Andy Worthington's Blog, page 122

Indefinitely Detained Guantánamo Prisoner Asks Review Board to Recommend His Release

Two days ago, I published an article looking at the outcome of the first Periodic Review Board held at Guantánamo — a much delayed review process for ascertaining whether 71 of the remaining 155 prisoners should continue to be held indefinitely without charge or trial. This process was supposed to begin three years ago, after President Obama issued an executive order authorizing the ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial of 48 prisoners, based on the recommendations, delivered in January 2010, of his inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force, but the first PRB didn’t take place until November 2013.

As I explained in my article, the board members recommended that the prisoner whose case was reviewed — Mahmoud al-Mujahid, a Yemeni — should be released, which is good news, as al-Mujahid was wrongly regarded as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, based on the unreliable testimony of a fellow prisoner. However, it means nothing unless he is released, as, with an irony that is evidently being strenuously ignored by the Obama administration, the review board’s decision to recommend him for release means only that he joins a list of 55 other Yemeni prisoners who were cleared for release by Obama’s task force four years ago, but are still held because of fears of political instability in Yemen.

As I also mentioned in that article, the second PRB, for another Yemeni, Abd-al Malik Wahab al-Rahabi, took place yesterday, January 28, and, unlike the first PRB, from which the media and observers were excluded, limited transparency was provided by the Pentagon, which made available a facility in Arlington, Virginia, where a very small section of the review board could be seen and heard, although not the testimony of al-Rahabi himself, nor anything regarded as classified by the military.

What this meant in reality, as Carol Rosenberg explained for the Miami Herald, was that al-Rahabi, one of Guantánamo’s “forever prisoners,” was “not allowed to speak in the 19-minute portion of his hearing reporters were allowed to see. Instead, his attorney, David Remes, delivered the plea for release in a prepared statement he read” while al-Rahabi sat beside him.

I’m happy to reproduce below David Remes’s statement, and a statement by the military officers assigned to represent al-Rahabi, although it remains unacceptable that we were not allowed to hear directly from al-Rahabi himself. As Andrea Prasow, senior national security counsel and advocate in Human Rights Watch’s US Program, recently told the Associated Press, “The detainee explaining why he doesn’t pose a risk, why he should go home, that seems to be the whole point of the proceeding and we won’t get to see it. I think that’s pretty outrageous.”

Al-Rahabi, it turns out, has a 13-year-old daughter, Ayesha, who he hasn’t seen since she was a baby, and, with the support of his father, who is a tailor, he hopes to study and to teach, as David Remes explained. Remes also told the review board that he and four other prisoners have drawn up a “stunningly detailed” business plan for an agricultural business they hope to establish on their release, called “Yemen Milk & Honey Farms Ltd.” to be “powered by windmills and have 100 farm houses, 10 cows, 50 lambs, 500 chickens and ’10 Honey Bee farming fruit trees, vegetables and flowers.’” According to the plan, the chairman of the project would be Abdulsalam al-Hela, who was a prominent Yemeni businessman before he was kidnapped in Egypt and sent to Guantánamo via the CIA’s network of “black sites,” and al-Rahabi would be the director. David Remes explained that the plan was conceived with Saifullah Paracha, a Pakistani businessman who was also kidnapped and sent to Guantánamo via “black site” network.

Last year, al-Rahabi joined the prison-wide hunger strike that awakened, or reawakened the world to the plight of the Guantánamo prisoners. In March, David Remes stated that he had “vowed to fast until he got out of the prison ‘either dead or alive,’” but he is no longer a hunger striker, and yesterday, as Carol Rosenberg described it, he “looked fit and at times smiled as he sat through the first 19 minutes of his hearing silently,” and he also “wore a white prison camp uniform of a complaint prisoner.”

Nevertheless, the military continues to stand by the unreliable information contained in the classified military files released by WikiLeaks in 2011, still claiming, in a profile on the PRB website, that he was a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden. The profile, to be frank, is full of hollow but ominous-sounding innuendo, such as the following — “There are no conclusive indications that YM-037 [al-Rahabi] during his detention has maintained associations with at-large extremists — except for a former Guantanamo detainee whom has not been observed reengaging in terrorist activity.” The profile also claims that his brother-in-law, Sadeq Muhammad Said Ismail, who was released from Guantánamo in 2007, has since emerged as “a prominent extremist in Ibb,” although no evidence was provided for this claim, and it contradicts the description of Ismail provided by David Remes in his statement below.

The six government officials who make up the review board — the director of National Intelligence, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the secretaries of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice and the State Department — have several weeks to make their decision, and it is to be hoped that the Pentagon will release a transcript of al-Rahabi’s statement once the government representatives and his lawyer have had the opportunity “to censor his words for national or prison security reasons — as well as for privacy requests by the prisoner,” as the Miami Herald described it.

In the meantime, it is also to be hoped that President Obama will realize how urgent it is to begin the process of freeing the Yemenis who have already been cleared for release, without further delay.

Below (with minor redactions) are the statements of al-Rahabi’s personal representatives and of David Remes:

Periodic Review Board, January 28, 2014: Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab Al-Rahabi, ISN 37

Opening Statement of Personal Representative

Good morning ladies and gentlemen of the board, I’m Lieutenant Commander [redacted]. Major [redacted] and I are the Personal Representatives of Abdel Malik Ahmed Abdel Wahab AI Rahabi. Mr. David Remes, on my right/left, is Abdel Malik’s Private Counsel. To my right/left is our translator, (translator’s call sign). Major [redacted] and I first met with Abdel Malik on 25 July 2013, and have more than 45 hours ofdirect interaction. Over the past six months, he has demonstrated enthusiasm and desire to participate in the Periodic Review Board process. Throughout this process, Major [redacted] and I have worked closely with Abdel Malik and Mr. David Remes, to provide you with information demonstrating that Abdel Malik does not pose a significant threat to the security of the United States.

It is apparent to us that Abdel Malik desires to return home to Ibb, Yemen, and reunite with his wife, his parents, and especially with his daughter, Aisha [Ayesha], who is now 13. If transferred, he plans to teach, continue his education, and pursue a business of his own, which is outlined in the Yemeni Milk and Honey feasibility report. He also has the ability to work for his father as a tailor. The Periodic Review Board Summary also states that if he is released, he will most likely return to his family. Based upon his strong family ties, his outside employment opportunities and aspirations, his continuing education, and his compliant behavior, we believe he will most certainly return to his family. After careful review of the documents we’ve provided and hearing Abdel Malik’s comments, we are confident you will share our opinion and recommend that he be transferred.

