Andy Worthington's Blog, page 148

Consumer Overkill: Photos of Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square

Consumer Overkill: Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, a set on Flickr.

On September 10, 2012, the BBC World Service gave me an excuse to photograph the West End of London, in all its garish consumer glory, after I had taken part in a news programme, discussing the potential handover of the US prison at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan to Afghan control — a topic I know something about as a result of the research and writing I have undertaken for the last seven years as a world expert on the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Afterwards, as I recorded in a previous photo set, Shops, Flags and the BBC: Regent Street in September, I cycled from the BBC’s newly redeveloped headquarters in Broadcasting House, down Regent Street, which, at the time, was still flying the flags of the world for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, taking in the shops, the shoppers, the building sites and the mad interchange with Oxford Street at Oxford Circus, and ending up, as this set shows, in Piccadilly Circus, from where I followed the tourist hordes down Coventry Street, across the top of Haymarket, and into Leicester Square, where the big cinema chains hold their premieres, where the fast food and the tourist paraphernalia are plentiful, and where the small park at the heart of Leicester Square received an extensive redesign in time for the Olympic Games.

This isn’t my favourite part of London by any means, although it is certainly lively, even though some of the supposed attractions — the fatuous M&M’s World, for example, and the Hippodrome, the former club turned into a casino — strike me as basically having nothing to recommend them whatsoever.

At the end of my journey, I emerged, slightly asphyxiated, onto Charing Cross Road, which was unnervingly empty, until I realised that, to mark the very end of London’s Olympic Summer, which had officially ended the day before with the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, there was a victory parade of Britain’s numerous medal-winning athletes in open-topped buses, travelling from the City to Buckingham Palace, which had drawn tens of thousands of supporters, who were crushed into the Strand as thought the rest of the city was toxic.

Catching a glimpse of the parade was a surreal end to my brief diversion into the world of hyper-materialism, sport and celebrity. I hope you’ve enjoyed these two photo sets. I do have a few more sets of the West End to publish at some point, but next, as an antidote, I’ll probably delve into some other more remote parts of this great metropolis. This particular photo set was the 78th in my ongoing project to photograph it all — almost entirely by bike — which began last year and will, I anticipate, continue for several years, and I already have over 7,000 unpublished photos  from across London — albeit, admittedly, with a particular focus on the south east, where I live.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

Free Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo: Join the Protest outside Parliament on February 13, 2013

Please sign the e-petition to the British government calling for the return of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo.

On Wednesday February 13, between 11am and 1.30pm, I’ll be joining representatives of the Save Shaker Campaign and the London Guantánamo Campaign in Parliament Square, opposite the Houses of Parliament, to call for the release of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, on the 11th anniversary of the day that, in 2002, he was flown to Guantánamo from Afghanistan, arriving on February 14, the day that his youngest son was born.

Shaker, who is now 44 years old, and has spent a quarter of his life in Guantánamo, is “suffering from a list of ailments, including arthritis and serious asthma problems,” as the legal action charity Reprieve explained last month, prompting “grave fears for his health.” One of his lawyers, Clive Stafford Smith, the director of the legal action charity, recently returned from visiting Shaker in Guantánamo. According to unclassified notes of their meeting, Shaker told him, “The ERF team grab me harshly, bend my arms and my head and slam me to the floor. They shackle me and put me in the chair.”

Clive Stafford Smith said: “The US gulag Guantánamo Bay is a disgrace where men are abused, and where any notion of human rights or the rule of law is flagrantly disregarded. In the US films which purport to justify torture [Zero Dark Thirty] are being nominated for awards, those who did the torturing enjoying immunity and the courageous people who expose wrongdoing are prosecuted for violating secrecy. Those who continue to be subjected to abuse and indefinite detention are all but forgotten.”

He added, “I have seen Shaker very recently and all he wants is to come home to his wife and four children who are desperate to see him. The UK government must bring him home.”

Also speaking out to defend Shaker Aamer is the comedian Frankie Boyle, who helped Reprieve launch a legal challenge against the British government in December. Speaking of the terrible anniversary of Shaker’s arrival at Guantánamo, he said, “All Shaker wants is to come home. While the rest of us go on enjoying our lives, he remains under lock and key for no reason that anyone can fathom. It’s disgraceful and devastating to think that this has all been going on for eleven years. It’s time for the UK government to do what they keep saying they will, and get Shaker back.”

Wednesday’s demonstration, “Stand Up for Shaker Aamer,” is organised by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, and this is how they describe it: “Please come and join us to mark the day, eleven years ago, when British resident Shaker Aamer was transported to Guantánamo from Afghanistan, where he was working for a charity. Shaker still remains in Guantánamo, imprisoned without charge or trial [and] suffers torture every day despite having been cleared for release by the US over five years ago. We must not stand by and do nothing. Join us and stand up for justice for Shaker. Demand action now by the UK and US governments to end his terrible ordeal.”

The scandal of the ongoing imprisonment of Shaker Aamer is one that should shame both the British and American governments, and the citizens of both countries. First told that he was cleared for release over five years ago, he was then cleared for release again by the Obama administration’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force, whose report and recommendations were issued three years ago, and yet he is still held.

