Andy Worthington's Blog, page 129

Reflections on Herman Wallace – and I Discuss Guantánamo on Radio Stations in Portland and Johannesburg

Suddenly I’m talking to people on the radio all the time — for the first time since the height of the prison-wide hunger strike at Guantánamo a few months back. I’ll shortly be speaking to an old friend, Peter B. Collins in San Francisco, and on Sunday I’ll be speaking to another old friend, Jackie Chase at Radio Free Brighton, and I’ll be making those shows available as soon as they’re online. On Saturday, I spoke to Chuck Mertz in Chicago for “This is Hell” (which I publicized here), and in the interests of completeness I’m posting here a couple of shows I did recently that I haven’t made available until now.

The first show was a half-hour interview with Linda Olson-Osterlund on KBOO FM in Portland,Oregon, which I wasn’t able to make available until now because of problems with KBOO FM’s website. These have now been resolved, and the interview is available here (or via the webpage here). Linda and I have been discussing Guantánamo for many years, and, although it is never a happy occasion to have to talk about Guantánamo, it was good to be able to discuss at length the ongoing injustice of the prison, the failure to close it, and the responsibilities for that failure, which lie with all three branches of the US government — the Obama administration, Congress and parts of the judiciary; specifically, the court of appeals in Washington D.C. and the Supreme Court.

The spur for our discussion was the release of two Algerian prisoners, and it is a sign of how very wrong things are at Guantánamo that they were the first two prisoners to be freed as a result of the wishes of the Obama administration — rather than through a court order or a plea deal in the military commission trials — since September 2010. The two men had been cleared for release in January 2010 by the inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that President Obama established when he took office in January 2009, but while they have finally been released, 84 other men, also cleared for release by the task force, continue to be held, because of Congressional obstruction, and President Obama’s unwillingness to spend political capital overcoming the obstacles raised by Congress.

The death of Herman Wallace, and the ongoing need for justice for Albert Woodfox

I also want to note that Linda began the show by discussing Herman Wallace, of the Angola 3, who, at the time, was very ill with liver cancer, and had spent 41 years in solitary confinement in prison in the US. While imprisoned on other grounds, Herman, Robert King and Albert Woodfox were convicted in 1972 for the murder of a prison guard, although they always maintained their innocence, and stated that they were falsely implicated in the murder because they had been engaged in political activism in the prison as members of the Black Panther Party. Linda read out a powerful statement that Herman had issued at the time, which I’m posting below:

On Saturday August 31st, I was transferred to LSU Hospital for evaluation. I was informed that the che of the mo treatments had failed and were making matters worse and so all treatment came to an end. The oncologists advised that nothing can be done for me medically within the standard care that they are authorized to provide. They recommended that I be admitted to hospice care to make my remaining days as comfortable as possible. I have been given 2 months to live.

I want the world to know that I am an innocent man and that Albert Woodfox is innocent as well. We are just two of thousands of wrongfully convicted prisoners held captive in the American Gulag. We mourn for the family of Brent Miller and the many other victims of murder who will never be able to find closure for the loss of their loved ones due to the unjust criminal justice system in this country. We mourn for the loss of the families of those unjustly accused who suffer the loss of their loved ones as well.

Only a handful of prisoners globally have withstood the duration of years of harsh and solitary confinement that Albert and myself have.  The State may have stolen my life, but my spirit will continue to struggle along with Albert and the many comrades that have joined us along the way here in the belly of the beast.

In 1970 I took an oath to dedicate my life as a servant of the people, and although I’m down on my back, I remain at your service. I want to thank all of you, my devoted supporters, for being with me to the end.

Since then, Herman was released from prison, on October 1, after his murder conviction was overturned, and died just three days later. To mark his passing, I wrote a brief note on Facebook, stating:

Rest in peace, Herman Wallace, who has died after being free for just three days following 41 years — 41 years! — in solitary confinement. A judge overturned his murder conviction just in time for him to have fleeting freedom before he died of liver cancer. Look in the mirror, legislators of America, and you who claim to be Christians but carry only cruelty in your hearts, and ask how you can imprison anyone in solitary confinement for so long?

That, I’m glad to note, was very well received, but while Herman Wallace’s long ordeal is over, the remaining member of the Angola 3 (after Robert King was released in 2001) is Albert Woodfox, who is still held in solitary confinement.

On Tuesday, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture, Juan E. Méndez, “called on the United States to immediately end the indefinite solitary confinement imposed on Albert Woodfox since 1972,” as the UN explained in a news release.

Juan Méndez said, “This is a sad case and it is not over. The co-accused, Mr. Woodfox, remains in solitary confinement pending an appeal to the federal court and has been kept in isolation in a 8-foot-by-12 foot (2.5 x 3.5 m. Approx.) cell for up to 23 hours per day, with just one hour of exercise or solitary recreation. Keeping Albert Woodfox in solitary confinement for more than four decades clearly amounts to torture and it should be lifted immediately.”

The UN added that Mr. Méndez “has repeatedly urged the US Government to abolish the use of prolonged or indefinite solitary confinement.”

He added, “I am deeply concerned about his physical and mental condition. The circumstances of the incarceration of the so-called Angola Three clearly show that the use of solitary confinement in the US penitentiary system goes far beyond what is acceptable under international human rights law.” He also stated, “I call for an absolute ban of solitary confinement of any duration for juveniles, persons with psychosocial disabilities or other disabilities or health conditions, pregnant women, women with infants and breastfeeding mothers as well as those serving a life sentence and prisoners on death row.”

41 years of solitary confinement is a cruel punishment that I find almost impossible to conceive of, although decades-long solitary confinement is standard procedure for the US prison system. I recommend anyone wanting to know more to regularly read the Solitary Watch website, run by Jean Casella and James Ridgeway.

The Ghosts of Guantánamo Bay

11 years and 9 months old, the prison at Guantánamo Bay cannot compete with the long ordeal of the Angola 3 — or, at least, not yet, although without leadership of a kind we have not yet seen, there is no automatic mechanism that will lead to the overwhelming majority of the remaining 164 prisoners to ever be freed, and those who are still alive may still be there in 30 years’ time.

I’m always delighted when campaigners draw connections between Guantánamo and the US domestic prison system, as there are clear connections to be made between both examples of America’s monstrous and punitive detention policies. At Guantánamo, of course, the isolation does not just involve, for many, solitary confinement for varying periods of time (and in many cases adding up to many years), but also isolation from their families. Whereas prison visits are allowed on the US mainland, even if physical contact is often prohibited, the prisoners at Guantánamo have never been allowed visits, even if their family members could somehow make it out to Guantánamo, and can only occasionally speak to their families on the phone.

I’m posting below a haunting South African song about Guantánamo by Zain Bhikha, featuring Dawud Wharnsby, which was written by Jeremy Karodia and Ayub Mayet, and which I heard at the start of another interview I undertook recently, with Ebrahim Gangat of Radio Islam International in Johannesburg. I have been speaking to Ebrahim for many years, but wasn’t aware until recently that podcasts of interviews are available. Our early morning interview is here (or via the webpage here), and the video of the song (and its lyrics) are posted below:

The Ghosts of Guantánamo Bay

By Zain Bhikha featuring Dawud Wharnsby

Written by Jeremy Karodia and Ayub Mayet

And the sun still shines on paradise island

Its radiance belies a deep dark deception

And as warm waters bathe paradise island

Its comfort conceals a cunning cold connivance

On the shimmering sands of paradise island

Cages and chains pray on our conscience

And as palm trees sway on paradise island

In the shadows they lurk persona non grata

Chorus

I can see the ghosts of Guantánamo Bay

I can hear the ghosts of Guantánamo Bay

I can feel the ghosts of Guantánamo Bay

Do you know they’re ghosts on Guantánamo Bay

Can you see the ghosts of Guantánamo Bay

Can you hear the ghosts of Guantánamo Bay

Can you feel the ghosts of Guantánamo Bay

Do you know they’re ghosts on Guantánamo Bay

And so ends all romantic notions

Discard due process, and redesign justice

Detained by decree, starved of humanity

Unaccused and untried, unconvicted, unjustified

Haunted voices echo in silence

Thoughts and feelings suppressed in blindness

Unseen faces imprisoned in darkness

And we all remain guilty in our ignorance

Repeat chorus

There are phantoms, apparitions

These are the lost souls of Guantánamo Bay

How they haunt us, freedom taunts us

And the lost souls of Guantánamo Bay

Repeat chorus

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 Ongoing Injustice of Guantánamo with Chuck Mertz on “This Is Hell”

[image error]On Saturday, I was delighted to talk about Guantánamo past, present and future with Chuck Mertz, who hosts an excellent four-hour radio show, “This is Hell,” every Saturday on WNUR 89.3FM Chicago. Chuck and I have spoken several times in the seven and a half years since I began researching and writing about Guantánamo on a full-time basis, and we had a very thorough discussion on Saturday, which is available here. Scroll down to listen to my 45-minute interview, after interviews with Ann Jones, Juan Cole and Dana Becker, or listen to the whole show here, which also includes Jim Naureckas, Trevor Ewen and Jeff Dorchen.