Thank you for your time and consideration. Major [redacted] and I are happy to answer any questions you may have throughout this proceeding. We will now defer to Mr. David Remes for his opening statement.

Opening Statement of Private Counsel David H. Remes

Good morning. I’m David Remes, private counsel for Mr. Rahabi. I have been Mr. Rahabi’s lawyer since 2004. Covington & Burling is my co-counsel.

Here are the factors I urge you to consider in deciding Rahabi’s case.

Looking first to his life as a detainee, Mr. Rahabi is compliant and the camp authorities consider him trustworthy. In 2009, the authorities decided to move most of the detainees from single cell detention to communal living conditions. They tested the waters by moving a selected group of detainees to limited communal conditions, and then to full communal conditions. At each stage, Mr. Rahabi was among the first detainees they moved. When they extended communal conditions to the general detainee population, they put Mr. Rahabi in a communal cell block for the most compliant detainees.

During last year’s hunger strike, in which Mr. Rahabi participated, the authorities moved the strikers back to single cell detention. When Mr. Rahabi ended his hunger strike, they returned him to the cellblock for compliant detainees. His blockmates elected him block leader. He has worked with camp authorities to ease the tensions between camp authorities and detainees that continue to smolder.

In the years before the hunger strike, the authorities offered detainees classes. Mr. Rahabi took practical courses, in English and business, with Saifullah Paracha, who has submitted a statement on his behalf. Mr. Rahabi also took courses for personal growth. Among these were art class, which gave him a love of watercolors. We have submitted examples of his fine colorings. Finally, Mr. Rahabi is one of the principal authors of a substantial business plan for an agricultural enterprise called “Yemen Milk and Honey Farms Limited.” The report is stunningly detailed, thorough, and comprehensive. It shows the detainees’ broad knowledge of commerce, their dedication to constructive pursuits, and their awareness of the need to set returning detainees on a path to economic independence. We have submitted a copy of the report.

Looking to the life that awaits Mr. Rahabi when he returns to Yemen, Mr. Rahabi has a large and supportive family. Over three dozen relatives make the five-hour car journey from lbb to Sana’a to participate in the family calls the authorities allow detainees every two months. Needless to say, Mr. Rahabi’s parents, his wife, and his daughter, Ayesha, are present. Others include his brother-in-law Sadeq Muhammad Said Ismail, a former detainee (ISN 69), who was repatriated in June 2007. After being repatriated, Mr. lsmael returned to lbb. He married and began a family. I have met him and his son. We have submitted videos and interviews with Abdalmalik’s father, his wife, Ayesha, and Sadeq, which I conducted on January 14.

Ayesha is a beautiful girl of 13. Mr. Rahabi has not seen her since she was an infant. His face lights up at the mention of her name. He lives to see her. I spent time with Ayesha in July, when I visited lbb with a news team. She was very shy but rose to the occasion. She brought us to tears softly singing a song for her father. Ayesha writes her father long, detailed letters about her life. She sends him poems and drawings of hearts, roses, and crescent moons. She even sends her report cards and teacher commendations. We have submitted samples of these items and copies of photos showing her growing up. Her writings are heartbreaking. I call the Board’s special attention to pages 9-11.

When he returns to Yemen, Mr. Rahabi will continue his studies at university and use his education to teach. His father, Ahmed, who is a tailor, will employ him if need be. His whole family, Ayesha most of all, will keep him firmly anchored at home.

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 four-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 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.

Guantánamo: Where Being Cleared for Release Means Nothing

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.

First, the good news: on January 9, the Pentagon announced that the first Guantánamo prisoner to undergo a Periodic Review Board (PRB) had been recommended for release. The PRBs were first mentioned nearly three years ago, in March 2011, when President Obama issued an executive order authorizing the ongoing imprisonment of 48 prisoners without charge or trial, on the basis that they were too dangerous to release, even though insufficient evidence existed to put them on trial.

In issuing the executive order, President Obama was following recommendations made by the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that he had appointed after taking office in 2009, who spent a year meeting once a week to review the cases of the remaining prisoners. Lawyers and human rights groups were appalled by President Obama’s decision to issue an executive order specifically authorizing indefinite detention without charge or trial, and were only vaguely reassured that, as compensation, Periodic Review Boards would be established to ascertain whether or not the men continued to be regarded as a threat, featuring representatives of six US government agencies — including the State Department and Homeland Security — who would hear testimony from the prisoners at Guantánamo via video link in Washington D.C.

Of the 48 men initially designated for ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial, two died in 2011, but 25 others have been added since, following two major court defeats for the military commission trials. The task force had initially recommended 36 prisoners for trials, but in two rulings, in October 2012 and January 2013, the conservative appeals court in Washington D.C. scrapped two of the only convictions in the military commissions, in the cases of Salim Hamdan and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, because they ruled that the war crimes for which they had been convicted — primarily material support for terrorism and conspiracy — had been invented by Congress. As most of the men recommended for trials were to be charged with these now discredited crimes, 25 of these men have been added to the 46 others facing PRBs, so that there will be 71 review boards in total.

Disappointingly, the first of the PRBs didn’t take place until October 2013, as I wrote about here, and, when the first one took place, in the case of Mahmoud al-Mujahid, a Yemeni, no representatives of the media were allowed to attend, a disturbing lack of transparency that I wrote about in an article for Al-Jazeera.

As a result, the news on January 9 was indeed welcome. As the Pentagon announced in a statement, “By consensus, the PRB members found that continued law of war detention is no longer necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the United States and that Mujahid is therefore eligible for transfer subject to appropriate security and humane treatment conditions.”

David Remes, one of al-Mujahid’s attorneys, said his client was “delighted” by the board’s decision, as the New York Times described it. Remes added, “Now that he’s been cleared, he should be transferred. The fact that he’s a Yemeni should not hold him back.” Al-Mujahid was described as a “committed jihadist” in the classified military files released by WikiLeaks in 2011, and a bodyguard of Osama bin Laden, although that allegation came from a false confession made by a fellow prisoner, and, as the Times added, crucially, “An official familiar with the review of Mr. Mujahid’s case said that the 2008 intelligence assessment was outdated.”