His name is one of 55 on a list of cleared prisoners that was released by the Justice Department in September. This was the first public confirmation of his status, and while it is disgraceful that all 55 men are still held, Congress has raised obstacles to the release of the majority of the men, on the basis that their home countries pose a threat to the US. A notable exception is Shaker Aamer, whose wife and four children await his return in south London. The UK has been America’s closest ally in the wretched “war on terror” declared after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and it is simply not credible for the US government to claim that it cannot release him, or for the British government to claim that it cannot secure his return.

Where is justice when the US government has publicly stated that it does not want to continue holding Shaker Aamer, and the British government has publicly stated that it wants him to be returned to the UK, and yet he is still held?

Join us in demanding an end to this disgraceful situation, and the prompt return of Shaker Aamer to the UK.

For more details, please call Ray Silk of the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign on 07756 493877. Also, please sign the e-petition to the British government calling for the return of Shaker Aamer, which needs 100,000 signatures by April to be eligible for a Parliamentary debate, and currently has over 25,000 signatures. This is for UK citizens and residents only, although anyone anywhere in the world, including UK citizens and residents, can sign the international petition to both the US and UK government on the Care 2 Petition Site. Also please sign Amnesty International’s petition to President Obama calling for the release of Shaker Aamer, which currently has over 20,000 signatures. Also, please check out this show on Radio Free Brighton, in which the former Guantánamo prisoner Omar Deghayes and I discuss Shaker’s case, and the ongoing scandal of Guantánamo in general.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

Suddenly, Snow: Photos of Brockley at Night

Suddenly, Snow: Brockley at Night, a set on Flickr.

The opportunity to take these photos of the streets of Brockley in the snow, with the pavements empty of people and the streets almost empty of traffic, came to me unexpectedly at 2.45am last night. As I was about to go to bed, I noticed, through a window, that the outside world looked white, and, on closer inspection, discovered to my delight that it was snowing.

Five minutes later, I was dressed and venturing out into the night, discovering that the snow had been falling steadily for a few hours, and was settling, although I also discovered that it was very wet, and that the chances of it lasting beyond the morning were vanishingly remote.

I was out for about an hour, and I basically did a circuit of my immediate neighbourhood in Brockley, in south east London, up Tressillian Road to Hilly Fields park, then down Harefield Road to Breakspears Road, down to Brockley Road, and then back up Tressillian Road via St. Margaret’s Avenue.

It was a great privilege to be out at this magical time, and to be able to capture some of my impressions of the snowfall, a wet carpet that created a dream-like silence that is hard to find at any other time.

On my return, I posted five of my favourite photos, and then caught a few hours sleep before waking around 9am to discover that the snow had indeed largely disappeared, and heading down to the Houses of Parliament for a press conference held by Defend London’s NHS, a new coalition of campaigners — including MPs — calling for an end to the destruction of the NHS in London.

It was a very useful and informative event — and I’ll be writing about it soon — but it could hardly have been more different from the world of snow and silence in which I had been immersed just hours before.

I do hope you enjoy this photo set, the 77th in my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike — and, occasionally, on foot! I’ll be back soon with the continuation of my photos from September — another contrast to this set — adding my impressions of Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square to those of Regent Street that I recorded here. I’ll all be posting more photos from New York, from my recent trip to campaign for the closure of Guantánamo on the 11th anniversary of the opening of the prison, and also a final set of photos of Brighton from my visit two weeks ago.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

Save London’s NHS: Week of Action Begins – Join Us in Parliament on February 11

As a week of action begins to raise awareness of the threat to NHS services across London, with A&E Departments and other services at risk from Ealing to Lewisham, the new Save London’s NHS campaigning group has issued a press release providing further information to add to the information I made available in an article last week, Defend London’s NHS: Join the Week of Action from February 9 to 16. With a press conference in the House of Commons officially launching the week of action tomorrow (February 11), I’m posting the press release below:

Patients and doctors unite in defence of London’s A&Es: Week of Action at hospitals across capital

This is to alert you to the launch of a new London-wide coalition of doctors, patients and health workers opposed to the downgrading of A&Es and other vital hospital services in the capital.

Angered by the ‘divide-and-rule’ policies of NHS bureaucrats and politicians that set one hospital against another, Defend London’s NHS is calling for a London residents to come together and defend all their services.

The campaign kicks off on Monday, 11 February, with a press conference at the House of Commons bringing together representatives of the Lewisham, Ealing, Hammersmith & Fulham, Kingston and Islington hospitals campaigns. Speakers include: Dr. Louise Irvine of Save Lewisham Hospital; Dr. Onkar Sahota, London Assembly Member for Ealing and Hillingdon and Save Our Hospitals Ealing; Julie Reay, Kingston Hospital UNISON; Shirley Franklin, Defend the Whittington Hospital Coalition; Dr. John Lister, from London Health Emergency; and Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith (Labour) and secretary of Save Hammersmith & Fulham Hospitals. [Also, it is now confirmed that Heidi Alexander, MP for Lewisham East (Labour) will speak].

This will be followed by a Week of Action involving meetings, protests and vigils outside London hospitals faced with imminent threats to their A&E and maternity units. Details are constantly being updated but at present the actions include:

- a public meeting on 12 February in defence of Whittingdon hospital [Archway Methodist Hall, 7.30 pm, with MPs Jeremy Corbyn, David Lammy and Frank Dobson. For the latest on the threat to the hospital, see the Defend Whittington Hospital website. Also sign the petition here].