Our latest discussion was triggered by Chuck’s horrified appreciation of my most recent article for Al-Jazeera, “At Guantánamo, a microcosm of the surveillance state,” in which I discussed the latest scandal to rock the permanently troubled military commission trial system at Guantánamo — a technical upgrade that, through incompetence, or through an aspect of the sweeping surveillance state exposed by Edward Snowden earlier this year, led to 540,000 confidential emails sent by military defense attorneys at Guantánamo ending up with prosecutors, and seven gigabytes of files disappearing completely.

This, for the record, is how Chuck described the show:

If Franz Kafka had access to 21st century technology, we could have booked him on the show to talk about the military commission trials of Guantánamo detainees. Defense files are given to the prosecution, the FBI spies on meetings between lawyers, and charges are sought against only 2.5% of total detainees at the site. Kafka wasn’t available to comment, but investigative journalist Andy Worthington knows the alienation and farcical nature of authority better than anyone outside Camp X-Ray’s walls.

The Kafkaesque military commissions were not all we discussed, of course. Chuck also asked me to run through the terrible situation facing the men still held — the 164 men in total who remain held, with no end in sight, despite 84 of them being cleared for release by President Obama’s interagency task force in January 2010, and despite their prison-wide hunger strike this year having provoked the president to promise that he would resume releasing cleared prisoners — a promise that, over four months later, has led to the release of just two men.

There was much more in the show — including, towards the end, a discussion of the need for there to be high-level accountability for the torture that became official US policy under George W. Bush — but I don’t want to discuss all the topics and the facets of the Guantánamo story that we discussed, because I very much hope that you have the time to listen to it in its entirety. It was a powerful interview, and I hope to have the opportunity to speak to Chuck again in the not too distant future.

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.

Clive Stafford Smith’s Support for an Independent Medical Evaluation for Shaker Aamer in Guantánamo

Following my recent article about a newly-submitted motion to a US court on behalf of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, calling for him to be examined by an independent medical expert of his choice, I am pleased to be able to post a detailed declaration submitted by Clive Stafford Smith, one of his lawyers, and the founder and director of Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity whose lawyers represent 15 prisoners still held in Guantánamo.

As I explained when I posted the original article:

Mr. Aamer’s legal team, who include Ramzi Kassem of City University of New York School of Law (who made this new motion available to me), Clive Stafford Smith, the director of Reprieve, and David Remes, note that, although their client was cleared for release from Guantánamo “years ago by the US government’s own interagency process,” he is still held, and, they maintain, “An examination by an independent medical expert is needed for the Court to exercise its jurisdiction meaningfully by accurately assessing the reliability and voluntariness of any statements Mr. Aamer reportedly gave American (and any other) interrogators.”

Mr. Kassem and the other lawyers also state that an independent medical examination will aid the Court and the lawyers “in determining if Mr. Aamer can fully participate in his habeas proceedings.” As in the cases of the majority of the prisoners still held, Mr. Aamer has not had a judge rule on the merits of his habeas corpus petition, even though the Supreme Court recognized over five years ago, in Boumediene v. Bush, in June 2008, that the prisoners at Guantánamo have constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights.

The lawyers also note, “Additionally, as his past and continued mistreatment threatens irreparable harm, Mr. Aamer is entitled to the relief sought herein in the form of an injunction.”

Clive Stafford Smith and Reprieve played a major part in publicizing the prison-wide hunger strike that did so much to awaken — or reawaken — awareness of the ongoing injustice of Guantánamo, where 164 men are still held, even though 84 of them — including Mr. Aamer — were cleared for release in January 2010 by an inter-agency task force that President Obama established when he took office in January 2009.

I was happy to publicize reports of conversations between Shaker and Clive back in April (see here and here), and also to publicize the front page op-ed in the New York Times — by another Guantánamo prisoner, Samir Moqbel — which was also secured by Reprieve in April, and which played a major role in putting pressure on President Obama to promise action on Guantánamo. This involved a major speech on May 23, in which the president promised to resume releasing cleared prisoners. Since then, just two cleared prisoners have been released, which is a major disappointment, of course, but those of us campaigning for the cleared prisoners to be released can at least keep reminding the president of his recent words.

In the meantime, Clive Stafford Smith’s declaration, which provides further information about Shaker’s ongoing persecution at Guantánamo, is published below. If you find it informative, please feel free to share it as widely as possible.

Declaration of Clive Stafford Smith in support of petitioner’s motion to compel access to an independent medical evaluation

1. My name is Clive Stafford Smith.

2. I am the founder and Director of Reprieve, a not-for-profit human rights organization based in London.

3. I am counsel to Shaker Aamer in the above-captioned matter.

4. I make this declaration in support of his need for independent medical attention. I do not mean for this declaration to be in any way comprehensive of the mistreatment and injury that Mr. Aamer has suffered. Indeed, with respect to his habeas case — and also for the parallel criminal investigation being conducted by the London Metropolitan Police into British complicity in his torture — I have been working on a vastly more comprehensive declaration for Mr. Aamer himself to sign concerning his ghastly experiences in U.S. custody since late 2001. That declaration will run to well over one hundred pages.

5. It is important also to note that I have not had the opportunity to pass this declaration by Mr. Aamer himself to check its accuracy. While I try to take notes as accurately as possible when we talk, I sometimes do not get the notes back from the Privilege Review Team (PRT) for weeks after I visit Guantánamo Bay, which makes it difficult to remember the precise context of our discussion. When I talk to him on the telephone, we have limited time. Thus, if there should ultimately be anything inconsistent between this declaration and the one that Mr. Aamer subsequently executes, the latter should be considered more authoritative.

6. With these caveats, though, I am confident that the broad facts set forth in this declaration are accurate to the best of my knowledge and belief.

7. Mr. Aamer is a Saudi Arabian national who lived with his British wife and children as a legal resident of the United Kingdom. He has been imprisoned at the U.S. Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba (“Guantánamo”) without charge for over eleven years. The U.S. military has assigned Internment Serial Number (ISN) 239 to Mr. Aamer.

8. Prior to being taken to Guantánamo, Mr. Aamer was held at Bagram Air Force Base (Bagram) and Kandahar Airport (Kandahar). At both Kandahar and Bagram, he experienced sleep deprivation and extensive physical abuse. At Bagram he was held in a cage in the middle of winter; while at Kandahar he was held in a square tent that was roughly 12 feet square in a cage surrounded with barbed wire.

9. During my meetings with Mr. Aamer, he informed me that he has faced brutal treatment at the hands of Guantánamo and other U.S. government personnel, and threats of being exposed to more of the same.

10. Guantánamo prison personnel have employed sleep deprivation — a recognized form of torture — against Mr. Aamer. They have done so in a variety of ways and they have referred to it by a number of euphemisms, including “sleep adjustment”.

11. “Noise treatment” is when the guards at Guantánamo have deprived Mr. Aamer of sleep by making loud noises at all hours. He explained to me that the guards often do this to him. There isn’t a single method the guards use for noise treatment but examples include banging on his cell door, moving furniture, playing music loudly, slamming doors, singing, shouting, and so forth.

12. Another way guards have denied Mr. Aamer sleep is a practice referred to as the “Frequent Flyer Program” which consists of keeping a prisoner moving at all times. Guards will move a prisoner to several different cells per day and also send him to multiple interrogations. Mr. Aamer says this is not only disorienting and exhausting, but physically damaging, as the guards consistently used violent force whenever moving him. The excessive force would range from over-tightening the restraints and being violent when lifting or otherwise moving him, to the use of Immediate Reaction Force (IRF) teams in full riot gear — also known as Forced Cell Extraction (FCE) or the Emergency Reaction Force (ERF) teams .

13. There are other ways in which he is deprived of sleep. To give just one representative example of the kinds of things that happened, on February 4, 2012, he was taken out for recreation time at 10:00 PM, and was then left out until 8:30 AM the next morning. Mr. Aamer informed me that it was very cold and that he got no sleep that night.

14. On December 13, 2011, the guards at Guantánamo began a concerted effort to deprive Mr. Aamer of sleep through noise treatment. Until March 30, 2012, the noise making was continuing for most of the time, interrupting prayer time and sleep.

15. Beginning March 15, 2013 the guards began a fresh round of noise treatment on Mr. Aamer, utilizing a wide range of techniques to deprive him of sleep.

16. Mr. Aamer recounted to me his experiences with the IRF procedure at Guantánamo. IRF is a particularly brutal procedure where a prisoner is forcibly removed by a team of guards from an area, often his cell, the recreation yard, or shower. The guard team consists of approximately six guards in full riot gear forcibly tackling the prisoner and often beating him or violently throwing him against walls or crushing on the floor by piling up atop him.