David Remes’s comments about al-Mujahid being a Yemeni unfortunately touched on the disturbing reality of him being cleared — the fact that all it means is that he joins 55 other Yemeni prisoners who were cleared for release by the Guantánamo Review Task Force four years ago, but are still held (along with 21 others from other countries, 77 in total out of the 155 men who are still held altogether). As the New York Times put it, these men “have long been recommended for transfer if security conditions could be met, but remain stranded at Guantánamo because of instability in Yemen.”

That instability is often over-stated, and America’s role in fomenting it — through repeated drone strikes in which civilians are killed — is rarely mentioned. However, as the New York Times noted, a recent incident that was undoubtedly damaging to hopes that prisoners will be released was an attack on December 5 on Yemen’s Ministry of Defense by what the Times described as a “Qaeda-affiliated insurgent group,” which “led to an indefinite delay in a trip to Yemen by a United Nations agency that had been planned for this month.” That agency, the Times stated, had been “working with the Yemeni government to develop a rehabilitation program for some prisoners in Yemen,” and, separately, US and Yemeni officials had been in discussions regarding using the program to deal with some of the 56 cleared Yemeni prisoners in Guantánamo.

The obstacles to releasing cleared Yemenis

The obstacles to releasing cleared Yemenis have come from two sources — from Congress, as part of legislation designed to prevent the release of prisoners, which lasted for three years until those restrictions were eased last month, in this year’s version of the National Defense Authorization Act, and from President Obama, who imposed a ban on releasing Yemenis in January 2010, after a failed airline bomb plot was revealed to have been hatched in Yemen.

Last May, in a major speech on national security issues, prompted in large part by a prison-wide hunger strike in Guantánamo, the president promised to resume releasing cleared prisoners, and dropped his ban on repatriations to Yemen. Eleven men have since been released, but none of them were Yemenis.

Administration officials told the New York Times they were “actively reviewing the Yemenis’ status on a case-by-case basis.” One said policy makers were considering “several options,” including “trying to persuade the Saudi government to take custody of several Yemeni detainees who have tribal or family ties in Saudi Arabia; finding other countries willing to resettle a Yemeni or two; and repatriating a particularly low-risk Yemeni to see how it goes.”

That, however, fails to address the number of Yemenis awaiting release, for whom the only solution may be the establishment of a rehabilitation program. Last August, President Obama and Yemen’s president, Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, issued a joint statement in which they cited the Yemeni government’s plans to “establish an extremist rehabilitation program to address the problem of violent extremism within Yemen, which could also facilitate the transfer of Yemeni detainees held at Guantánamo.”

As the Times noted, diplomatic officials told them that this statement coincided with Yemen reaching out to the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute, and specifically its “Disengagement and Rehabilitation of Violent Extremists and Terrorists initiative,” launched in 2012, which has worked in African countries including Nigeria, in Indonesia and in Tajikistan, and whose employees include Douglas Stone, described by the Times as “a retired Marine general who was credited with successfully revamping American detention operations in Iraq, and later designed an overhaul of detention practices in Afghanistan.”

The agency had held meetings in Rome and London in August and October “with Yemeni officials and a group of potential donor nations — including the United States — that are already working in Yemen,” according to diplomatic officials, but plans for a visit were derailed by the terrorist attack in December, and a new date has not been set. Jonathan Lucas, the director of the agency, said, “We have to wait for the security situation to improve for the UN to start operating missions to Yemen. We don’t have any time frame at the moment.”

Someone described as being “familiar with the agency’s methods,” but “who was not authorized to speak on its behalf,” told the Times that its recommendations focus on “creating a secure prison center where detainees could undergo intensive, individualized assessments by psychologists, sociologists, religious leaders, family members and others,” with the goal being “to identify what motivated each prisoner to get involved in a terrorist or insurgent group — ideological commitment, peer pressure, a desire for adventure or money — and separate the more extreme inmates from the moderates.”

The source added, “Intense counseling, with the help of family and community leaders, can significantly reduce the risk that the more moderate prisoners will participate in terrorist activities after their release.”

On January 22, Voice of America published an article looking at the Yemeni situation, noting:

About nine years ago, Saudi Arabia introduced the concept of “soft rehabilitation,” based on the principle that terrorism can’t be defeated by force, but by incentive and religious reorientation. Saudi rehabilitation centers have been panned by some as being too soft — in at least one center, prisoners have access to an Olympic-size swimming pool, a sauna, a gym and television. But, as program director Said al-Bishi told AFP last May, “In order to fight terrorism, we must give them an intellectual and psychological balance … through dialogue and persuasion.”

And, as Carnegie Endowment’s Christopher Boucek has noted, Saudi Arabia’s rehabilitation programs have had positive and “intriguing” results, with recidivist and re-arrest rates of only one to two percent.

Nabeel Khoury, a senior fellow of Middle East and national security at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, who served as the US deputy chief of mission in Yemen from 2004 to 2007, told VOA, “The problem is money — and the people to staff it. Do the Yemenis have enough people with the kinds of skills you need to work with rehabilitating people who have been engaged in war and violence?”

VOA added that Yemen has asked the US for $20 million to cover the cost of building a rehabilitation center, described as “a bargain compared with the $800,000 per year the US spends keeping each detainee in Cuba.”

Andrea Prasow, senior national security counsel and advocate in Human Rights Watch’s US Program, was part of a group that recently traveled to Yemen to discuss the situation with Yemen’s foreign minister, Abu Bakr al-Qirbi. As she told VOA, “Mr. al-Qirbi explained that in his view, a rehabilitation facility must be one that is truly designed to help the returning men recover and reintegrate into Yemeni society.” She added, however, that “security requirements should not be an obstacle to their transfer. These 56 men have never been charged with a crime and, like the others in Guantánamo, have been held in violation of international law for years.”

The next Periodic Review Board, and more secrecy

As the Associated Press recently explained, the second Periodic Review Board is taking place on Tuesday January 28, although journalists and representatives of NGOs will not be allowed to visit Guantánamo to see it. Instead, they will be required to “view the proceedings only by video link from Washington” (although in a different location from the six board members) and they will also not be able to listen in when the prisoner in question — Abd-al Malik Wahab al-Rahabi, a Yemeni — speaks to members of the review board, a process that, in Mahmoud al-Mujahid’s case, lasted for six hours.

The Pentagon claims that it is required to “impose restrictions for security reasons,” and has stated that a transcript will be released after the hearing is over. However, as the AP noted, a recently released memo “notes that the transcript may be redacted or altered.” Furthermore, neither those attending, or the prisoners themselves, will be allowed to hear any part of the hearing where classified material will be discussed.