- a rally on 15 February in Lewisham in protest at the recent decision by the Secretary of State for Health to downgrade the hospital’s A&E and maternity services [at the war memorial opposite Lewisham Hospital, at 1pm. Speakers include Lewisham’s Mayor, Steve Bullock, trade unionists and community activists. On Saturday February 16 there will also be stalls outside Lewisham Shopping Centre publicising the campaign].

- the presentation on 14 February of ‘We Love Our NHS’ Valentine’s cards at the Department of Health [by Save Our Hospitals Ealing campaigners. Get in touch here].

- simultaneous rallies in Hammersmith and Ealing on 16 February in protest at NHS North West London’s plans to downgrade A&E, maternity and other services at Charing Cross, Hammersmith and Ealing hospitals [with both beginning at 12 noon -- the Ealing event is at Ealing Broadway shopping centre, and is organised by the Save Our Hospitals Ealing campaign, and the Hammersmith event is organised by Save Our Hospitals Hammersmith and Fulham, and takes place in Lyric Square, King Street. Hammersmith. See the Save Our Hospitals website here, and the Facebook page].

- a demonstration on 16 February in Kingston in protests at NHS South West London’s plans to close two out of five of the A&Es and maternity units serving the area [beginning at 12 noon, organised by Kingston Save Our Hospitals, involving a march from Norbiton Station to Kingston Guildhall. See the Facebook page here, and the website here].

For further details please send a representative to the press conference on 11th February 2013 in the Jubilee Room, House of Commons, 10-11.45am.

Current threats to London hospitals include:

- The imminent downgrading of Lewisham Hospital’s new A&E and maternity units in order to meet the debts of the South London Healthcare NHS Trust [for further information on the massive campaign in Lewisham, see the Save Lewisham Hospital website, and my archive of articles and photos here].

- The downgrading or closure of A&Es at Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Ealing and Central Middlesex hospitals. NHS North West London is expected to due to make its final recommendation at a meeting on 19 February [see the Save Our Hospital website, and please note the very recent proposal to "save" Charing Cross by less severely downgrading A&E Department. This is essentially the same as the proposals for Lewisham, announced two weeks ago. As Londonist explained, "The A&E settlement is very similar to that proposed for Lewisham, which we noted last week is actually the worst of all worlds. It may sound like a joke, but the answer to “when is an A&E not an A&E” will be -- for Lewisham and Charing Cross -- “when you have a life threatening illness” and will have to be treated elsewhere … Lewisham isn’t prepared to accept this solution and the council is about to begin legal action. Hammersmith and Fulham, on the other hand, are dropping their own legal challenge when faced with the same situation. Campaigners in NW London are vowing to continue to fight, pointing out that cutting inpatient beds from 500 to 60 isn’t “saving” a hospital"].

- The closure of two out of four A&E departments at either St. Helier, Epsom, Kingston or Croydon University Hospital by South West London NHS Trust [see the website here].

In most areas, the proposal is to replace the axed A&E and maternity units with ‘A&E’s lite’ or Urgent Care Centres – GP-run walk-in clinics able to treat only a limited number of minor conditions. In other areas, hospitals in adjacent boroughs will be asked to take up the slack, forcing patients to commute miles further for life-saving treatments and putting an intolerable strain on departments already operating at or near full capacity.

Many consultants and GPs, who from next April will have to make sense of the reorganisation when PCTs [Primary Care Trusts] hand over to the new Clinical Commissioning Groups, share patients’ anxieties about the proposed reconfigurations of hospital services as the plans often fly in the face of expert clinical advice – hence the threat last week by seven Lewisham GPs to resign from the local CCG.

For further information, please contact me, or contact Bella Hardwick, the chair of Kensington and Chelsea Residents Save Our Hospitals. Additionally, Mark Honigsbaum of Save Hammersmith & Fulham Hospitals can be found on Twitter (@honigsbaum, @savehfhospitals), and Kensington and Chelsea Residents Save Our Hospitals are also on Twitter (@KCRSOH).

Defend London NHS is a non-partisan, residents-led campaign group bringing together representatives of Save Our Hospitals Ealing, Save Hammersmith & Fulham Hospitals, Save Lewisham Hospital, Kensington & Chelsea residents in support of Save Our Hospitals, Bexley SOLH, St Helier campaign as well as representatives of Disabled People Against the Cuts, Keep Our NHS Public, Campaign to Defend Brent’s Health Services, Brent North Labour Party, Defend Haringey Health Services, Kingston Against the Cuts, London Keep Our NHS Public, Greenwich KONP, Lambeth KONP,NHS/Unite, Hackney KONP, Hackney Coalition to save the NHS, RMT, Lewisham SOS, Left Foot Forward, Save Lewisham Hospital, Unison, Save Lewisham A&E, NHS Liaison Network, Defend Whittington Hospital Coalition, Unite, West London Council of Action, Save Chase Farm, 38 Degrees Islington, Action for the NHS, SOS NHS Croydon, Community Options Redbridge, Harrow KONP, Black Disabled People’s Association/E.J. Foundation, North East London Council of Action, Chiswick CIP, GMB, Camden NHS Action, Coalition of Resistance, London Wide KONP, National Health Action Party, Consultants, GPs, nurses and other health workers.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

Shops, Flags and the BBC: Photos of Regent Street in September

Shops, Flags and the BBC: Regent Street in September, a set on Flickr.

