Andy Worthington's Blog, page 151

Please Write to the Forgotten Prisoners in Guantánamo on the 11th Anniversary of the Opening of the Prison

Friday January 11 is the 11th anniversary of the opening of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an ongoing legal black hole, and an experimental prison for holding Muslim men and boys without rights, and subjecting them to torture and other forms of coercion and abuse, and medical and psychological experimentation.

At Guantánamo, the US authorities manufactured a rationale for holding these men and boys — calling them “the worst of the worst,” and disguising the fact that the majority of them were sold to the US military for substantial bounty payments by their Afghan and Pakistani allies. They did this through the extraction of false statements in which pliant prisoners — whether tortured or otherwise abused, or bribed or pushed until they could take the pressure no longer — made false statements about their fellow prisoners, and/or themselves, which continue to be regarded as something resembling evidence by all three branches of the US government, even though the closest analogy for what this information is in reality can be found in the false statements uttered by the victims of the witch hunts in the 17th century.

For those who are concerned about the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, this is a worthwhile time to write to the remaining 166 prisoners, to let them know that they have not been forgotten. Disturbingly, they have largely been abandoned by the Obama administration, by Congress, by the courts, by the media and by the American public, even though 86 of them were cleared for release three years ago by an interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force established by President Obama to review the cases of all the prisoners, and even though around half of them were previously cleared for release, between 2004 and 2007, by military review boards established by President Bush.

For both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, it seems to me, there is no better time to send a message of support to the remaining prisoners in Guantánamo.

The letter-writing campaign that I am inviting you to join was started two and a half years ago by two Facebook friends, Shahrina J. Ahmed and Mahfuja Bint Ammu, and it has been repeated every six months (see here, here, here and here). Its continued importance can be gleaned from the fact that, although President Obam has released around 70 prisoners since taking office four year ago, it is depressing to note that just 13 prisoners have left Guantánamo alive in the last two and a half years, and three others left in coffins, including, most recently, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, a Yemeni with mental health problems, who was repeatedly cleared for release, but who died in September last year, in circumstances that have not been adequately explained.

So please, if you care about justice, and about the indefinite detention of men, who, whether cleared or not, have become scapegoats in America’s institutionalized disdain for acceptable forms of detention, write to any or all of the remaining 168 prisoners. If you are an Arabic speaker, or speak any other languages spoken by the prisoners besides English, feel free to write in those languages. Do please note that any messages that can be construed as political should be avoided, as they may lead to the letters not making it past the Pentagon’s censors, but be aware that your messages may not get through anyway — although please don’t let that put you off (see the note at the bottom of this article to explain why letters might be returned without explanation).

If you want any more encouragement about the significance for prisoners of receiving letters, then please watch the short film below — part of Amnesty International’s ongoing letter-writing campaign– featuring my friend, the former prisoner Omar Deghayes, showing letters he received in Guantánamo and explaining how much they meant to him — and to his fellow prisoners. This was filmed as part of an interview with Omar that is featured in the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (directed by Polly Nash and myself), and available on DVD here — or here for the US.

Please write to the remaining 166 prisoners in Guantánamo

When writing to the prisoners please ensure you include their full name and ISN (internment serial number) below (these are the numbers before their names, i.e. Shaker Aamer ISN 239).

Please address all letters to:

Detainee Name

Detainee ISN

Guantánamo Bay

P.O. Box 160

Washington, D.C. 20053

United States of America

Please also include a return address on the envelope.

1. 004 Wasiq, Abdul-Haq (Afghanistan)

2. 006 Noori, Mullah Norullah (Afghanistan)

3. 007 Fazil, Mullah Mohammed (Afghanistan)

4. 026 Ghazi, Fahed (Yemen)

5. 027 Uthman, Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed (Yemen)

6. 028 Al Alawi, Muaz (Yemen)

7. 029 Al Ansi, Mohammed (Yemen)

8. 030 Al Hakimi, Ahmed (Yemen)

9. 031 Al Mujahid, Mahmoud (Yemen)

10. 033 Al Adahi, Mohammed (Yemen)

11. 034 Al Yafi, Abdullah (Yemen)

12. 035 Qader Idris, Idris (Yemen)

13. 036 Idris, Ibrahim (Sudan)

14. 037 Al Rahabi, Abdul Malik (Yemen)

15. 038 Al Yazidi, Ridah (Tunisia)

16. 039 Al Bahlul, Ali Hamza (Yemen)

17. 040 Al Mudafari, Abdel Qadir (Yemen)

18. 041 Ahmad, Majid (Yemen)

19. 042 Shalabi, Abdul Rahman (Saudi Arabia)

20. 043 Moqbel, Samir (Yemen)

21. 044 Ghanim, Mohammed (Yemen)

22. 045 Al Rezehi, Ali Ahmad (Yemen)