17. To give just one example of hundreds, on December 9, 2011, at 8:30 AM, the guards at Guantánamo subjected him to an especially violent “IRFing.” The guards damaged his knee and a guard twisted one of his little fingers back to the point that it almost broke. He was also choked by a guard and suffered a number of contusions as a result of this incident.

18. IRFing comes for all kinds of reasons, many of them caused by mistakes by the guards. For example, on January 28, 2012, he was taken out for recreation at 6:30 AM. When he refused to return to his cell at 8:00 AM, because he was not given the two hours of recreation time he was allotted, the guards subjected him to another “IRFing,” which resulted in severe bruises.

19. For many months, Mr. Aamer has been conducting a nonviolent protest which involves him sitting in the recreation yard and asking permission to stay for a week to protest the conditions of his confinement. This protest is one of the only forms of protest available to Mr. Aamer — he is, obviously, protesting the fact that he was cleared for release in 2007, cleared again in 2009, and informed in writing that he would go home as soon as arrangements could be made, and yet he is still there. For the months Mr. Aamer has conducted this protest, it has always been met by an IRF team. More recently, however, new and more abusive techniques have been added and Mr. Aamer is subjected to them every time he undertakes his act of protest.

20. The guards “IRFed” him roughly once daily from December 12, 2011, until March 17, 2012, and from that time on with less regularity until recently — when it has stepped up again.

21. Mr. Aamer told me he suffers from asthma and the guards purposely attempt to aggravate his condition. The guards often spray an excessive amount of different aerosols, usually Pinesol, in or near his cell. Sometimes the guards will simply spray Pinesol directly into his cell. Mr. Aamer recalled one occasion where a large amount of Pinesol was dumped outside his cell and another occasion in which the only blanket he was given was permeated in Pinesol.

22. Mr. Aamer has also been threatened with rendition to other countries where he will face further torture. This has often come in conjunction with the noise treatment and IRF techniques described above. The threats have credence to him because he knows of other prisoners who have been rendered to other countries where they faced torture. He said he was threatened with rendition to Saudi Arabia. In fact, he has been questioned several times at Guantánamo by interrogators from Saudi Arabia who attempt to pressure him into agreeing to being sent to Saudi Arabia.

23. Mr. Aamer informed me that he has faced excessive and nearly continuous solitary confinement since 2004. He said that while he may occasionally be granted relief, for him, isolation is the norm.

24. Matters have got much worse recently. On March 29, 2013 and April 11, 2013, I had a phone interviews with Mr. Aamer. During these interviews he explained that there was a major hunger strike that started around February 4, 2013. He said he had joined it around February 12, 2013, and that he had lost more than 30 pounds at the time of his call. He described the retaliation he has faced at the hands of the Guantánamo staff for his peaceful hunger strike.

25. On February 15, during prayer time, the guards came to Mr. Aamer’s block. They “IRFed” him along with the two other prisoners who were there. All three, including Mr. Aamer, were injured by this assault and one had to spend time in the Guantánamo hospital.

26. Guantánamo prison authorities have added yet more brutal techniques to their “IRFing” regime since Mr. Aamer’s hunger strike began. This includes binding Mr. Aamer’s hands and feet and carrying him by his arms. Previously, he was carried on a board because of his long term back injuries. This new method is extremely painful for him and has caused or exacerbated his injuries.

27. Since the hunger strikes, and the introduction of these techniques, some of the Guantánamo guards and staff have been hiding or simply not wearing their serial numbers, preventing them from being identified by Mr. Aamer and the other prisoners.

28. On March 20, Mr. Aamer complained to the medical corpsman about the new IRF treatment. The medical corpsman said this new technique was not permissible with Mr. Aamer because of his back injury. Despite this, the very next day, on March 21, Mr. Aamer was again subjected to an even more brutal form of the new IRF technique. Additionally, a large soldier weighing around 300 pounds put his full weight on Mr. Aamer, who heard his own back crack. This was repeated again on March 22. As of my April 11 call, they still do not use a board in their IRF technique.

29. These beatings have become so constant and so extreme that Mr. Aamer has begun to refuse to leave his cell. He is afraid that he will become paralyzed in the same way two other prisoners at Guantánamo have been paralyzed as a result of the IRF techniques. Mr. Aamer stated: “My back and my neck are getting worse day by day. I don’t want the end of this torture here to be paralyzed. I want to carry my kids when I get home; I don’t want my kids to have to wash me. I don’t want to be the third one paralyzed in this place.”

30. During my April 11 call, Mr. Aamer described for me his previous day’s experience to illustrate his treatment since his hunger strike. On that day, Mr. Aamer was subjected to IRF at 2:00 PM as the guards insisted to bring him lunch, even though Mr. Aamer was on hunger strike and made it clear he would not eat it.

31. Later, he asked for medications the doctor said was necessary. He was again “IRFed” and only then given the medication. He asked the Corpsman why he was subjected to IRF for medication. The Corpsman answered: “That’s the only way they will let you have it.”

32. In what was no doubt an effort to break his strike, the lunch was left in his cell until 9:45 PM. At that point, Mr. Aamer was again subjected to IRF so his dinner could be brought in even though he did not want it.

33. Despite the guard’s continued insistence on violently delivering food to the hunger striking Mr. Aamer’s cell, they have been denying him water. At the time of my April 11 call Mr. Aamer had received almost no water in 24 hours. The medical staff at Guantánamo said that whether Mr. Aamer received water was up to the guards. They suggested he instead drink from the sinks. Mr. Aamer says the tap water at Guantánamo is undrinkable and often not even clear. I personally can attest that the sinks where the lawyers stay at Guantánamo are clearly marked as being undrinkable and I have provided a photograph of one such sink taken in 2013. [Photo not included]

34. In addition to the new IRF techniques being used, Mr. Aamer reports that, since the hunger strikes began, the guards implement what is called a “Code Matrix.” This refers to the different codes used in response to the hunger strike (i.e. Code Yellow means someone collapsed from hunger striking, Code Orange Crush means there is a door open for an unauthorized reason). Evidently the guards use the Code Matrix to justify “IRFings” without video cameras, which are normally used by IRF teams to create a record.

35. Mr. Aamer reported that one prisoner was subjected to the Code Matrix for being in possession of a bottle of water and was beaten up without footage being recorded.

36. There is also a new practice that has been brought in which involves using a dog leash on the detainees. Normally, they would have the hand and leg shackles (which are still in use) and the hands would be held by a guard from behind as they walk (or, more generally, push) the detainee along. But now they are attaching a cloth dog leash to the waist chain, clipping it on as they might an animal. A sergeant tried to make Shaker a victim of a Code Matrix today when Shaker refused to have a dog leash, and be treated like an animal. However, in the end they backed off and went for the IRF team.

37. Starting March 15, 2013, the noise treatment and sleep deprivation have gotten worse. This was taken to another extreme when, on March 18, Mr. Aamer was moved to a cell designed for disabled prisoners that had not been used in several years. It is only a few feet from where the guards use the toilet, shower, eat, and so forth.

38. Along with his cell which is inherently noisy at all hours, the guards continue to conduct constant noise treatment throughout the night. Guards bang on the doors, which make a loud slamming sound 20 to 30 times a night. They also move heavy chairs across the floor, crash about with the ice chest. They have recently brought a large fan into Mr. Aamer’s cell block specifically to make noise. On March 28, the night before my March 29 call, a guard sang loudly through much of the night. Additionally the noise from the toilet was constant.

39. In a letter written July 4, 2013, Mr. Aamer informed me that these sleep deprivation techniques have grown increasingly brutal in the lead up to the holy month of Ramadan. Guards now slam the doors outside of Mr. Aamer’s cell up to 300 times a night.

40. Since his recent hunger strike began, Mr. Aamer has also reported:

Now, when they [IRF] me in Camp Five, they shackle my hands behind my back and then force my face into the toilet.

They [IRF’d] me five times in one day. The pretext was that I refused to close my bean hole which they use to push food into the cell. So they started to [IRF] me even if I asked for a cup of water. They come into my cell, slam me on the floor, shackle me, haul me out of the cell, put a bottle of water on my bed, pull me back in and cut the shackles off—with a few thwacks in between.

They [IRF’d] me soon after my last call with my lawyer. They didn’t say a word. They just came in, [IRF’d] me, then put me back in the cell and left.

I guess the water is the way they think they can get to me. I am very torn when it comes to giving up the bottled water for the yellow stuff that comes out of the tap, that we all know is not drinking water. My father died from kidney failure, and so did my oldest sister. I don’t want to come out of this place hooked up in a hospital for the rest of my life.

They have hand-picked medical personnel who are willing to participate in the abuse. One prisoner vomited while being force-fed. When that happens, they usually take the tube out, but he refused. The prisoner was left vomiting on himself while he was being force-fed.