Lawyers representing NGOs and the media are calling for “complete access” to the non-classified sections of the PRBs. Andrea Prasow told the AP, “The detainee explaining why he doesn’t pose a risk, why he should go home, that seems to be the whole point of the proceeding and we won’t get to see it. I think that’s pretty outrageous.”

Army Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman, attempted to defend the government’s actions, citing “the cost and logistical complexities” of bringing observers to Guantánamo itself, and describing the restriction on listening to the prisoners speak as being necessary to maintain “reasonable security,” and to prevent the exposure of any sensitive information.

Critics, however, point out that observers were allowed to hear the prisoners’ testimony during the review boards that took place under President Bush, both at Guantánamo and at Bagram in Afghanistan. David A. Schulz, a lawyer for a coalition of 14 media organisations, stated, “It’s a significant new restriction on the level of transparency that has been allowed until now. You could argue that, because of the extraordinary nature of the situation, it’s even more important that there be maximum transparency.”

Furthermore, Daphne Eviatar, an attorney with Human Rights First, pointed out that “if the bulk of the evidence against the detainee is classified, then there won’t be much to see and we’re all in a position, once again, of being asked to trust the government that it’s doing the right thing.”

Abd-al Malik Wahab al-Rahabi, the prisoner whose PRB is on Tuesday, was, like Mahmoud al-Mujahid, also accused of being a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden by an unreliable witness. Many years ago, he told one of his lawyers that he had made false confessions, stating that he was “tortured by beatings” in Kandahar, that his thumb was broken by American interrogators, and that he was “threatened with being held underground and deprived of sunlight until he confessed.”

The next PRB will be for Ghaleb Nasser (aka Ghaleb al-Bihani), another Yemeni, and a cook for forces supporting the Taliban, who had his habeas corpus petition denied by a judge five years ago. His attorney, Pardiss Kebriaei of the Center for Constitutional Rights, told the AP that she is “hopeful he will be cleared for transfer, but also wary because of the hold up in sending Yemenis to their homeland.”

As she stated, reiterating the point we have been making since the start of the PRBs was announced in summer, “For the process to be truly meaningful there needs to be much more transparency, they need to pick up the pace, and clearance has to mean transfer out. It does no one any good to add to the pile of people who are cleared and not transferred.”

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 four-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 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: “Guantánamo and Us” – Stanford University Event with Andy Worthington, Jeff Kaye, Adam Hudson and Stephanie Tang, Jan. 13, 2014

[image error]Regular readers will know that I returned on Tuesday from an intense and rewarding two-week tour of the US, in which I visited New York, Washington D.C., San Francisco and Los Angeles calling for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The tour was supported by the campaigning group World Can’t Wait (see the report here), and was timed to coincide with the 12th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, marked by a protest in Washington D.C. outside the White House and in the National Museum of American History. Please see here for videos from New York, see here for videos and photos from Washington D.C., see here and here for the radio shows I took part in, and see here for a video of Jason Leopold and I speaking in Anaheim, California on January 16.

As the next step in providing a permanent record of the tour, I’m delighted to make available below the 57-minute video of the panel discussion that took place at Stanford University on Monday January 13, in which I was joined by my friend and colleague Jeff Kaye, a psychologist who has done some groundbreaking and genuinely pioneering work on the Bush administration’s torture program, former Stanford student and journalist Adam Hudson, who recently visited Guantánamo, and Stephanie Tang standing in for World Can’t Wait’s national director Debra Sweet, who missed all the action unfortunately because of an injury she had received in New York just before my arrival in the US.

This was a powerful event, and I’m very glad that it was recorded, as it provided a detailed analysis of Guantánamo past, present and future, as well as providing an overview of the torture program initiated by the Bush administration, which, of course, is inextricably tied in with the existence of Guantánamo, as well as having had its own malevolent life in the CIA’s global network of “black sites,” and living on, albeit in a reduced manner, in the torture techniques still available to US forces, under President Obama, in Appendix M of the Army Field Manual (as Jeff explained in his presentation).

In the panel discussion, Adam gave an overview of the history of Guantánamo as a US outpost, and reported on his visit to the prison, and I ran through the prison’s 12-year history, explained how and why President Obama has failed to close it as he promised, and where the campaign to close it will need to focus in 2014, to build on the progress achieved last year when the prisoners themselves forced the president to promise action by embarking on a prison-wide hunger strike. Jeff, as I mentioned, spoke about torture under Bush and Obama, including an explanation of how Bush’s torture program involved the reverse-engineering of a US military program (the SERE program) used to train US personnel to resist torture if captured by a hostile enemy, and Stephanie provided World Can’t Wait’s perspective.

The event was also attended by other old friends, the author Barry Eisler (who, with Jeff and Stephanie, I met for the first time at “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week, organized by World Can’t Wait in October 2010), Almerindo Ojeda from UC Davis, who runs the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, which focuses on Guantánamo and torture, and Michael Kearns, a former SERE instructor, who made a kind of mini-presentation during Jeff’s talk. Kearns was appalled to discover, several years ago, that his former colleagues Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell and Roger Aldrich had played a key role in reverse-engineering SERE techniques for the torture of supposed “high-value detainees” seized in the “war on terror.”

I’d like to thank Stanford Says No To War and the Progressive Christians at Stanford for organizing the event (with World Can’t Wait) and, in particular, Eric Sapp of Stanford Says No To War, without whom the event would not have happened. Thanks to On Wide Lens (OWL) and the Community Media Center of Marin (CMCM) for filming and producing this video, which is also available on this page.

I do hope you have time to watch the video, and to share it if you find it useful. Eric introduces the event, followed by Adam, I begin at 13 minutes in, Jeff begins at 29 minutes, and Stephanie at 40 minutes, with Adam summing up at the end.

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 four-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 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: Close Guantánamo – The Washington D.C. Protest on the 12th Anniversary of the Prison’s Opening, Jan. 11, 2014

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Close Guantánamo: The Washington D.C. Protest on the 12th Anniversary of the Prison’s Opening, Jan. 11, 2014, a set on Flickr.

On Saturday January 11, 2014, a coalition of groups involved in campaigns calling for the closure of Guantánamo — including Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, Witness Against Torture, World Can’t Wait, and my own group, the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, which I co-founded and run with the attorney Tom Wilner — met outside the White House in Washington D.C., in the pouring rain, to tell President Obama to revisit his failed promise to close the prison, to continue releasing cleared prisoners as a matter of urgency, including the Yemenis who make up the majority of the 77 cleared prisoners still held, and to bring justice to the 78 other men still held, either by putting them on trial or releasing them.