Back in December, I promised to publish five photo sets from the 1,700 photos from September that I hadn’t had the time to publish at that time (out of the 10,000 or more photos of London, taken since last July, which are still unpublished). I published three sets, Blue Skies and Golden Light: The River Thames in September, Top of the World: Nunhead Allotments, and the View from the Hill-Top Reservoir and Memories of Summer: Photos of the Thames Festival on London’s South Bank, and then it was Christmas and New Year, and I wanted to post some seasonal photos, and then, in swift succession, I travelled to the US to campaign for the closure of Guantánamo on the 11th anniversary of its opening, and returned home to a rare snowy interlude, followed by a massive protest to save Lewisham Hospital from being butchered by the government and the management of the NHS, and a visit to Brighton for another Guantánamo event. I have also just begun to post photos from New York, taken as part of my US trip.

Consequently, the publication of the fourth of those five sets from September has been delayed — until now. Dating from September 10, this set records a journey I made down Regent Street from Broadcasting House, the BBC’s headquarters in Portland Place, after I was asked to be a guest of the BBC World Service, on the “Newshour” programme with Robin Lustig, to discuss the plans for the handover of Bagram prison in Afghanistan from US to Afghan control.

Bagram is Guantánamo’s lesser-known relative, a prison outside of the normal rules of detention in wartime, where, it seems, the Bush administration made a point of doing away with the Geneva Conventions, and President Obama has not seen fit to reinstate them. Although Bagram shares similarities with Guantánamo, where rendition and a similar disdain for the Geneva Conventions is apparent, the many thousands of prisoners in Bagram have not even managed to secure the limited legal rights that lawyers managed to secure for their counterparts in Guantánamo.

This photo set — the 76th in my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike — begins with a few impressions of the refurbishment of Broadcasting House, and then takes in a  variety of shops, building sites, and crowded streets still bedecked with the flags of the world that were in place for London’s Olympic Summer. Technically, this ended the day before, with the closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games, although I later found out that there was a victory parade for the British athletes, which I glimpsed as I approached the Strand.

In the next set I record my impressions of Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, tourist magnets that I rarely visit. However, although I have a less generally dismissive attitude to Regent Street, completed in 1825, which is a fine example of town planning from 200 years ago, and find it slightly less tacky than Leicester Square — or, for that matter, much of Oxford Street — it is still a temple to over-consumption and the obsession with materialism that has done so much to hollow out human experience over the last few decades.

The obsessive materialism of modern life has also — both by accident and by design — played a major part in the depoliticisation of the general public, who, for the most part, seem blithely unaware that they are only regarded as worthwhile when they have money to spend, and are equally unaware that our capitalist world has begun squeezing them, discarding them and turning them against each other in the name of austerity.

Cycling down Regent Street on a busy shopping day, with the flags of the world still flying the day after London’s Olympic Summer officially came to an end, there was no imminent sign of capitalism’s decline, but I expect the facade to start seriously crumbling over the next few years, as more and more people, fleeced by the banks, the corporations, the government and the middlemen who plague Rip-Off Britain, taking a cut of everything while contributing nothing, find that they have no disposable income to spend on the trinkets that are supposed to keep us hypnotised, like babies, all day and all night, leading to the collapse of more and more retail outlets — joining recent casualties Comet, Blockbuster, Jessops and HMV.

While I wait for that day, I hope you enjoy these photos from the strange world of corporate dominance that is our turbo-charged consumer society, forever selling us empty dreams, and lying to us with branding and advertising, which, last summer, was briefly overlaid with the jingoistic Darwinism of the Olympic Games. Personally speaking, I’m glad that it’s all over. It had its moments, but not at such an astronomical cost.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

On Terrorism, America Has Lost Its Way

Last week at Guantánamo, a farcical dance played out, as it does every six months or so. Representatives of the US mainstream media — and other reporters from around the world — flew to the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to witness the latest round of the seemingly interminable pre-trial hearings in the cases of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of masterminding, or otherwise facilitating the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 on New York and Washington D.C.

The farce of the Guantánamo trials is, by now, well established, although last week’s hearings introduced the novelty of a hidden hand, unknown even to the judge, flicking an invisible switch to silence potentially embarrassing testimony, and the proceedings also took place against the backdrop of two courtroom appeals that have dealt savage blows to the claimed legitimacy of the commissions.

In the case of the 9/11 trial, a permanent feature is the seemingly insoluble tussle between the prosecution and the defense. On the one hand are the attorneys for the accused, whose job is to try and ensure that their clients do not receive unfair trials. This involves attempting, incessantly, to point out the elephant in the room — the fact that all the men were held for many years in “black sites” run by the CIA, where they were subjected to torture, approved at the highest levels of the government during the Bush administration, even though torture is a crime. On the other hand are the prosecutors, whose job, above all, appears to be to hide all mention of torture. In the middle is the judge — in the case of the “high-value detainees,” Army Col. James L. Pohl, who replaced Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann as the Chief Presiding Officer for the Military Commissions on January 6, 2009.