41. According to Mr. Aamer, the vomiting was caused by metal-tipped feeding tubes that are now inserted twice a day into the stomachs of force-fed prisoners, causing them to automatically vomit on themselves.

42. In addition to the retaliation he faces for his hunger strike, Mr. Aamer continues to be abused for exercising his other rights. During my April 11 call, Mr. Aamer commented to me that he felt these legal calls were in many ways “a curse.” This was because the guards punish him after each of these calls and that his treatment is “harsh” any day when he participates in a telephone conference with his attorney. Mr. Aamer additionally told me that the guards listen to what he tells his attorney and use that against him.

43. Recently, guards confiscated his privileged legal materials. When Mr. Aamer demanded the materials back, they “IRFed” him. Pages were missing from his legal materials after they were returned.

44. Mr. Aamer told me that Guantánamo officials continue to deny him basic medical care. He shared the following examples, among many others: most recently several medical necessities have been taken from Mr. Aamer to punish him for joining the hunger strike. This includes his second sleeping mat for his back, his blanket for his arthritis, his second bottle of water, and his knee and back brace.

45. Mr. Aamer has not received medical supplements for his enlarged prostate, and has also not received follow up testing to determine whether it was cancerous.

46. He was denied the compression socks for the edema in his legs that he was supposed to receive. Mr. Aamer informed me that he has taken it upon himself to ask others about his condition and learned it is important to avoid salt when dealing with edema. However, the only food he receives has large amounts of salt.

47. Mr. Aamer has been prescribed “Peripads” for hemorrhoids but they have not been provided. The doctors at Guantánamo informed him that he needs three “donut pillows” for this condition but has only been allowed one, which does not alleviate pain.

48. Mr. Aamer informed me that he was prescribed an extra pillow because of his long term acid reflux and an extra sleeping pad for his tender feet, back problems, and sciatica. He informed me that he was often forced to choose one or the other of these two medically prescribed items and cannot have both.

49. Mr. Aamer cannot trust the medical personnel at Guantánamo. First and foremost, he identified the Behavioral Health Unit (BHU), a unit of the Guantánamo medical staff tasked with ensuring compliance among prisoners. He said he had his “benefits” taken away several times at the direction of BHU. This also occurred recently in retaliation for his participation in the hunger strike.

50. In addition to the BHU, Mr. Aamer is unable to work with the general medical staff at Guantánamo. He gave several reasons for this. First, they are disrespectful and uncaring about his needs. He only receives redacted notes from his doctors so he cannot obtain complete information about his treatment. This lack of important information about his health causes him great concern. Indeed, on a recent visit, I secured a copy of a manufacturer’s notice from him concerning an injection that he was entitled to for flu — the medical advice in the notice had been redacted. When I got the notice through the PRT censorship, a member of my staff located the original notice on the internet. I was therefore able to determine that the two things that had been redacted from the notice were (a) an indication of potential negative side effects that could be caused by the injection, and (b) information about liability that could be incurred by those giving the injection. From this one example, it would seem to me that Mr. Aamer’s concerns about what the military is keeping from him are well founded. He cannot be expected to make a mature, knowing and intelligent decision about his own treatment under these circumstances.

51. The medical treatment he receives is often subject to the discretion of the U.S. interrogators at Guantánamo. Mr. Aamer said interrogators have told him his “benefits,” meaning the necessary treatments the Guantánamo doctors prescribed to him, are subject to his compliance during interrogations. He sees such treatments, for this reason, as another form of coercion by the Guantánamo staff.

52. Guantánamo medical personnel have been participants in his abuse. He said that whenever he received an IRF, a medical staff member has been present to oversee the procedure but has been complicit in the abuse. This includes medical staff violently inserting feeding tubes to the point where Mr. Aamer bled. It also includes the BHU team overseeing the removal of Mr. Aamer’s “benefits” in retaliation for what they see as noncompliance.

53. On my April 11 call, Mr. Aamer described the effect the medical mistreatment by Guantánamo staff has had on him. He reported: “I can’t read. I am dizzy and I fall down all the time. I do not call them, as it is humiliating.” He went on to say that when he does fall down, they will call a Code Matrix on him, often they will end up just leaving him in a cell because the hospital is full with other hunger striking prisoners.

54. More recently Mr. Aamer has reported: “I am losing my mind, I am losing my health, I am losing my life. They are trying to do as much damage to us as they can before we leave here. They are humiliating us as much as they can. They are harming me as much as they can.”

55. Over the course of my meetings Mr. Aamer explained to me the combined effects the totality of his treatment has had on him. Mr. Aamer several times told me that it wasn’t so much he was “being tortured” but that he is “living torture.” He explained that the collective effect of all the different abuses carried out by the staff at Guantánamo against him weighs more on him, physically and mentally, than any individual act.

I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct.

Executed on this 30th day of September, 2013.

Clive Stafford Smith

Reprieve

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.

In Court, Guantánamo Prisoner Shaker Aamer Asks for Independent Medical Evaluation

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. Please also sign the international petition calling for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, which currently has over 4,900 signatures.

On Tuesday, lawyers for Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, filed a motion with the District Court in Washington D.C., seeking to persuade Judge Rosemary Collyer to compel the US government to “permit his examination by a medical expert of his choice,” retained by his lawyers.

Mr. Aamer’s legal team, who include Ramzi Kassem of City University of New York School of Law (who made this new motion available to me), Clive Stafford Smith, the director of Reprieve, and David Remes, note that, although their client was cleared for release from Guantánamo “years ago by the US government’s own interagency process,” he is still held, and, they maintain, “An examination by an independent medical expert is needed for the Court to exercise its jurisdiction meaningfully by accurately assessing the reliability and voluntariness of any statements Mr. Aamer reportedly gave American (and any other) interrogators.”

Mr. Kassem and the other lawyers also state that an independent medical examination will aid the Court and the lawyers “in determining if Mr. Aamer can fully participate in his habeas proceedings.” As in the cases of the majority of the prisoners still held, Mr. Aamer has not had a judge rule on the merits of his habeas corpus petition, even though the Supreme Court recognized over five years ago, in Boumediene v. Bush, in June 2008, that the prisoners at Guantánamo have constitutionally guaranteed habeas corpus rights.

The lawyers also note, “Additionally, as his past and continued mistreatment threatens irreparable harm, Mr. Aamer is entitled to the relief sought herein in the form of an injunction.”

In support of Mr. Aamer’s claim, his lawyers note that, in the eleven years of his imprisonment, “he has been subjected to numerous abuses by his captors,” including “physical and psychological coercion associated with interrogations, prolonged solitary confinement, deplorable sanitary conditions, refusal to treat Mr. Aamer’s various medical conditions properly, and punishment and retaliation in response to Mr. Aamer’s current peaceful hunger strike.”

Drawing on a statement made by Mr. Aamer, as well as their own submissions, the lawyers run through the long history of torture and abuse that he has suffered since his capture nearly 12 years ago.

Torture and abuse in Afghanistan

At Bagram, where Mr. Aamer was first held, he “was subjected to physical and psychological torture … Interrogators repeatedly slammed his head into the wall with such force that his head bounced off the wall — a practice known as ‘walling.’” It was also noted:

During interrogations, US agents threatened Mr. Aamer with death if he did not answer their questions … US military personnel doused him with cold water in the middle of winter, while they kept him in a cage in the cold, from which Mr. Aamer thought he would die from hypothermia … They also “hog-tied” him, by tying his wrists behind his back and then tying a rope from there to his ankles … Military personnel tied another rope around his neck, so that if he struggled, he would strangle himself … They also used “strappado” on Mr. Aamer, a form of torture used during the Spanish Inquisition, where they hung him by his arms with his feet barely off the ground, resulting in the dislocation of his shoulders and causing him excruciating pain …

While at Bagram, US military personnel subjected Mr. Aamer to sleep deprivation for several days, as the guards were under orders to keep the prisoners awake by making loud noises … Interrogators threatened Mr. Aamer with rendition to countries such as Egypt, Israel and Jordan where he would undergo further torture.

After Bagram, Mr. Aamer was transferred to Kandahar, where “he faced similar torture to what he survived at Bagram, including sleep deprivation and physical abuse.” In addition, “during his time at Kandahar, not even the Red Cross had access to him … This total lack of access to the outside world led Mr. Aamer to think he had been ‘disappeared,’ never to be heard from again.”

Torture and abuse in Guantánamo

In Guantánamo, where Mr. Aamer arrived on February 14, 2002, the same day that his youngest child was born, “he was subjected to regular beatings, sleep deprivation, temperature extremes, denied access to fresh air and recreation, and kept for several years in solitary confinement.” This treatment, the lawyers note, “has had significant psychological effects on him.”