These are my photos of the day, and as well as including some of the speakers outside the White House, the set also includes photos of the march from the White House along Constitution Avenue to the Smithsonian National Museum of American History, where, as I explained in an article for “Close Guantánamo,” featuring a 10-minute video of the day’s events by Ellen Davidson (including clips of me and Tom), which I’m also posting below, activists with Witness Against Torture staged a creative and powerful occupation of the museum, under the clever slogan, “Make Guantánamo History.”

As I also explained:

The occupation involved the unfurling of banners, and singing, in the main atrium, and also involved the creation of living tableaux of hooded protestors to contrast with fixed exhibits designed to illuminate other, more generally accepted aspects of American history. This was a very powerful event, and I thank the Witness Against Torture activists for undertaking it, and the museum authorities for not reacting in a heavy-handed manner, and allowing the educational intervention to last for several hours.

In that time, many museum visitors, I am sure, received an education about the realities of Guantánamo that they have not found elsewhere, as activists explained to them some of the many hard truths about the prison’s monstrous and unacceptable 12-year existence, at the start of its 13th year of operations.

I hope you enjoy the photos. I’ll be posting more soon, of the various other events I undertook as part of my 12-day tour, supported by World Can’t Wait, which also included events in New York, San Francisco, Berkeley, Los Angeles, Anaheim and Pomona, to add to the videos of New York and Anaheim that I’ve posted here and here, and the radio shows in San Francisco and Los Angeles that I’ve posted here and here.

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 four-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 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.

Radio: Andy Worthington Talks About Guantánamo with Dennis Bernstein, Michael Slate and Margaret Prescod in San Francisco and L.A.

[image error]Last week, during the West Coast leg of my 12-day “Close Guantánamo Now” tour (supported by the World Can’t Wait), I was first in San Francisco, a visit that involved being reunited with a number of old friends, including Stephanie Tang and Curt Wechsler of World Can’t Wait, Joey Johnson, who does community work in San Francisco neighbourhoods, the academic and anti-torture activist Rita Maran, lawyer Sharon Adams (with whom I spoke on Rose Aguilar’s “Your Call” show on KALW Public Radio) and Michael Kearns, the former instructor in the SERE program, which trains US personnel to resist interrogations if captured by an enemy that uses torture, who was appalled to discover, several years ago, that his former colleagues Bruce Jessen, James Mitchell and Roger Aldrich had played a key role in reverse-engineering these techniques for the torture of supposed “high-value detainees” seized in the “war on terror.”

I had met many of these good people for the first time in October 2010, when World Can’t Wait brought me over to Berkeley for “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week, and was reunited with many of them two years ago, as part of a short US tour on the 10th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, in which I also visited New York, Washington D.C. and Chicago.

On this occasion, I first met up with some of my old friends in Oakland, at the house of other old friends, Ruth and Zeese, who had put me up on previous visits, where we had an inspiring anti-torture salon experience, of a kind that would be difficult to achieve outside of those involved in “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week. This was on the evening of my arrival, after a few hours in the afternoon spent exploring and photographing Mission Street in San Francisco, and the next morning I recorded the “Your Call” show with Rose and Sharon (and CUNY law professor and Guantánamo attorney Ramzi Kassem in New York), and then walked along Ocean beach, saw the Bay Area from Twin Peaks and ate delicious lamb shwarma with Joey Johnson, soaking up the radiant sunshine everywhere we went.

In mid-afternoon, a group of us set of for Stanford University, where a panel discussion had been arranged for myself, my friend and colleague Jeff Kaye, a psychologist who has done some groundbreaking and genuinely pioneering work on the Bush administration’s torture program, former student and journalist Adam Hudson, who recently visited Guantánamo, and Stephanie Tang standing in for World Can’t Wait’s national director Debra Sweet, who missed all the action unfortunately because of an injury she had received in New York just before my arrival. This was a wonderful event, also attended by other old friends, the author Barry Eisler (another “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week veteran), Almerindo Ojeda from UC Davis, who runs the Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, which focuses on Guantánamo and torture, and Michael Kearns, and I’ll be posting a video of this important panel discussion very soon.

On the Tuesday evening, there was a screening of the powerful documentary film, “Doctors of the Dark Side” at Revolution Books in Berkeley, followed by presentations by myself and Stephanie and a Q&A session (which I also expect to be available on video in the near future), and in the afternoon I recorded two radio interviews which I hope you have time to listen to.

The first was with veteran broadcaster Dennis Bernstein on his “Flashpoints” show on KPFA in Berkeley. Our 12-minute interview, in which I provided a concentrated rundown of the situation at Guantánamo, is available here, beginning 48 minutes into the show, following news from Thailand and from the water poisoning story in West Virginia, and about police violence against young people in Santa Rosa, following the police murder, last October, of 13-year old Andy Lopez. It’s always a pleasure to talk to Dennis, and he and I have spoken many times over the years, either in the studio when I’m in town, or by phone.

Soon after, at Revolution Books, I pre-recorded an interview with another veteran broadcaster, Michael Slate for KPFK in L.A. Michael and I  have also spoken many times over the years, and it was ironic that, as I was preparing to arrive in L.A. for the first time, he was away for the weekend, hence the pre-record in Berkeley.

The half-hour show, which also featured Debra Sweet on the line from New York, is available here (or here) and Michael described the show as “focus[ing] on the need to close the Guantánamo torture camp. The ‘Close Guantánamo NOW’ tour is happening throughout January, 2014. Andy Worthington, a London-based journalist, filmmaker and author, who is one of the foremost experts on Guantánamo, and Debra Sweet, the national director of World Can’t Wait, address how and why the US has kept this prison open for twelve years, and our responsibility to close it.”

On Wednesday morning, I was up at the crack of dawn for a flight to L.A., where I was met by another old friend and colleague, Jason Leopold, for the events described in my article here. Although desperate for a lie-in on Thursday morning, it was not to be, as Margaret Prescod of KPFK in L.A. was interviewing me for her “Sojourner Truth” show, which begins at 7am. I hadn’t spoken to Margaret before, and was delighted to do so, despite the early hour, and you can listen to the half-hour interview here (it begins 25 minutes in and runs to the end of the show), or here and here on SoundCloud.