During his four years in the job, Col. Pohl has not been able to demonstrate that the system of which he is the Chief Presiding Officer is credible. President Obama initially suspended the commissions on taking office in January 2009, while he reviewed them, but although he brought them back to life in the fall of 2009, little had changed from the system George W. Bush revived in the fall of 2006, after the Supreme Court had ruled that the first version introduced in 2001, after the 9/11 attacks — and the particular brainchild, it seems, of Dick Cheney and David Addington — was illegal.

Beyond the glaring fact that no coherent case can be made for holding military commission trials rather than trials in federal court, Obama’s revived commissions share one particular problem with the version approved by Congress in 2006 — war crimes invented by Congress, including providing material support for terrorism and conspiracy. In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee in July 2009, two senior Obama administration officials — Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department’s General Counsel (PDF), and David Kris, the Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department’s National Security Division (PDF) — both argued that material support should be excluded from the list of crimes triable by military commission, because they thought it probable that an appeals court would reverse any successful conviction, concluding that material support is not a traditional violation of the law of war.

The warnings of Jeh Johnson and David Kris fell on deaf ears, but they were correct in their analysis, although it was not until October 16, 2012 that the Court of Appeals in Washington D.C. — a deeply conservative court — threw out the conviction of Salim Hamdan, a driver for Osama bin Laden, who had been convicted of “providing material support to terrorism” at his trial by military commission in August 2008.

The court stated, “When Hamdan committed the conduct in question, the international law of war proscribed a variety of war crimes, including forms of terrorism. At that time, however, the international law of war did not proscribe material support for terrorism as a war crime.”

The Hamdan embarrassment was followed by another court defeat, on the eve of the 9/11 hearings. As the New York Times pointed out in an article a month ago about the problems facing the administration regarding the legitimacy of the commissions, the charge of “conspiracy” was “another charge the Justice Department has agreed is not part of the international laws of war,” and was of relevance because the only other conviction in the commissions (as opposed to the four decisions reached through plea deals) was the conviction of Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, who received a life sentence in November 2008, after a one-sided trial in which he refused to mount a defense, for making propaganda videos for al-Qaeda.

Al-Bahlul was convicted of conspiracy and material support, but when the ruling was delivered on January 25, 2013, the Court of Appeals vacated his conviction for material support, conspiracy, and another charge, solicitation, citing a supplemental brief filed by the government on January 9, 2013, advising the Court that it took the “position that Hamdan requires reversal of Bahlul’s convictions by military commission.”

Various branches of the government now appear to be at loggerheads, with the Defense Department accepting defeat, while the Justice Department plans to appeal to the Supreme Court. No one quite knows what will happen to al-Bahlul, who can be held forever according to the twisted logic of the “war on terror,” even with a vacated conviction. It appears that he will have to be returned to the general population at Guantánamo, rather than being in the wing for those who have passed through the commissions system (which currently only holds two other men), but it remains to be seen if he will be tried again.

However, with conspiracy and material support now both demolished as valid charges by one of the most conservative courts in the land, the entire edifice of the military commissions looks hollow and ridiculous, and as representatives of the media flew out to Guantánamo for the 9/11 hearings, just days after the al-Bahlul decision, there was a heightened sense, amongst those paying attention to the important matters at stake, that the farce would be darker and more ridiculous than ever.

As a result of the al-Bahlul ruling, the exposure of fictional war crimes — and the terrible impact that has on America’s credibility — was added to the trials’ familiar problems; namely, that the military commission system is, patently, an untried system, full of holes, which splutters to life every few months, when the world briefly wakes up to it, and then proceeds to look like a shabby version of a real courtroom, where real crimes are prosecuted.

This time, however, a surprise awaited the reporters — and Judge Pohl.

Much debate has focused, in previous hearings, on the switch that the judge can use to silence testimony if he believes that those speaking are straying into forbidden territory — in other words, when the accused, or their attorneys, wish to mention torture. Last week, however, new depths of absurdity were plumbed when an unknown figure behind the scenes, acting independently of Judge Pohl, and without the judge’s knowledge, cut the audio feed using an unknown switch in an unknown location.

As the Miami Herald explained, “The role of an outside censor became clear when the audio turned to white noise during a discussion of a motion about the CIA’s black sites.” Judge Pohl, however, made clear that “neither he nor his security officer was responsible for the censorship episode,” and stated, publicly, “If some external body is turning the commission off based on their own views of what things ought to be, with no reasonable explanation, then we are going to have a little meeting about who turns that light on or off.”

The Miami Herald added, “His comments appeared to be aimed at the Pentagon prosecution team. Attorney Joanna Baltes, representing the Justice Department on secrecy matters in the case, advised the judge that she could explain what other forces have a hand in censoring the court proceedings. But not in open session.”

When even the judge is not safe from interference by a body — presumably the CIA — that cannot even be mentioned publicly, provoking a public outburst that reveals his frustrations at being undermined, it is time for all concerned to recognize that the farce must end.