The lawyers also state, “Mr. Aamer was held incommunicado for the first four years of his confinement … He was not allowed any direct contact, such as a phone call, with his family for eight years.” In a declaration accompanying the motion, Clive Stafford Smith notes, “He has been held in solitary confinement at Guantánamo since 2004; although he occasionally saw breaks in this isolation, those breaks have been short and always end with his return to isolation.”

In another declaration accompanying the motion, Ramzi Kassem notes how, as a protest about “his imprisonment and continued mistreatment,” Mr. Aamer “refuses to leave the recreation area” on a daily basis after the short period when he is allowed out of his cell, “and is forcibly taken back to his cell by a team of guards.” These are no ordinary guards, but the Immediate Reaction Force (IRF), six guards in riot gear, who routinely handle prisoners in a violent manner. As Mr. Aamer has noted, “I am very worried about my health and my life in this place, I feel so vulnerable and anytime they can do anything to me, no one knows.”

Mr. Aamer also “suffers from many physical ailments such as kidney pain, arthritis, edema, asthma, tinnitus, constant constipation and stomach pain,” but he states that “he has routinely been denied adequate medical care while at Guantánamo,” and “alleges that this denial of adequate medical care is part of his punishment.”

The hunger strike

The lawyers also note that Mr. Aamer has been taking part in the prison-wide hunger strike that began in February “to peacefully protest the fact and conditions of his continued, indefinite imprisonment without charge.” In retaliation, he says, the guards “have subjected him to additional sleep deprivation and physical abuse.” As Clive Stafford Smith notes:

During recent “IRFings” in response to Mr. Aamer’s hunger strike, one of the guards, who weighs approximately 300 pounds, has been kneeing Mr. Aamer in the back and putting all of his weight on top of Mr. Aamer as he holds him to the ground … During one of these recent incidents, this particular guard continued to put all of his weight on Mr. Aamer’s back until Mr. Aamer heard his back crack … Mr. Aamer is very worried about being paralyzed from one of these brutal encounters, as two other prisoners were paralyzed after attacks by guards … He has reported: “My back and my neck are getting worse day by day. I don’t want the end of this torture here to be paralyzed. I want to carry my kids when I get home; I don’t want my kids to have to wash me. I don’t want to be the third one paralyzed in this place.”

As a result of his involvement in the hunger strike, Mr. Aamer has lost 60 pounds in weight, dropping from 208 pounds to approximately 148 pounds. Ramzi Kassem notes, “When I met with him on June 28, 2013, he was literally skin on bone: I could see his ribs protrude sharply beneath his skin.”

Crucially, the lawyers note, “Mr. Aamer has told counsel that the conditions of his confinement have interfered with his ability to think about his case, to help his attorneys by preparing for meetings or responding to legal mail with necessary information for his case.” It is also noted that military personnel “punish Mr. Aamer for having phone calls with his counsel.” Mr. Aamer has reported, “Each phone call [from a lawyer] is a curse,” and the lawyers note, “After a phone call with one of his lawyers, the guards treat him harshly and use any information that he has shared with his lawyers” against him.

The arguments

In calling for an independent medical evaluation, the lawyers expand on their initial argument by stating:

An examination of Mr. Aamer by an independent medical expert is necessary and appropriate to aid this Court’s habeas jurisdiction in two independently sufficient ways. First, the opinion of an expert with no ties to the government would shed necessary light on Mr. Aamer’s consistent accounts that he was interrogated while being physically and mentally abused by the government. This, in turn, would set the stage for a meaningful examination of the veracity and reliability of any reported statements offered in evidence by the government and attributed to Mr. Aamer. Second, an examination by an independent medical expert would allow the Court and Mr. Aamer’s counsel to form an accurate idea of his capacity to continue participating in his proceedings. Only with this information can the Court properly assess whether or not to proceed at all and whether or not to take appropriate measures if Mr. Aamer is in danger of no longer being able to participate in his proceedings; such an assessment would enable the Court to preserve the status quo and its jurisdiction over his case.

The lawyers also draw on previous Guantánamo habeas cases to point out that “the Court must be able to investigate whether a statement introduced in evidence against a prisoner is the ‘unreliable product of coercion,’” and specifically mention cases in which judges recognized statements as being unreliable — including the case of Fouad al-Rabiah, which I described in an article in 2009 entitled, “A Truly Shocking Guantánamo Story: Judge Confirms That An Innocent Man Was Tortured To Make False Confessions,” and the case of Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, which I described in a 2010 article entitled, “Judge Rules Yemeni’s Detention at Guantánamo Based Solely on Torture.”

The lawyers also draw on two other cases — which “dealt with Guantánamo detainees who were participating in hunger strikes,” in which the courts “compelled access to medical experts to evaluate the petitioners.” In both cases, the lawyers note, “the petitioners’ physical and mental conditions were adversely affecting their ability to participate in their cases.” The lawyers add that, like these petitioners, “Mr. Aamer’s treatment while confined at Guantánamo has adversely affected his ability to participate in his proceedings.”

Finally, as the lawyers argue, “Respondents’ mistreatment of Mr. Aamer not only threatens the Court’s jurisdiction and calls into question the reliability of any statements that Mr. Aamer reportedly made, but it also threatens his very health and well-being. The threat of irreparable injury entitles Mr. Aamer to relief under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 65.” As they also state, “An expert could gather evidence that would allow Mr. Aamer’s counsel to reliably monitor his health and ability to participate in his case on an ongoing basis.”

Drawing on another Guantánamo case to establish that an independent medical evaluation ‘fall[s] into a category of relief over which the court[s] [have] jurisdiction,’” the lawyers also note that, although, in another case, the court “held that medical reports were sufficient … reports alone are inadequate in this case because of the serious doubts that both Mr. Aamer and his counsel have as to the reliability of reports compiled by Guantánamo medical staff members who have themselves contributed to Mr. Aamer’s mistreatment.”

As the lawyers explain:

Mr. Aamer has several reasons for not trusting the doctors on staff at Guantánamo. He is often given only redacted reports explaining the doctors’ treatment and opinions on his health. When he is given treatment by those doctors, he often sees that treatment manipulated or taken away after a short time as punishment … He has witnessed the medical staff’s complicity in his abuse and heard them dismiss the damage done him by Guantánamo guards … Whatever reports they produce do not accurately and fully reflect the abuse by Guantánamo personnel that Mr. Aamer reports and its severe effect on his well-being … Since his recent hunger strike began, the medical staff has continued to be, at best, ineffective rubber stamps to his abuse, and at worst, active participants.

These seem to us to be sound arguments for allowing Shaker Aamer to have access to independent medical evaluation. It remains to be seen if Judge Collyer agrees.

Note: For further articles about Shaker Aamer, based on unclassified notes made available to Andy Worthington by Ramzi Kassem, see here, 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.

London Events: Afghan War Protest, and Vigils for Talha Ahsan and Shaker Aamer, October 5-9, 2013

I quickly want to point out three forthcoming events for very worthy causes — two tomorrow (Saturday October 5) and one next Wednesday (October 9).

Tomorrow afternoon, at 4pm, I’ll be attending an event to mark the 12th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan. This is a horrible anniversary for two particular reasons: firstly, because, as a the father of a 13-year old, it is unacceptable to me that my country has been engaged in permanent war for almost all of his life; and secondly, because, as a writer and activist on Guantánamo, I am aware that the context for the imprisonment of the majority of the men at Guantánamo was the invasion of Afghanistan — where the Geneva Conventions were first discarded, where torture became Standard Operating Procedure, and where indefinite detention without charge or trial became official US policy.

12 years on, and nearly five years after President Obama took office promising to close Guantánamo, his failure to close the prison is a disgrace, and the continued US military presence in Afghanistan continues to demonstrate what a knowledgable friend has described as America snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. I can only hope that the major withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan next year will play a part in bringing our warmongering to an end — although I have no rosy illusions about that — and will also severely damage the rationale for continuing to keep Guantánamo open, but in the meantime, to mark this anniversary, I’m taking part in the event below:

Saturday October 5, 4-6 pm: End their wars! Free our prisoners! An event to mark the 12th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan

Giuseppe Conlon Hall, 49 Mattison Rd, Harringay, London N4 1BG.

With Andy Worthington, journalist and author of The Guantánamo Files (and see videos here); Guy Smallman, photojournalist and director of the film “15 Million Afghans“; and Ciaron O’Reilly, anti-war activist; with music by Joe Black, from Dublin, and Razz.

This is a free event, although donations to cover expenses will be gratefully accepted, and any excess will be given to the Bradley Manning family prison transport fund.

Nearest Tube: Manor House. Buses 29, 141, 341.

To RSVP or for further information, email Ciaron O’Reilly.

The other events taking place, which I hope to be able to attend, are as follows:

Saturday October 5, 1-3 pm: London vigil marking 1 year since Talha Ahsan’s Extradition to the US

Parliament Square, London SW1.