I’d also like to take this opportunity to mention another radio interview that I undertook in London, just before my departure for the US, with Linda Olson-Osterlund on KBOO FM, a community radio station in Portland, Oregon. Linda and I have also spoken many times, and I was not only pleased to do a show with Linda about Guantánamo for the 12th anniversary, but also pleased that she broadcast it on the anniversary itself, Saturday January 11, while I and hundreds of other protestors were in Washington D.C., reminding President Obama that we have not forgotten about the prison or the men being held there. The half-hour interview with Linda is available here.

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 four-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 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: Andy Worthington and Jason Leopold Discuss Guantánamo in Anaheim, California on January 16, 2014

On Thursday evening, as part of my 12-day “Close Guantánamo Now” tour (supported by the World Can’t Wait), which came to an end at Cal Poly in Pomona yesterday, I was at the Unitarian Universalist Church in Anaheim, California with my friend and colleague Jason Leopold, speaking about Guantánamo, funnily enough. Jason and I have known each other for many years, and it’s always a pleasure to take part in events with him, and to hang out with him.

The full video of the event — at which I delivered a 20-minute speech, Jason spoke for half an hour, and there was then a lively Q&A session for 35 minutes — is posted below, and I thank the filmmaker, Ted Shapin, for recording it and making it available. For earlier events, see the videos of New York here, and of Washington D.C. here.

After two days in New York, two days in Washington D.C., and three days in San Francisco, I arrived in Los Angeles on an absurdly early flight on Wednesday morning, to be met at the airport by Jason and taken to his favourite coffee shop, Urth Caffe in Beverly Hills, followed by a bagel across the road at The Original Brooklyn Water Bagel Co., another Los Angeles institution.

Jason then took me for my lunchtime appointment — as the keynote speaker at a luncheon at a Methodist church, in honor of Martin Luther King, which was arranged by Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, a Los Angeles area interfaith coalition who describe themselves as being “united behind the message that religious communities must stop blessing war and violence.”

My speech was very well received, and was followed by two performers drawing on publicly available documents to bring the stories of hunger striking prisoners to life, and then powerful contributions by two local religious leaders, the Rev. Dr. Art Cribbs of CLUE-LA (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice), who is a wonderfully eloquent and powerful speaker, and Edina Lekovic of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, whose insights were also much appreciated. Jason then took me to where I was staying, with a World Can’t Wait supporter, in the Hollywood Hills — amazingly, close to the world-famous “Hollywood” sign — and picked me up later for our evening event, a screening of the documentary film, “Doctors of the Dark Side,” at Revolution Books on Hollywood Boulevard, followed by a Q&A with the two of us.

During the hour and a quarter the film was showing, Jason took me on a tour of Hollywood Boulevard while we continued to catch up and strategize — allowing me to see, for the first time, the famous Hollywood Walk of Fame, or part of it at least, and the iconic Capitol Records Building, and we then returned for the Q&A, to talk about the issues raised in the film, as well as to bring the story up to date for the 12th anniversary of the opening of the prison, with me giving an account of Guantánamo’s origins, and, in particular, its story under President Obama, and Jason reporting about his recent visits to the prison.

Our talks at Revolution Books weren’t filmed, so it was great that Thursday’s event in Anaheim was recorded, to capture Jason and I in what I think was rather fine form.

I don’t want to give too much away from Jason’s talk, as it’s a great account of how sad and surreal it is to visit Guantánamo. This was apparent from the very beginning, when, as Jason explained, the visitor is confronted with the Joint Task Force’s motto, “Safe, Humane, Legal, Transparent,” (a collection of words to describe the prison that a talented satirist would be hard pressed to better), running through to the revelation that the authorities’ provision of details about the hunger strike stopped (on December 2) because it was “too successful,” and Jason’s observations that the men still held are noticeably getting older and more ill with each passing year.

This is a situation that, as I added, is made all the more absurd and painful because there is no reason for this bleak and soul-destroying charade to still be in existence, and it is only a lack of political will that is keeping it going. Jason also noted that skilled medical personnel are now being flown to Guantánamo on a regular basis to deal with certain prisoners’ deteriorating health, and stated that the authorities were seriously worried that prisoners would die — not out of concern for the men, as such, but because it would be a PR disaster.

Ironically, high-level attempts to address this problem — through passages inserted into this year’s National Defense Authorization Act by the Senate (originating under the leadership of Sen. Carl Levin as the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee), which were designed to allow the president to bring prisoners from Guantánamo to the US mainland for urgent medical treatment (as well as for trials and, in some cases, until legal challenges can be mounted, for ongoing detention without charge or trial) — were defeated in the compromise bill that had to be thrashed out with the Republican-dominated House of Representatives, who, predictably, initially passed their own version of the bill which contained more restrictions than ever before.

The good news, as I spoke about in my talk (and mentioned throughout my tour), is that the Senate prevailed in its proposals to ease the restrictions on releasing prisoners that, for three years, meant that only five men were freed from Guantánamo, and as we have seen in the last few months, eleven prisoners were released before the end of the year. However, President Obama urgently needs to release the other 76 prisoners — out of 155 men in total — who have been cleared for release (all but one of them since January 2010, and some since 2006-07, under President Bush).

As well keeping pressure on him to do this, we who are concerned to close Guantánamo also need to work out whether pressure on the president or on Congress will be the best course of action to ensure that overcoming the ban on transfers to the US is lifted. Without it happening, there is no hope that Guantánamo can be closed. Watch this space for further details, and please feel free to contact me if you have suggestions and/or want to be involved.

In the meantime, I hope you have time to watch the video of Jason and I, and to share it if you find it useful.

Please note: If you’re in Washington D.C. next Tuesday, January 21, between 5.30 and 6 pm, or can be there, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, along with other faith organizations, are sponsoring an Interfaith Candlelight Prayer Vigil outside the White House, on the eve of the 5th anniversary of President Obama’s Executive Order in which he promised to close Guantánamo within a year. As NRCAT state: “Everyone is welcome to join us as we lift up in prayer the tortured, the abused, the forgotten at Guantánamo and once again remind President Obama of his promises to close Guantánamo.” See the flyer here and the announcement here.

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 four-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 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.

Radio: Andy Worthington Discusses “The State of Guantánamo Today” with Rose Aguilar, Ramzi Kassem and Sharon Adams in San Francisco

[image error]I’m currently in southern California — on the campus of Cal Poly (aka California Polytechnic State University) in San Luis Obispo, about 40 miles north of Los Angeles. As I wait for the last public event of my 12-day “Close Guantánamo Now” tour, with the support of the World Can’t Wait, I have some time, while hiding from the sun — which alarmingly, is currently hotter than the hottest day in summer in the UK — to catch up on some of the events in which I’ve taken part.