With the commissions completely discredited, President Obama needs to bring the 9/11 defendants to New York to face a federal court trial, as Attorney General Eric Holder announced in November 2009, before the President beat a retreat in the face of critics sniveling that it was not safe to do so. That made America look cowardly and stupid, but the commissions are not improving matters in the slightest, and, it seems certain, are incapable of delivering anything that resembles justice.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

As published exclusively on the website of the Future of Freedom Foundation.

Photos: Mostly Camberwell, At Night

Mostly Camberwell, At Night, a set on Flickr.

Recently, I’ve been posting a variety of photos from my visit to the US in January, to campaign for the closure of Guantánamo on the 11th anniversary of the opening of the prison (see here, here, here and here), my more recent visit to Brighton for another Guantánamo event (see here and here), and the huge protest in Lewisham on January 26 to save the hospital from butchers in NHS management and the government (here and here). As a result, I have rather neglected my project to record the whole of London by bike, which I began last May, although I continue to cycle and photograph the city, and now have an unpublished archive of at least 10,000 photos, which, realistically, will only be made available if I make the project into something more formal than it is at present. Any advice on this — leads, contacts, funders — is most welcome.

To make amends for my distraction regarding my London project, I’m posting my 75th set of London photos, which features photos I took at night just two days ago, and I’ll follow up soon with other London sets, interspersed with more photos of New York from my US trip, and a last set — for now — of Brighton.

The photos in this set are from a bike ride I took, on February 5, 2013, from my home in Brockley, in south-east London, to Camberwell, also in south east London, but further west, and back again. This is a six-mile round trip, and I undertook it to collect my son Tyler from an art class he is taking, organised by the South London Gallery and Southwark Schools’ Learning Partnership at a building that belongs to the University of the Arts London.

On the way, I had very little time to take photos, but I managed to capture a few locations in Brockley and Peckham, and I also took a few photos near the building where his art class takes place in Camberwell. On the way back, after putting Tyler on the train at Denmark Hill, I had the opportunity to take a few more photos — of some other locations in Camberwell, and one in Herne Hill, before the increasingly torrential rain forced me to give up, and I cycled back home as swiftly as possible.

I always love taking photos at night, and I hope you enjoy this set. I’ll be back, in the daytime, very soon, but for now please wander with me through the city at night, and explore some of its lesser known spaces and its hidden corners.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

Guantánamo and Shaker Aamer: Andy Worthington and Omar Deghayes in Conversation on Radio Free Brighton

[image error] Listen here to my show with Omar Deghayes on Radio Free Brighton . And please sign the petition calling for the release of Shaker Aamer.

Last week, when I visited Brighton to take part in “Freedom from Torture,” an event organised by the University of Sussex Amnesty International Society, I stayed overnight with my friend Jackie Chase and her family, and, the following day, recorded a radio show about Guantánamo on Radio Free Brighton, with my friend, the former Guantánamo prisoner and Brighton resident Omar Deghayes. The 40-minute show is available here.

Jackie is a long-standing campaigner for justice, having been involved in the Save Omar campaign, to secure the return from Guantánamo of Omar Deghayes (who was freed in December 2007). Jackie then campaigned to secure the release of Binyam Mohamed, who was finally freed in February 2009, and now runs Under the Bridge Studios, a wonderfully busy community of rehearsal studios, which also houses Radio Free Brighton, which was recently recognised by Mixcloud as one of the 30 most popular online radio shows in the world.

The show began with a recording of President Obama’s broken promise to close Guantánamo within a year, which he made on his second day in office in February 2009, and I then provided a recap about the sad realities of the prison as its twelfth year of operations begins, which Luke Starr, at Radio Free Brighton, interspersed with other recordings of US political figures discussing Guantánamo.

There are 166 prisoners still held at Guantánamo, and they have been failed by all three branches of the US government — by the Obama administration, by Congress and by the courts. 86 of the 166 men were cleared for release at least three years by President Obama’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force, a collection of around 60 sober and responsible government officials and representatives of the intelligence agencies, who spent a year assessing all the prisoners’ cases. In addition, some of these cleared prisoners were first cleared for release under President Bush as long ago as 2004, and in other cases in 2006 and 2007.

46 others are being held indefinitely without charge or trial, regarded as “too dangerous to release” even though the administration concedes that it does not have the evidence to put them on trial. This is a disgraceful endorsement of indefinite detention, leaving those concerned in a legal, moral and ethical black hole.

Omar and I then proceeded to discuss Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, who is still held even though the US government no longer wants to hold him, and the British government has been requesting his return since 2007. Omar recalled the important role that Shaker played at Guantánamo, where he stood up for the rights of his fellow prisoners and liaised between the prisoners and the US authorities, and we both expressed our dissatisfaction with the British government’s repeated claim that it is unable to secure Shaker’s release. As America’s closest ally in the “war on terror,” we find this unconvincing, and believe that both the US and the UK are in no hurry to release Shaker because he is eloquent and extremely knowledgeable about the crimes committed in the “war on terror” at Guantánamo and elsewhere.

Omar also spoke about some of the other cleared prisoners whose ongoing detention is unacceptable — the Tunisians, for example, and the Libyans. Both groups of prisoners were opposed to the dictators in charge of their home countries, but those men — Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali and Moammar Gaddafi — have been ousted, and, in Gaddafi’s case, killed, and there is no valid reason why the men in question — five Tunisians and four Libyans — cannot now be repatriated.