It’s one year since Talha Ahsan, a talented poet with Asberger’s Syndrome, was callously extradited to the US with Babar Ahmad and three other men, as part of the rotten US-UK Extradition Treaty. Talha now sits in solitary in a US Supermax prison, awaiting a trial on charges relating to the hosting of a website that would not have led to a trial in the UK, and should never have been allowed to lead to his extradition.

Talha’s brother Hamja writes, “Please come for a photograph in front of Parliament and Big Ben (symbol of London) and Nelson Mandela’s statue to say Bring Talha Home. Photographs will be sent to Talha in his solitary confinement cell.”

See the Facebook page here and read Ian Patel’s fine article about Talha’s extradition in the New Statesman.

Wednesday October 9, 1-3 pm: Vigil for Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo

Parliament Square. London SW1.

Every weekday in spring and summer, lunchtime visitors to the Houses of Parliament were greeted by campaigners in orange jumpsuits, from the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, calling for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, who has just complained to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which “investigates complaints about the conduct of the UK’s intelligence agencies,” about the intelligence services’ role in his kidnapping and torture, and, in the US, has submitted a motion calling for him to be allowed a visit by an independent medical expert. For the previous vigils, see my photos here and here, and watch a video here.

Cleared for release in 2007 and again in 2010, Shaker’s ongoing detention is an abomination, and an indictment of the indifference of both the US and UK governments. Campaigners will be resuming their daily vigils, beginning on Wednesday October 9, seeking to draw attention to the failures of both President Obama and David Cameron, as well as demanding a full Parliamentary debate about Shaker’s case. Earlier this year, campaigners secured the 100,000 signatures on an e-petition that were necessary to trigger a Parliamentary debate, but all that has happened so far is a backbench debate in Westminster Hall (see the transcripts here and here).

If you are outraged by Shaker’s ongoing imprisonment, please send the following letter (or your own version of it) to your MP (by email) asking them to demand a Parliamentary debate. You can contact your MP here.

Ask your MP to request a full Parliamentary debate for Shaker Aamer

Dear ______,

I am writing to ask you to make urgent representations for a full debate in the House of Commons for the release and return of British resident Shaker Aamer to the UK in accordance with the e-petition process. The Government e-petition requesting “new initiatives to achieve the immediate transfer of Shaker Aamer to the UK from continuing detention in Guantanamo Bay” obtained 117,442 signatures. An adjournment debate was held in Westminster Hall on 24th April but this did not lead to immediate action for Shaker’s return.

In June, in the House of Commons, Prime Minister David Cameron assured Battersea MP Jane Ellison, that he had spoken to President Obama at the G8 summit regarding Shaker Aamer. He said that he was writing to President Obama about the “specifics” of the case and that he would report back on his progress.

But, these are just words and still there is no news of Shaker’s release and return. Recently, two prisoners from Guantanamo were transferred to Algeria. Their story was the same as Shaker’s. They had been held without charge for over eleven years and, like Shaker, they had been cleared for transfer for many years.

The “waiver” legislation in the National Defence Authorisation Act 2013 (Section 1028) was used for these releases. Shaker Aamer should be next on the list to be released. The UK fulfils all the security requirements for Shaker’s return.

I urge you to demand Shaker Aamer’s immediate release and return to the UK. Shaker has been on hunger strike for many months and he is now very weak.

As the days go by, we fear that Shaker may die before he is allowed home.

There have been worrying reports that Shaker Aamer has been threatened with transfer from Guantanamo to Saudi Arabia, a country he fled from nearly 30 years ago. Saudi officials have told him that he would be punished and imprisoned if he is sent there. He would be separated from his British wife and British children for ever. I understand that the UK Government agencies have secretly briefed against Shaker Aamer’s return to the UK. If Shaker is forcibly transferred to Saudi Arabia, they would no longer have to face Shaker’s allegations of torture in the presence of UK agents, when he was harshly interrogated in Afghanistan.

I appeal to you as my MP, to demand that the Government renews its efforts for Shaker Aamer’s immediate release and return to his family in the UK. I ask you to insist that he is not sent for further abuse and cruelty in Saudi Arabia.

The Save Shaker Aamer Campaign holds weekly vigils on Wednesdays opposite the Houses of Parliament from 1pm to 3pm to demand urgent  action to bring Shaker Aamer home. Please support us. Please do what you can to end this shameful injustice to one innocent man and his family.

Yours sincerely,

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.

Andy Worthington Talks to Voice of Russia About the Perils of Blanket Surveillance

[image error]Please sign and share the petition, “ EU leaders: Stop mass surveillance ,” which, shamefully, has just under 5,000 signatures at the time of writing.

Last week, as the European Parliament’s Office of Citizens’ Rights and Constitutional Affairs released what Index on Censorship described as “a notably pointed briefing paper arguing for Europe to stop trusting American Internet services,” and Index on Censorship launched a petition on Change.org, entitled, “EU leaders: Stop mass surveillance,” which was also sponsored by numerous other organizations including Amnesty International, English PEN, Article 19, Privacy International, Open Rights Group and Liberty UK, I was called by Nima Green for the radio station Voice of Russia, and asked my thoughts.

Nima’s four and half minute broadcast is available here, and below is a transcript of the broadcast, in which I was pleased to be able to get my point across that blanket surveillance is unacceptable, and that our governments should only be allowed to specifically target those they regard as suspicious in a carefully managed manner with a clear command responsibility and legislation to back it up. I don’t agree with the other speaker in the broadcast, Margaret Gilmore of the Royal United Services Institute, who tries to play down the extent to which surveillance is used.

To quote the petition, “EU leaders: Stop mass surveillance:”

Thanks to recent revelations we know that governments are using digital technology to monitor our emails, phone calls and the websites we visit. This is an attack on our freedom of speech and an invasion of our privacy. [We] call on our Heads of Government to clearly and unambiguously state their opposition to all systems of mass surveillance including the US’s NSA PRISM system and similar systems in several countries in Europe. Europe’s leaders have not yet taken any action to stop this abuse of our right to privacy and freedom of expression.

We call on Europe’s leaders to place this issue firmly on the agenda for the next European Council Summit in October. They need to make it clear that they will do so.

They must take action to stop this abuse of our human rights.

Below is the transcript of the Voice of Russia show:

‘People need to be clear what is being infringed’ – expert on mass spying programmes

By Nima Green, Voice of Russia, September 25, 2013

Forty human rights groups, along with public figures like Stephen Fry and author A.L. Kennedy, have called for an end to what they term industrial-scale spying by the US and the UK. Human rights groups launched a petition on Tuesday which has urged EU leaders to do more to prevent mass surveillance by agencies like the NSA and GCHQ. VoR’s Nima Green reports.

‘There are no privacy rights for non-Americans under Prism’ and the US probably places ‘no limitations on exploiting or intruding on a non-US person’s privacy.’ That is according to a damning new report commissioned by the EU, which has investigated the consequences that mass spying programmes by the US are having on EU citizens.

Mounting criticism against the activities of security agencies on both sides of the Atlantic have led to the London-based group Index on Censorship demanding an end to mass surveillance programs. Their petition has received the high profile support of many, including actor Stephen Fry, Turner Prize-winning artist Anish Kapoor and activist Bianca Jagger.

Andy Worthington is an investigative journalist and historian who has written about civil liberties abuses. He says that blanket surveillance cannot continue: “I really do have a problem accepting that, because the technology facilitates it, the government should be allowed to engage in a very widespread surveillance of its own citizens and it appears to me to put the citizens of a country in the same position as people facing stop and search in the street. It is a blunt and ineffective weapon against actual crime.”

Classified files released by former CIA employee Edward Snowden have revealed that America’s National Security Agency (NSA) and Britain’s electronic listening post GCHQ are spying on the public’s web and mobile phone networks. The revelations reignited the debate on the trade-off between privacy and security, leading the British Government to defend the intelligence programs as “necessary” in order to prevent terrorist threats. However, civil liberties groups have accused the US and UK of employing fearmongering to justify Orwellian snooping.

Margaret Gilmore is a counter-terrorism expert and a senior fellow at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence think tank. She argues that the public need to be more realistic: “The truth is, when you put something on your e-mail, all sorts of people are accessing the fact that you are using your e-mail. It is being used for marketing, for businesses, trying to find out a bit more about your lifestyle so that they can target you to sell their goods all the time. Now what happens with GCHQ is they do have quite a bit of access to the fact e-mails are used. What they cannot do is access the content of that e-mail. In order to access content they have to get a warrant. So I think people need to be clear about what is being infringed.”

Today’s EU report on the implications of NSA activities has found that PRISM has been allowed to gather intelligence on an unprecedented scale. Yet Index on Censorship says that the public have not yet understood how far their privacy is being invaded.