I recently posted videos from my first event — a panel discussion in New York — and a video of the creative protests in Washington D.C. last Saturday, January 11, on the 12th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo.

The morning after, I flew out to San Francisco, where I stayed for three days, and after a gathering of like-minded individuals at the house of friends in Oakland on the Sunday evening, Monday began with a visit to KALW Public Radio, high up on San Francisco’s hills, for an interview with Rose Aguilar, as part of her “Your Call” show from 10-11am.

The 53-minute show, entitled, “What’s the state of Guantánamo today?” is available here, and I do hope you have time to listen to it, and to share it if you find it useful. I’ve spoken to Rose on my visits before, and it’s always good to spend some time with her, and with her indefatigable producer, Malihe Razazan.

I was joined on the show by two guests on the phone: Ramzi Kassem, associate professor of Law at the City University of New York (CUNY), who represents several prisoners held at Guantánamo (including Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, Moath al-Alwi,a Yemeni, and Abdelhadi Faraj, a Syrian), and Sharon Adams, vice-president of the National Lawyers Guild, SF Bay Area Chapter, who is also the chair of the NLG’s Committee Against Torture. Both Shaker and Abdelhadi are amongst the 77 prisoners in Guantánamo who have been cleared for release (in January 2010, by President Obama’s inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force) but are still held, and Moath, absurdly, was recommended for ongoing detention without charge or trial.

The following excerpts from the show were posted by Rose on Facebook, along with a link to the show, but I do urge you to listen to the whole show if you can. I thought that Ramzi provided some important information about Guantánamo and the shameful culture of indefinite detention without charge or trial that has existed in the US since 9/11.

Rose Aguilar: Why have you dedicated the past 12 years of your life to closing Guantánamo and giving a voice to those who’ve been detained?

Andy Worthington: No one should be indefinitely detained and no one should be tortured. Guantánamo is an example of the US, at a very high level, endorsing both of these practices. These continue and that’s why it’s so important for all decent Americans to call for the closure of Guantánamo.

Rose Aguilar: What are the main differences between the Bush and Obama administrations on Guantánamo?

Andy Worthington: Obama has dealt inadequately with the legacy he inherited from President Bush. When confronted by the opposition in Congress, he has persistently refused to spend political capital doing what he promised to do.

More reports, videos, photos and links to radio shows will follow soon.

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 four-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 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: Andy Worthington, Todd Pierce and Steven Reisner Discuss Guantánamo and Torture in New York, January 9, 2014

I’ve now been in the US for a week, on the “Close Guantánamo Now” tour organized with the campaigning group the World Can’t Wait, and I’m writing this on after only a few hours’ sleep, an early morning flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles, a reunion with my old friend and colleague Jason Leopold, an inspiring lunchtime inter-faith event in L.A., and a few moments of relaxation with my L.A. hosts in the Hollywood Hills.

I’ll be reporting more details soon about events in Washington D.C. on the 12th anniversary of the opening of the prison (on Saturday January 11), and about my subsequent stay in San Francisco and the events there, as well as today’s lunchtime event, but to start my coverage of the tour I’m posting below videos of the first event I took part in, at All Souls Church on Lexington Avenue in New York City, where I took part in presentations and a Q&A session following a screening of the documentary film, “Doctors of the Dark Side,” about medical complicity in the torture of prisoners seized in the “war on terror,” which was directed by Martha Davis, a clinical psychologist who also attended the screening.

This powerful film addresses the torture programs introduced by the CIA, at their “black sites,” and by the military at Guantánamo, looking at important events like the reverse-engineering of the SERE program (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape), which is used to train US personnel to resist interrogation if captured, for the actual torture of US prisoners. Throughout, the film retains an unerring focus on the medical personnel needed to monitor torture, to ascertain how to break prisoners, and to advise how far the torturers could go not to kill the men.

In my presentation, posted below, I addressed the ongoing complicity of medical personnel in the abuse of prisoners undergoing a new and growing hunger strike as the only manner they have of protesting about — and showing their despair about — their ongoing imprisonment without charge or trial. When a prison-wide hunger strike erupted last year, the authorities responded to it by force-feeding the men, an abusive procedure requiring the involvement, yet again, of medical personnel.

International outrage about the hunger strike, and the horrors of indefinite detention without charge or trial led to President Obama promising to resume releasing prisoners from Guantánamo after three years of inaction, prompted by his refusal to overcome restrictions raised by Congress, even though it was in his power to do so.  That has led, so far, to 11 prisoners being released in the last five months, but 76 more — out of the 155 remaining prisoners — were cleared for release by a high-level, inter-agency task force appointed by the president when he took office in 2009, and they need to be released immediately.

Sensing, perhaps, that despite progress last year, only permanent protest will secure their release, the prisoners are embarking on another significant hunger strike. 33 men are currently refusing food, and 16 of those men are being force-fed.

I urge you please to keep these men in your thoughts, and hope you have the time to watch and share the videos posted below — the presentation by my friend and colleague Todd Pierce, the recently retired military defense attorney who was part of the teams representing two Guantánamo prisoners in their trials by military commission — Ibrahim al-Qosi and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul. Todd spoke about the harrowing case of the tortured Afghan child prisoner Mohamed Jawad, discussed in the film, and about his powerful analogies between the ideology of the Nazis and the current US empire.

Unfortunately, the video of the presentation by the psychologist Steven Reisner, who spoke about the determined but unsuccessful efforts to hold professional medical and psychiatric bodies accountable for their involvement in torture, is not embeddable, but it is available to watch here.

Also posted below is the Q&A session (which includes Steven), and a conversation I had afterwards with a member of the public, which was filmed. Please also see here for a presentation made before the screening by Debra Sweet, the national director of the World Can’t Wait.

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 four-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 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 Reports 33 Guantánamo Prisoners on Hunger Strike, Issues Statement on Prison’s 12th Anniversary

A month ago, Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who was cleared for release under President Bush and President Obama, reported that prisoners — himself included — had resumed the hunger strike that raged from February to August last year, and, at its peak, involved up to 130 of the remaining prisoners. As the Observer described it, in a phone call with Clive Stafford Smith, the director of Reprieve, the legal action charity whose lawyers represent 15 men still at Guantánamo, Shaker “revealed there [were] 29 Guantánamo hunger strikers, including him, of whom 19 [were] being force-fed.”