There was much more in the show, and I hope that, if you have 40 minutes to spare, you’ll be able to listen to it. It ends, at Luke’s instigation, with “727,” a great song about Omar (whose prison number was 727) by Bad Science.

Note: Please sign the e-petition to the British government calling for the return of Shaker Aamer, which needs 100,000 signatures by April, and currently has over 24,000 signatures. This is for UK citizens and residents only, although anyone anywhere in the world, including UK citizens and residents, can sign the international petition to both the US and UK government on the Care 2 Petition Site.

Also, see here and here for photos from my Brighton visit.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

An Englishman in New York: Photos of a Walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan

An Englishman in New York: A Walk from Brooklyn to Manhattan, a set on Flickr.

Last month, when I visited the US to campaign for the closure of the prison at Guantánamo Bay on the 11th anniversary of its opening, I took part in events in Washington D.C. and McLean, Virginia from January 10 to 12, and in New York on January 13, which I made available in photo sets here, here and here. An archive of various articles relating to my visit — and videos of my appearances — can be found here.

However, I arrived in New York on the evening of January 7, and didn’t leave until the evening of January 16, so I had plenty of time to wander around New York — specifically Manhattan and Brooklyn, where I was staying with my friend, the secretive blogger known as The Talking Dog, and his family. The ‘Dog has been my friend since September 2007, when we first met over the phone, as he interviewed me for his excellent ongoing series of interviews with people involved with the Guantánamo story, just after the publication of my book The Guantánamo Files, and I first visited him and stayed with him in March 2008, during my first ever visit to America.

This set of photos, the first of eleven sets from New York (plus two from Washington D.C.), was taken on January 8, my first full day in the city, when it was unseasonably warm, the sun shone magnificently, and my host escorted me on a walk from the Cobble Hill area of Brooklyn over the Brooklyn Bridge into Lower Manhattan. We then parted ways. The ‘Dog went to his office, while I wandered through the financial district, down to Battery park — somewhere I have always wanted to visit — before walking back up through Lower Manhattan, and then back across the Brooklyn Bridge as dusk fell.

There are five sets from this adventure — plus a sixth from January 8, as, after returning home to Brooklyn, I set out once more through the dark night to capture a few glimpses of the million lights of the Manhattan skyline from the former docks, which was quite an experience!

I’ll be posting these other sets in due course, but for now I hope you enjoy the first part of my journey of discovery in New York — from Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan across the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s a journey I’d repeat again and again if I actually lived in New York, rather than just feeling like I do whenever I visit — because of the great vibe of New York and the great hospitality of my many friends in the city.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

Defend London’s NHS: Join the Week of Action from February 9 to 16

From February 9 to 16, a coalition of Londoners from all points of the compass are uniting for a Week of Action in defence of London’s NHS services — and in particular, a number of endangered A&E Departments. Defend London’s NHS describes itself as “a non-partisan, residents-led campaign group bringing together Londoners from Islington to Greenwich, from Ealing to Hackney and beyond.”

As the umbrella organisation’s press release explained, “An unprecedented coalition of London residents, medical staff, trade unions and health campaigners has come together to raise the alarm regarding the biggest threats to A & E’s, maternity units and in-hospital care for a generation. The week-long actions will include protests, pickets, rallies, demonstrations, candle lit vigils, musical events and more.”

The organisers also noted, “Londoners have lobbied MPs to ensure that cross-party members of the House of Commons as well as the House of Lords participate in the Week of Action.”

On February 11, 2013, there will be a press conference, called by Defend London’s NHS and Andy Slaughter, the Labour MP for Hammersmith, at the Jubilee Room, House of Commons, from 10am to 11.45am, at which the full details of the threats to  London’s NHS services — and the very existence of a number of hospitals — will be discussed.

As a resident of Lewisham, in south east London, I am well aware of these threats, as I have been engaged, since October, in the campaign to save Lewisham Hospital’s A&E Department from closure, as part of a reorganisation of NHS services in south east London that would also see other frontline services — including maternity services — severely downgraded, and 60 percent of the hospital’s buildings sold off.

The threat to Lewisham is specifically connected to the fate of the South London Healthcare Trust, an ailing “super-trust” in Greenwich, Bexley and Bromley, which was put into administration last summer because of debts incurred through ruinously expensive PFI deals which are so outrageously skewed in favour of the contractors and investors that they ought to be illegal. However, instead of tackling the PFI crisis, the government and the NHS would rather sacrifice hospitals instead.

Matthew Kershaw, an NHS Special Administrator appointed by the government to deal with the SLHT in the first application of legislation for bankrupt trusts that was introduced by the Labour government, recommend breaking up the trust, with King’s College Hospital in Camberwell taking over one of the SLHT’s three hospitals, and Lewisham merging with a second, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Woolwich. This may be feasible, but not at the human cost proposed by Kershaw, who recommended closing Lewisham’s A&E and downgrading other services, leaving the 250,000 residents of Lewisham without emergency services, and Queen Elizabeth Hospital as the sole A&E Department for the 750,000 inhabitants of three boroughs — Greenwich, Lewisham and Bexley.