Andy Worthington again: “I think there is a lot of resignation amongst people. I think there is also a group of people that says: I have nothing to hide, why should I be afraid? which isn’t really what the issue is about, it’s about should they be doing this. I don’t think anyone should be complacently accepting that governments are harvesting vast amounts of data on their citizens without there being any cause for it.”

Despite heavy criticism by privacy campaigners, security experts point to the ever present challenge that police and intelligence agencies face in fighting serious organized crime and terrorism. Margaret Gilmore argues that security agencies desperately need to have access to large amounts of communications data: “The criminals — whether we’re talking about organised crime or terrorism — are using new technologies. They’re using the Internet, cyberspace more and more and more. We’ve seen it this week even in the dreadful Kenyan situation. It’s much more difficult to track even what country a terrorist or crime gang is operating out of. So it is absolutely vital they stay ahead of the game and I believe actually in many cases the intelligence agencies have not been on top of the game when it comes to new technologies.”

The just launched Index on Censorship petition has already been signed by over 3,000 people. The civil liberties group say that the public have the right to know, just how much their governments are spying on them.

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: The 10,000 Cuts and Counting Protest in Parliament Square, September 28, 2013

The 10,000 Cuts and Counting Protest in Parliament Square, September 28, 2013, a set on Flickr.

On Saturday September 29, disability activists, the Very Rev. David Ison, the Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral, the MP Michael Meacher and representatives of the Occupy movement held a protest in Parliament Square entitled “10,000 Cuts and Counting,” at which and John McDonnell MP and Louise Irvine, a GP and member of the British Medical Association (BMA) and the National Health Action Party, also spoke.

The event was described as “a ceremony of remembrance and solidarity for those who have had their lives devastated by the austerity programme, including more than 10,000 people who died shortly after undergoing the Atos Work Capability Assessment, the degrading test used by the government to assess the needs of people receiving benefits related to disability and ill health.”

In my many articles about the Tory-led government’s relentless and disgraceful assault on the disabled, I refer to the assessments as a process designed to find mentally and physically disabled people fit for work, when they are not, as it has been clear from the beginning that Atos has been hired not to conduct objective evaluations, but to cut financial support for disabled people on the orders of the government.

This was a powerful event, with white flowers strewn in front of the stage in memory of this who have died, and powerful speeches, and as part of the day’s events the Dean of St. Paul’s led a contingent of campaigners to 10 Downing Street to hand in “The Downing Street Demand,” calling for the Work Capability Assessment to be scrapped, and for assessments to be “brought back within the NHS so that disabled people and those responsible for managing their impairments, for instance their GPs, can make fair and compassionate decisions.”

Amongst the supporters of the event were the campaigners who launched the WOW Petition (the “War on Welfare” e-petition) to the British government in December 2010, which needs 100,000 signatures to be eligible for a Parliamentary debate. Please sign and share it if you’re a UK citizen or resident.

Below is the text of “The Downing Street Demand,” which was signed by the Very Reverend Dr David Ison, the Dean of St Paul’s Cathedral, Michael Meacher MP, campaigners on behalf of the WOW Petition, Disabled People Against Cuts and the Black Triangle Campaign, and Ian Chamberlain and Alison Playford of Occupy London.

The Downing Street Demand

Dear Prime Minister,

In 2010 you said, “I’m going to make sure no-one is left behind; that we protect the poorest and most vulnerable in our society.”

The reality of the austerity programme is the opposite. Since your government came to power, cuts have meant that disabled people are paying back 9 times more than non-disabled people and those with the highest support needs are paying back 19 times more. [See Dr. Simon Duffy, "A Fair Society: How the cuts target disabled people," p. 7].

Government policies affecting the mentally ill and disabled, including the WCA, the Bedroom Tax and the changes to DLA/PIP, mean that the disabled community is shouldering the heaviest burden of the national debt created by the super-rich. This cannot continue.

Here we tackle the first of these shameful offences. In 2011, 10,600 people died who had experienced the stress and humiliation of the Atos Work Capability Assessment [See DWP, "Incapacity Benefits: Deaths of recipients," p. 6] in the final period of their lives. 2,200 of this number died before the assessment was completed and 1,300 had been asked to return to work. We know from the large number of tribunals that decide in the claimant’s favour (almost 50%) that the WCA is not only stressful and humiliating but highly ineffective. The support needs of complex disabilities and mental health issues cannot be assessed by a tick-box system.

We agree with the British Medical Association which has demanded the end of the Work Capability Assessment “with immediate effect [to be] replaced with a rigorous and safe system that does not cause unavoidable harm.” We stand too with the 56,000 people who have signed the WOW petition in support of the same aim and their desire to see assessments brought back within the NHS so that disabled people and those responsible for managing their impairments, for instance their GPs, can make fair and compassionate decisions.

*****

Please see below for a video of the event, entitled, “Human Cost,” produced by You and I Films.

Human Cost – #10kCuts #Atos from You and I Films on Vimeo.

In the run-up to the “10,000 Cuts and Counting” event, the Very Rev. David Ison, who presided over the funeral of Margaret Thatcher, told the BBC, “It’s right to stand in solidarity with people from many different organisations to draw attention to the needs of some of the most deprived members of our society. Many disabled people feel desperate facing possible cuts in support, the bedroom tax, and in particular an inflexible and failing work capability assessment scheme which can blight and even cut short their lives. The government needs to respond by enabling disabled people to live with dignity and security.”

The Daily Mirror also reported on the event. On September 18, Ros Wynne Jones wrote an article that began:

A year ago, the Very Reverend Dr. David Ison was leading Evensong at St Paul’s Cathedral when four women dressed in white chained themselves to the pulpit. Marking the first anniversary of Occupy London’s eight-month encampment on the steps of the ­Cathedral, they called on the Church to “throw the money changers out of the temple”.

Fast forward a year, and an ­extraordinary thing is happening. As the second ­anniversary of the Occupy protest at St Paul’s approaches, both sides are working together to highlight the toxic effects of the government’s welfare reforms.

One of the women once chained to the pulpit, Alison Playford, is speaking animatedly to Rev Ison, the Dean of St Paul’s. “We always knew there was common ground between the Occupy movement and the Church on tackling poverty,” says Rev Ison. “And we are all agreed that what is happening to people with disabilities has to stop now.”

On the day Ros Wynne Jones met Rev. Ison and the campaigners, the Prime Minister “had welcomed yet more draconian measures to crack down on benefit fraud — jail sentences of up to 10 years,” prompting Rev. Ison to ask, “Where are the sentences being given out for defrauding bankers?”

He also stated, “It’s the role of the Church to build community in an era when people are very individualistic, and that’s what I see happening in the protest movement too. Caring for people should be right at the top of ­everyone’s agenda.”

As Ros Wynne Jones noted, he then looked up towards the dome of St Paul’s, and said, “We all need to ask ourselves, ‘would we want to be treated like that?’ Most of us will experience disability at some point in our lives. It’s not us and them. It’s us.”

I couldn’t agree more. This is indeed about all of us, and I don’t want to be a part of a country that thinks it is acceptable to treat its most vulnerable members in such a disgraceful manner.

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.

Read My Latest Article for Al-Jazeera on Guantánamo’s Military Commissions and the Surveillance State

Dear friends and supporters, I hope you have time to read my latest article for Al-Jazeera, entitled, “At Guantánamo, a microcosm of the surveillance state,” in which I look at the latest scandal to derail the military commission trial system at Guantánamo, exposed in a pre-trial hearing in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four the men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks — a computer problem that has led to over half a million confidential defense emails being handed over to the prosecution, and other files disappearing completely.

In light of the revelations of mass surveillance made public by Edward Snowden in June, the problems at Guantánamo can be seen as part of a bigger picture, even though the main tension at Guantánamo concerns torture — the government’s wish to hide its use on the “high-value detainees,” and the defense’s mission to expose it — rather than excessive surveillance as a matter of course.

I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to write for Al-Jazeera about the military commissions, which I’ve been writing about for seven and a half years. I got to briefly run through the history of the commissions in my article, reminding me that, when I first began researching Guantánamo in 2006, for my book The Guantánamo Files, the commissions were already regarded as a disgrace, a torture-laundering farce dragged from the history books by Vice President Dick Cheney, which had struggled to establish any credibility whatsoever. Furthermore, this situation didn’t improve after the Supreme Court found the commissions illegal, in June 2006, and Congress then brought them back to life with a raft of invented war crimes. My first article about the commissions was in June 2007, and the broken system exposed there continues to be broken, and to shame America.

In fact, the commissions have never had any credibility outside narrow pockets of the US establishment, and they have stumbled from one disaster to another, of which this episode — whose key anecdote involves defense lawyers using Starbucks wi-fi because they can’t trust the Pentagon — is another amusing but ultimately depressing example.

As I mention in my article, it is time for the commissions to be scrapped, and for the few men who can be tried — just a handful out of the 164 men still held — to be moved to the US mainland to face federal court trials. I hope you agree, and that you enjoy my article and will let others know about it.