That number has now increased. In its latest press release, Reprieve used testimony by the prisoners to “reveal that 33 men detained in Guantánamo are on hunger strike, with 16 being force fed.” When the Joint Task Force at Guantánamo announced at the start of last month that they were no longer going to state how many prisoners were on hunger strike, because they did not want to “further their protests,” just 15 of the prisoners were refusing food, all of whom were being force-fed.

Reprieve also revealed that the authorities at Guantánamo are punishing hunger strikers by sending them to Camp V Echo, described as “the strictest of the camps.” One prisoner represented by Reprieve’s lawyers said, “My cell in the dreadful Camp V Echo is constructed in a strange manner. It is designed to torture the person who is held there. All the surfaces made of steel. The bed is steel. The walls are steel. The floor is steel. The ceiling is steel. There is no toilet, but the hole in the ground is made of steel.”

Recounting his own experiences, Shaker Aamer said, “[I was] strapped to the bed for 24 hours except to use the toilet. The [force-feeding] tube was in 24 hours a day. We would be fed for 30-40 minutes each time, with Ensure cans, two cans, three times a day. Some of the prisoners became zombies, as if they were already dead. I dropped weight to 130 pounds. I told the doctors, ‘I want to die peacefully. I want no intervention.’ But they refused this.”

The increase in the number of prisoners on hunger strike over the last month is troubling, especially given the authorities’ refusal to provide figures regarding those on hunger strike. It suggests that the prisoners understand that, although there has been some progress in the months since President Obama, spurred by international criticism provoked by the hunger strike, promised renewed action on Guantánamo, and has since released 11 prisoners, it is also likely that the release of prisoners will not be made a priority, or will not happen swiftly enough if the prisoners do not, again, risk their lives to remind the world — and the president — of their ongoing plight.

After all, 76 of the 155 men still held were cleared for release at least four years ago, and some, like Shaker, were actually cleared for release by military review boards under President Bush, in 2006 and 2007. It is unsurprising if these men are not entirely convinced that they too will be released soon.

While campaigners — myself included — work out the best ways to keep exerting pressure on President Obama, I’m posting below Shaker’s latest statement from Guantánamo, which Clive Stafford Smith made available to the coalition of groups in Washington D.C. on Saturday, where myself and others were calling on the President to keep releasing prisoners, including the Yemenis who make up the majority of the cleared prisoners, and, of course, including Shaker. 2014 must be the year that the excuses for inaction come to an end.

Shaker Aamer’s Statement on the 12th Anniversary of the Opening of Guantánamo

Today is the twelfth anniversary of the establishment of Guantánamo Bay. It has been a blot on the reputation of America, and will remain that until, first, it is closed, and second, lessons are learned from it that can help prevent any repetition in the decades to come.

It will soon be 12 years that I have been in Guantánamo. I arrived on the day my youngest child Faris was born (February 14th, 2002). Even then, I had already spent some two months in US captivity, undergoing terrible mistreatment. Those are twelve years that are lost to me forever.

What I have missed most has been the opportunity to do my part to fill up my four children’s reservoir of love. The early years of a child’s life is a parent’s best chance to show them what love is, before they become more distant with approaching adulthood. Losing this, my opportunity and obligation, is my greatest regret.

However, we must look forward, rather than backwards. Even though British agents supported the Americans in my abuse, I wish them no ill. I do not even want to see them punished. I want only to come home to my family so that I can try to make up to them what I have been unable to provide for all these years.

I am on hunger strike once more. The US military wants to repress the truth about Guantánamo, but the truth will always come out. Others suffer even more than I do. All hunger strikers in Camp VI are now being brought over for a dose of the worst medicine the military can provide here – Camp V Echo, the Alcatraz of Guantánamo Bay. The cells are all steel, and the metal chills the bones as if you are trying to sleep in a refrigeration unit. They now punish us with force feeding, and they punish us with hypothermia, all because we call for justice.

Yet justice will be restored — justice must be restored.

I must say one thing to people out there about January 11: My biggest fear is that someone will do something stupid on the anniversary. When anyone does something wrong on the outside, we on the inside have to pay the price for it. When there was that incident in Yemen, the Americans banned the Yemenis from going home — even though it had nothing to do with the Yemenis here in Guantánamo Bay. I am grateful to those who support us. But if anyone wants to demonstrate on our behalf against the black stain that is Guantánamo, please do it in good faith and good humour, and above all practice no violence.

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 four-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 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: On the 12th Anniversary of the Opening of Guantánamo, Former Prisoner Sami Al-Haj Speaks

Late last year, as the coalition of groups calling for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba began deliberations for this year’s protest on the anniversary of the prison’s opening (on January 11), I reached out — as part of the “Close Guantánamo” campaign — to Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity, founded and led by Clive Stafford Smith, whose lawyers represent 15 prisoners still held at Guantánamo.

As we discussed ways to publicize the plight of the prisoners on the 12th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, Reprieve suggested asking Sami al-Haj, a Sudanese prisoner released in 2008, to record a video statement that could be used, and I’m delighted to note that Sami agreed, and his video message to President Obama is posted below.

Sami is the only journalist to have been held at Guantánamo, and he was working as a cameraman for Al-Jazeera when he was seized on assignment crossing from Pakistan to Afghanistan in December 2001. I subsequently covered his story, in particular in the months before his release, when he had embarked on a hunger strike and was providing information to the world about it via Clive. In this period, he also made a number of drawings about the hunger strike. When these were seized by the Pentagon’s censors, Reprieve described them to a British cartoonist, Lewis Peake, who recreated them based on the descriptions, and I told Sami’s story, and reproduced the drawings, in an article entitled, “Sami al-Haj: the banned torture pictures of a journalist in Guantánamo.”

Shortly after, Sami was released (also see here, here, here and here), and soon after a new position was created for him at Al-Jazeera, as the head of the broadcaster’s new Public Liberties and Human Rights Desk. He remains an authoritative commentator on the injustices of Guantánamo, and the need for the prison to close, and I am happy to be able to play my part in publicizing his thoughts, as, lamentably, the prison at Guantánamo begins its 13th year of operations.

In his statement, Sami appeals to President Obama to fulfill his promise to close Guantánamo, calling his record worse than that of President Bush, and also addresses the American people, noting the difference between the officials who opened Guantánamo and those who are keeping it open and certain Americans who have worked to oppose those actions, singling out the attorneys who have represented the prisoners for particular praise. Sami also send messages to the people of the world, and to the victims of injustice around the world.

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 four-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 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.