Last week, following a march of 25,000 people in Lewisham on January 26 (see my photos here and here), health secretary Jeremy Hunt approved Kershaw’s proposals, while pretending to offer concessions that are largely illusory. The struggle to save Lewisham continues, with a legal challenge being explored, and a strong conviction, on the part of the Lewisham campaigners, not to accept reforms that are hugely damaging, hugely expensive and also unnecessary.

We in Lewisham know that senior NHS management have been using the problems of the SLHT to try and force through a reorganisation of hospitals in south east London that they have long wanted to pursue, which has always involved butchering Lewisham, but we refuse to accept it. In accepting Matthew Kershaw’s proposals, Jeremy Hunt noted that £73 million has been earmarked for nearby hospitals, to deal with the tens of thousands of emergencies –  and thousands of births — that Lewisham will no longer be able to handle if the plans proceed, but instead he has provided campaigners with a budget for keeping services in Lewisham instead.

As well as the threat facing Lewisham, the government and senior NHS officials are also planning to close or downgrade at least another 24 A&E Departments across the country, as the Mail on Sunday reported in September, of which seven were in London, although it now appears that at least eight London A&Es are under threat.

As Defend London’s NHS explained in its press release, four of those A&Es are at Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Ealing and Central Middlesex hospitals, where a people’s campaign has been underway since last year to prevent the closure of these four departments — part of nine in total in north west London. For further information, see Dr. John Lister’s report for Health Emergency.

The press release explained that the government intends to proceed with the closures “following a botched three-month consultation exercise by NHS North West London that attracted just 4,000 responses and was heavily slanted in favour of the commissioners’ five ‘preferred’ hospitals: Chelsea & Westminster, St. Mary’s, Hillingdon, West Middlesex and Northwick Park.”

The press release added, “NHS North West London will make its final recommendations on 19 February, after which it is up to the affected local authorities to register their objections in order to force a formal review by Mr. Hunt.”

In addition, two out of four A&E departments in south west London are also threatened with closure, the four being St. Helier, Epsom, Kingston and Croydon University Hospital. In September, the Mail on Sunday also identified Chase Farm in Enfield and King George in Ilford as other hospitals facing the closure of their A&E Departments.

As the campaign also explained, “In some areas the axed A&Es will be replaced by Urgent Care Centres — GP-run walk-in clinics able to treat only a limited number of minor conditions. In other areas, hospitals in adjacent boroughs will be expected to take up the slack, forcing patients to commute miles further for life-saving treatments at hospitals which are already themselves facing acute bed shortages.”

The press release added, “At a time of growing populations and rising demand for emergency care in the capital, Defend London’s NHS believe this is both dangerous and short-sighted which is why we are calling for Londoners to act now before it is too late.”

The campaigners also noted, “The Primary Care Trusts are due to make their final recommendations throughout February after which their reports will go to Jeremy Hunt for a final decision. GPs, who from next April will have to make sense of the reorganisation when PCTs hand over to the new Clinical Commissioning Groups, are also growing increasingly anxious about the impact on patients. Indeed, one network of GPs in Hammersmith has already announced it is unable to support NW London NHS Trust’s proposals — so concerned is it about what the changes will mean for the health and safety of patients in their care. We share these reservations which is why we are calling for more GPs to join us in opposing the sham consultation exercises conducted by NW London NHS Trust and other London primary care trusts.”

In other developments, the Londonist blog also noted, “Hospitals in other parts of London are also struggling. Campaigners in North London say they are shocked to discover that the Whittington will close and sell off half its site, including wards and residential accommodation for staff. In-patient wards for the elderly and new parents will go and births will be capped at 4,000 a year.”

Londonist also stated, “Another hospital capping patient numbers is Queen’s in Romford. Its A&E was only designed to handle 90,000 patients a year but is seeing 132,000. This has led to some people having to wait 11 hours before being properly admitted – it will now put a legal limit on the number of people who can be seen if the hospital gets too busy. In other words, the A&E will be required to close its doors if there are too many patients waiting.”

Below are some of the events planned for the week of action:

Saturday February 9, 5-6.30pm: Candle-lit vigil outside Ealing Hospital.

Tuesday February 12, 7.30pm: Defend Whittington Hospital Public Meeting, Archway Methodist Hall.

Speakers include Jeremy Corbyn, David Lammy and Frank Dobson.

For the latest on the threat to the hospital, see the website. Also sign the petition here.

Friday February 15, 5.45pm: Singing Flash Mob at King’s Cross Station (New Departures foyer).

Organised by Keep Our NHS Public and Velvet Fist. There will also be a rehearsal on Wednesday February 13, at 7pm, at the Cock Tavern, on the corner of Chalton Street and Phoenix Road, London NW1. See here for a video of a flash mob in Madrid.

Saturday February 16, 12 noon: Ealing Hospital action, Ealing Broadway shopping centre.

Saturday February 16, 12 noon: Hammersmith Hospital Campaign demonstration, Lyric Square, King Street. Hammersmith.

Saturday February 16, 12 noon: Kingston Save Our Hospitals march from Norbiton Station to Guildhall. 

See the Facebook page here.

Saturday February 16, time tbc: Save Lewisham Hospital action, entitled, “Born in Lewisham.”

Details to follow soon on the Save Lewisham Hospital website.

Please contact me if you require any further information. Also see the Coalition of Resistance website.

Andy Worthington is 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. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.