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: The Save Lewisham Hospital Victory Dance, September 27, 2013

The Save Lewisham Hospital Victory Dance, September 27, 2013, a set on Flickr.

Sometimes you just need to have a party and celebrate, and that is what happened on Friday September 27, 2013, at the Rivoli Ballroom in Crofton Park, in the borough of Lewisham, which is the last surviving unreconstructed 1950s ballroom in London.

Hundreds and hundreds of supporters of the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign gathered for a Victory Dance — the Spirit of Lewisham Victory Dance — to celebrate the campaign’s high court victory at the end of July over health secretary Jeremy Hunt, who approved plans to severely downgrade services at Lewisham Hospital at the end of January, leading to two judicial reviews — one launched by the Save Lewisham Hospital campaign, and the other by Lewisham Council — that ended in success on July 31, when Mr. Justice Silber ruled that Hunt had acted unlawfully when he approved the plans. See my photos here.

The plans had first been put forward last October by Matthew Kershaw, an NHS Special Administrator appointed to deal with the financial problems of a neighbouring trust, the South London Healthcare Trust, in the first use of the Unsustainable Providers Regime, legislation for dealing with bankrupt trusts that was introduced by the last Labour government. The proposals involved Lewisham, a solvent hospital, having its A&E Department shut, so that there would only be one A&E Department for the 750,000 inhabitants of the boroughs of Lewisham, Greenwich and Bexley, and cutting maternity services so severely that nine out of ten mothers in a borough of 270,000 people would have to give birth elsewhere.

As well as being a celebration, the event was also a fundraiser, as Hunt is appealing the high court decision, but no one seriously expects him to win. The battle to save Lewisham Hospital’s A&E, maternity and other acute services may not be over, as there will be new challenges ahead — this time centred on the merger of Lewisham Hospital with one of the SLHT hospitals, Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich, which comes into effect next week — but we deserved a party after eleven months of campaigning that has shown dissent on an inspirational scale, with, at one point in January, 25,000 people taking to the streets in support of the hospital.

The bottom line is that every population centre of 270,000 people, like Lewisham, needs its own full range of services to be provided, and any arguments that fail to recognise this are dishonest when it comes to genuinely understanding and accepting the extent of the medical care that is needed by such large population centres. I have thought from early on in this campaign that while our actions have been giving hope to campaigners around the country, we have also given Londoners a rationale for campaigning for every borough to have its own hospital providing A&E, maternity and other acute services. I have no doubt that specialist centres (major trauma centres) for larger population areas — dealing, for example, with cardiac issues and strokes — are an excellent development, and a success story for the NHS in recent years, but current proposals to close A&Es and severely downgrade other services — not just at Lewisham, but in many other places in London and around the country as a whole — are unacceptable because they will endanger lives, increase waiting times, and make dealing with critical medical issues much more difficult for many people.

Congratulations to everyone who was involved in organising Friday’s event. It was a really great party, and another example of the solidarity that we in Lewisham have been showing the rest of the country since we were first threatened nearly a year ago. We deserved a celebration, but the government and senior NHS managers also need to know that we will fight again, and take to the streets with 25,000 supporters, if Lewisham’s crucial hospital services are threatened once more.

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 Prisoner Shaker Aamer Complains to UK Tribunal About Intelligence Services’ Role in His Kidnapping and Torture

Please sign the international petition calling for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, which currently has over 4,900 signatures.

What will it take to free Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the US prison at Guantánamo Bay? Cleared for release in 2007 under President Bush, and again in 2010 under President Obama, he languishes still in Guantánamo, separated from his British wife and his four British children, because President Obama cannot be bothered to muster the political will to send him home to his family, and the British government may also be to blame, despite claims to the contrary, and despite a request for his return that was made to Barack Obama by David Cameron at a meeting in June.

On Wednesday, Reprieve, the London-based legal action charity whose lawyers represent 15 prisoners still held at Guantánamo, including Shaker Aamer, issued a press release announcing that, in the latest attempt to put pressure on the British government, he has “filed a complaint against the UK security services over their continuing involvement in his detention without charge or trial.”

Shaker has submitted his complaint to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT), which “investigates complaints about the conduct of the UK’s intelligence agencies,” although it is “also highly secretive and provides a one-sided process in which the citizen hears at best very little — and usually nothing at all — about the case put against them.” In his complaint, Shaker states, “The actions of the [UK] security services have prevented [my] release due to defamatory statements that have no basis in honest fact.”

His complaint also deals with his interrogation by UK security services in the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, after his capture by bounty hunters in Afghanistan, but prior to his transfer to Guantánamo — claims that were accepted by the British High Court in 2009, and that led to a Metropolitan Police investigation, and a visit to Guantánamo to interview Shaker earlier this year. He complains that the British agents interrogated him “despite the fact that they knew that [he] was being abused,” and that the security services “actively sanctioned or encouraged [his] illegal transfer from Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay.”

As Reprieve also noted, “This has strengthened concerns set out by Mr. Aamer and his lawyers at Reprieve that false information provided by British intelligence is leading to his ongoing detention at Guantánamo,” contradicting what the UK government has been stating publicly.

Kat Craig, Reprieve’s Legal Director, said, “The US has cleared Shaker, and the British government wants him home — so why is he still there? All the evidence points to briefing against him by the UK intelligence services, who are terrified that his release will allow him to speak freely about the part they played in his torture and rendition. In effect, our spies are undermining the aims of our democratically elected government. The IPT will be worthless if it cannot put an end to this scandal.”

In the last year, his supporters in the UK secured 100,000 signatures on an e-petition that was supposed to lead to a full Parliamentary debate about his case, although all that has happened to date is a backbench debate in Westminster Hall, on April 24, where fine words were spoken, but no demonstrative action ensued (see here and here for transcripts).

During the debate, as Reprieve reported, Foreign Office Minister Alistair Burt responded to MP’s questions about why Shaker Aamer continues to be held at Guantánamo by saying, “I have a supposition [of why the US is continuing to hold Shaker Aamer] but it’s not a detail I can go in to.”

In response, Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s director, said. “It is deeply suspicious that the UK won’t say why their friends in the US refuse to transfer Shaker home to London. The US and UK intelligence services appear to be working together to ensure Shaker stays where he is or gets shipped off to Saudi Arabia. Shaker knows too much. Given that he could appear as a witness against the perpetrators of some the UK’s dirtiest secrets over their role in the ‘war on terror’, it is far better for the intelligence services if he is sent away to another prison in Saudi Arabia.”

He added, “We don’t doubt William Hague’s sincerity when he says that he wants Shaker released. Mr Hague needs to get assurances from his own security service that they haven’t provided information to be used to keep Shaker in arbitrary detention, and that any falsehood they have told to the CIA have been corrected. National embarrassment isn’t a reason to keep a man who has been cleared for release locked away in prison. Shaker must be returned to his family in London at once.”

There have long been fears that the US government only wants to release Shaker Aamer to Saudi Arabia, and not to the UK, and, as I explained in July, these fears have only been heightened recently:

[I]n the recently released “Final Dispositions” of President Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force (dated January 22, 2010, but only made publicly available on June 17, 2013), it appears that campaigners’ and lawyers’ long-held fears that the US is intent on sending Shaker back to Saudi Arabia, the country of his birth, and not the UK, are true.

The entry for Shaker recommends, “Transfer to [redacted], subject to appropriate security measures, including [redacted],” and it appears that the space for the destination county is the right size for “Saudi Arabia” but not “United Kingdom.” This also corresponds to distressing rumors we have been hearing about for many years.

None of this lets the British government off the hook, as it remains imperative that ministers secure his release here, to be reunited with his British wife and British children, rather than in Saudi Arabia, where he may well be imprisoned and prohibited from being reunited with his family.

The obligation is on the British government, not just because Shaker was given indefinite leave to remain in the UK, and not just because of ministers’ failure to secure his release for the last eleven and half years, but also because the Metropolitan Police have been investigating Shaker’s claim, accepted by a British court in December 2009, that British agents were present while he was abused by US operatives in a prison in Afghanistan shortly after his capture.

While we wait for further information, it is worth remembering that, in despair at ever being released, along with the majority of his fellow prisoners, Shaker was part of the prison-wide hunger strike that began in February, and, in the summer, involved 106 of the 166 prisoners still held at the time. The number of hunger strikers is now down to 19, although 18 of those men are still being force-fed, a process that medical professionals condemn as abusive. A reminder of what long-term hunger striking does was recently provided by Cori Crider, one of Shaker’s lawyers at Reprieve, who, after meeting him in Guantánamo over the summer, said, “Shaker Aamer cannot be recognized from the rotund photo of him with his children.”

It is time for the dark farce of Shaker Aamer’s unending detention to be concluded. No more excuses — whether from the US or the UK governments — can be allowed to prevent him, at long last, from being united with his family.

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.