be safe to say that much of the rise in deficit can be explained by the recession itself, rather than Labour’s economic mismanagement.

Chang proceeds to explain that the Tories — and their supporters — would counter this by claiming “we had to control the deficit because we can’t live beyond our means and accumulate debt.” However, he describes this as “a pre-modern, quasi-religious view of debt,” adding:

Whether debt is a bad thing or not depends on what the money is used for. After all, the coalition has made students run up huge debts for their university education on the grounds that their heightened earning power will make them better off even after they pay back their loans.

The same reasoning should be applied to government debt. For example, when private sector demand collapses, as in the 2008 crisis, the government “living beyond its means” in the short run may actually reduce public debt faster in the long run, by speeding up economic recovery and thereby more quickly raising tax revenues and lowering social spending. If the increased government debt is accounted for by spending on projects that raise productivity — infrastructure, R&D, training and early learning programmes for disadvantaged children — the reduction in public debt in the long run will be even larger.

Chang then addresses the Tories’ next retort — that the current, much-trumpeted recovery “is the best proof that the government’s economic strategy has worked.” But as he asks, “has the UK economy really fully recovered? We keep hearing that national income is higher than at the pre-crisis peak of the first quarter of 2008. However, in the meantime the population has grown by 3.5 million (from 60.5 million to 64 million), and in per capita terms UK income is still 3.4% less than it was six years ago. And this is even before we talk about the highly uneven nature of the recovery, in which real wages have fallen by 10% while people at the top have increased their shares of wealth.”

Even the argument that we are enjoying a “jobs-rich” recovery, creating 1.8m positions between 2011 and 2014, is punctured. As Chang notes, “The trouble is that, apart from the fact that the current unemployment rate of 6% is nothing to be proud of, many of the newly created jobs are of very poor quality.” He adds, “The ranks of workers in ‘time-related underemployment’, doing fewer hours than they wish due to a lack of availability of work — have swollen dramatically. Between 1999 and 2006, only about 1.9% of workers were in such a position; by 2012-13 the figure was 8%.”

He also highlights an increase in self-employment, “whose historical norm (1984-2007) was 12.6%,” but which “now stands at an unprecedented 15%,” and as he explains, “With no evidence of a sudden burst of entrepreneurial energy among Britons, we may conclude that many are in self-employment out of necessity or even desperation.”

Totting up all these figures, Chang concludes that, “in between the additional people in underemployment (6.1% of employment) and the precarious newly self-employed (2.4%), 8.5% of British people in work (or 2.6 million people) are in jobs that do not fully utilise their abilities — call that semi-unemployment, if you will.”

As he also explains, the success of the Tories’ narrative has allowed the coalition government to pursue what he describes accurately as “a destructive and unfair economic strategy, which has generated only a bogus recovery largely based on government-fuelled asset bubbles in real estate and finance, with stagnant productivity, falling wages, millions of people in precarious jobs, and savage welfare cuts.”

We are, he notes, “in desperate need of a counter narrative that shifts the terms of debate” — one in which  the government budget “should be understood not just in terms of bookkeeping but also of demand management, national cohesion and productivity growth,” and in which jobs and wages “should not be seen simply as a matter of people being ‘worth’ (or not) what they get, but of better utilising human potential and of providing decent and dignified livelihoods.”

However, that counter narrative is, sadly, one that is not readily apparent in the mainstream — and without it, as Chang notes, Britain can only continue on a path of “stagnation, financial instability and social conflict.” If the Labour Party refuses to wake up, we will need to pursue new approaches — via the Green Party, for example, or through organisations like UK Uncut and the People’s Assembly Against Austerity, which have articulated coherent narratives that also puncture the Tory-led coalition government’s lies.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.

Photos: “Britain Needs A Pay Rise,” The TUC-Led Protest in London, October 18, 2014 (1/2)

See my photos of “Britain Needs A Pay Rise” on Flickr.

On Saturday October 18, 2014, I was one of around 90,000 people who took part in “Britain Needs A Pay Rise,” a march and rally in London organised by the TUC (Trades Union Congress) to highlight the growing inequality in the UK, and to call for an increase in pay for those who are not in the top 10% of earners, who, it was recently revealed, now control 54.1% of the country’s wealth. The London march began on Victoria Embankment and proceeded to Hyde Park, where there was a rally. Other protests took place in Glasgow and Belfast.

I was pleased that 90,000 people turned up, from all over the country, and there was a great atmosphere on the march, which was reassuring, as it is often easy to be despondent, so successful are the efforts by the Tories and the right-wing media to discredit unions and the solidarity of the people. I had many pleasant exchanges with people from Yorkshire, Lancashire and across London, and I hope another event takes place in spring, before the general election.

As I explained in an article before the protest, I was “extremely glad to see the TUC putting together a major protest, as it is exactly two years since the last major TUC-organised protest, ‘A Future That Works’ (see here and here for my photo sets on Flickr) Prior to that, there was the ‘March for the Alternative’ in March 2011,” which I wrote about here.

As I also explained, “I must admit to being extremely disappointed that the unions have not organised massive anti-austerity protests every six months against the butchers of the Tory-led coalition government, who continue with their efforts to destroy almost every aspect of the British state, privatising almost everything that was not privatised by Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and to hand it all over to unaccountable profiteers — with the exception of their own jobs, and their lavish expenses, and, presumably, parts of the judiciary, the military and the intelligence services.”

As Frances O’Grady, the General Secretary of the TUC, told the rally in Hyde Park:

After the longest and deepest pay squeeze in recorded history, it’s time to end the lock-out that has kept the vast majority from sharing in the economic recovery. The average worker is £50 a week worse off than in 2007 and five million earn less than the living wage. Meanwhile, top directors now earn 175 times more than the average worker.

If politicians wonder why so many feel excluded from the democratic process, they should start with bread and butter living standards. An economy that finds money for tax cuts for the rich and boardroom greed, while the rest face a pay squeeze and big cuts to the welfare system — that any of us might need — is no longer working for the many.

Tomorrow, I’ll be posting a second set of photos from the march and rally, but for now I hope you like these photos, and will share them if you do.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.

Please Support “Britain Needs A Pay Rise,” the TUC March and Rally in London on Saturday, October 18

On Saturday, I’ll be joining — hopefully — tens of thousands of people (at least) for “Britain Needs a Payrise,” a march and rally in central London organised by the TUC (Trades Union Congress). Campaigners are meeting on the Embankment  at 11am and marching through the West End to Hyde Park, where there will be a rally (see the route map here). The Facebook page is here, where you can join the event, and you can also pledge your support on the website. There is also a Twitter page here.

As the TUC states, in its message about the protest, “Join us for a march and rally in London on 18 October 2014, to help call for an economic recovery that works for all Britons, not just those right at the top.”

The following are three very good reasons given by the TUC for joining the march and rally:

1. Poverty Pay

One in five people earn less than the living wage. For the first time more people in work are below the poverty line than those out of work.

The spread of zero-hours contracts, agency working and bogus self-employment is trapping many below the poverty line.

2. The Cost of Living Crisis

We are told that the economy is now recovering and that Britain’s costs of living crisis is over. But whose recovery is this? Ordinary people are £40 a week worse off in real-terms than they were five years ago.

And if bankers hadn’t crashed the economy and wages growth had stayed on track then workers on average would have £100 more in their pay packets every week.

3. Rising Inequality

Of course it’s not tough for everybody. In 1998 top chief executives earned 45 times the average wage — enough for anyone I’d say.

But now they earn 185 times as much. That means they have earned what most people earn over 12 months in just a day and a half.

One key driver of the economic crash was growing pay inequality. Long before our banks went bust people’s wages had stopped growing.

I’m extremely glad to see the TUC putting together a major protest, as it is exactly two years since the last major TUC-organised protest, “A Future That Works,” which I photographed (see here and here for my photo sets on Flickr). Prior to that, there was the “March for the Alternative,” in March 2011, which I wrote about from St. Thomas’s Hospital, in an article entitled, “On the Anti-Cuts Protest in London, 500,000 Say No to the Coalition Government’s Arrogant, Ideological Butchery of the British State.”

I must admit to being extremely disappointed that the unions have not organised massive anti-austerity protests every six months against the butchers of the Tory-led coalition government, who continue with their efforts to destroy almost every aspect of the British state, privatising almost everything that was not privatised by Margaret Thatcher, John Major, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, and to hand it all over to unaccountable profiteers — with the exception of their own jobs, and their lavish expenses, and, presumably, parts of the judiciary, the military and the intelligence services.

The unions are still the biggest bloc by far of UK workers — with around 6.5 million members — and I do think they should have more rigorously opposed the government, not just for their members, but for everyone in the UK except the rich and the super-rich, who are the only beneficiaries of Tory policies.

The timing of Saturday’s protest, however, could not be better. On Tuesday, Credit Suisse published its annual global wealth report, which noted that “Britain is the only country in the G7 group of leading economies where inequality has increased this century, as the Guardian explained, adding, “The amount of the country’s wealth controlled by the richest 10% increased to 54.1% this year, up from 51.5% in 2000.”

So over half the country’s wealth is in the hands of the top 10%, and yet one of the top 10%, the welfare minister Lord Freud, has just been caught out saying that some disabled people should be paid less than the minimum  wage — £2 an hour were his exact words — as if a) the minimum wage is optional (it isn’t), b) it’s possible to live on £80 for a 40-hour week (it obviously isn’t), and c) disabled people are demonstrably worth less than those without disabilities (they aren’t). If you haven’t already done so, please sign the 38 Degrees petition calling for Lord Freud to be sacked (but you’ll need a UK postcode).

The Credit Suisse wealth report also stated, as the Guardian described it:

The increase in inequality has coincided with a boom in the number of rich and super-rich people in Britain. There are now 44 dollar billionaires in Britain, compared with eight at the start of the century, while the number of people whose net worth is at least $50m (£31m) almost quadrupled to 4,660.

As the rich have got richer, low and middle-income households have been squeezed by falling real incomes caused by years of rising household bills and lack of wage increases.

The authors also “warned that rising inequality could indicate a recession was on the way, with the global wealth-to-income ratio hitting a peak,” as the Guardian put it, adding, “The ratio is now at a recent record high level of 6.5 (the average wealth is 6.5 x income), matched previously only during the Great Depression. This is a worrying signal given that abnormally high wealth-income ratios have always signalled recession in the past.”

Does that mean a crash is coming? It seems unlikely, because those in power have rigged the economy so that, with interest rates at almost zero, the only arena for investment is housing. But that is a bubble, a monstrous bubble in which prices in London and the south east have now exceeded the vertiginous heights they reached in 2007, and with more and more people being priced out of house ownership, paying more and more of their earnings in rent, or even being priced out of London altogether, it would be difficult not to conclude that some sort of crash is not only necessary, to stop the endlessly increasing inequality that is making life a misery for so many people, but also inevitable, the economic version of the tipping point that triggers an avalanche.

Saturday’s protest is an opportunity for people to show, in significant numbers, how dissatisfied they are with the raging inequalities of Tory Britain, and I hope that, if you’re in London or anywhere near you’ll be able to make it along.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer and film-maker. He is the co-founder of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, 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.