23. 063 Al Qahtani, Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)

24. 088 Awad, Adham Ali (Yemen)

25. 091 Al Saleh, Abdul (Yemen)

26. 115 Naser, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)

27. 117 Al Warafi, Muktar (Yemen)

28. 128 Al Bihani, Ghaleb (Yemen)

29. 131 Ben Kend, Salem (Yemen)

30. 152 Al Khalaqi, Asim (Yemen)

31. 153 Suleiman, Fayiz (Yemen)

32. 163 Al Qadasi, Khalid (Yemen)

33. 165 Al Busayss, Said (Yemen)

34. 167 Al Raimi, Ali Yahya (Yemen)

35. 168 Hakimi, Adel (Hakeemy) (Tunisia)

36. 170 Masud, Sharaf (Yemen)

37. 171 Alahdal, Abu Bakr (Yemen)

38. 174 Sliti, Hisham (Tunisia)

39. 178 Baada, Tareq (Yemen)

40. 189 Gherebi, Salem (Libya)

41. 195 Al Shumrani, Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)

42. 197 Chekhouri, Younis (Morocco)

43. 200 Al Qahtani, Said (Saudi Arabia)

44. 202 Bin Atef, Mahmoud (Yemen)

45. 223 Sulayman, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)

46. 224 Muhammad, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)

47. 232 Al Odah, Fawzi (Kuwait)

48. 233 Salih, Abdul (Yemen)

49. 235 Jarabh, Saeed (Yemen)

50. 238 Hadjarab, Nabil (Algeria-France)

51. 239 Aamer, Shaker (UK-Saudi Arabia)

52. 240 Al Shabli, Abdullah (Saudi Arabia)

53. 242 Qasim, Khaled (Yemen)

54. 244 Nassir, Abdul Latif (Morocco)

55. 249 Al Hamiri, Mohammed (Yemen)

56. 251 Bin Salem, Mohammed (Yemen)

57. 254 Khenaina, Mohammed (Yemen)

58. 255 Hatim, Said (Yemen)

59. 257 Abdulayev, Umar (Tajikistan)

60. 259 Hintif, Fadil (Yemen)

61. 275 Abbas, Yusef (Abdusabar) (China)

62. 280 Khalik, Saidullah (Khalid) (China)

63. 282 Abdulghupur, Hajiakbar (China)

64. 288 Saib, Motai (Algeria)

65. 290 Belbacha, Ahmed (Algeria)

66. 309 Abdal Sattar, Muieen (UAE)

67. 310 Ameziane, Djamel (Algeria)

68. 321 Kuman, Ahmed Yaslam Said (Yemen)

69. 324 Al Sabri, Mashur (Yemen)

70. 326 Ajam, Ahmed (Syria)

71. 327 Shaaban, Ali Hussein (Syria)

72. 329 Al Hamawe, Abu Omar (Syria)

73. 434 Al Shamyri, Mustafa (Yemen)

74. 440 Bawazir, Mohammed (Yemen)

75. 441 Al Zahri, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)

76. 461 Al Qyati, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)

77. 498 Haidel, Mohammed (Yemen)

78. 502 Ourgy, Abdul (Tunisia)

79. 506 Al Dhuby, Khalid (Yemen)

80. 508 Al Rabie, Salman (Yemen)

81. 509 Khusruf, Mohammed (Yemen)

82. 511 Al Nahdi, Sulaiman (Yemen)

83. 522 Ismail, Yasin (Yemen)

84. 535 El Sawah, Tariq (Egypt)

85. 549 Al Dayi, Omar (Yemen)

86. 550 Zaid, Walid (Yemen)

87. 552 Al Kandari, Fayiz (Kuwait)

88. 553 Al Baidhani, Abdul Khaliq (Saudi Arabia)

89. 554 Al Assani, Fehmi (Yemen)

90. 560 Mohammed, Haji Wali (Afghanistan)

91. 564 Bin Amer, Jalal (Yemen)

92. 566 Qattaa, Mansoor (Saudi Arabia)

93. 569 Al Shorabi, Zohair (Yemen)

94. 570 Al Qurashi, Sabri (Yemen)

95. 572 Al Zabe, Salah (Saudi Arabia)

96. 574 Al Wady, Hamoud (Yemen)

97. 575 Al Azani, Saad (Yemen)

98. 576 Bin Hamdoun, Zahir (Yemen)

99. 578 Al Suadi, Abdul Aziz (Yemen)

100. 579 Khairkhwa, Khairullah (Afghanistan)

101. 680 Hassan, Emad (Yemen)

102. 682 Al Sharbi, Ghassan (Saudi Arabia)

103. 684 Tahamuttan, Mohammed (Palestine)

104. 685 Ali, Abdelrazak (Algeria)

105. 686 Hakim, Abdel (Yemen)

106. 688 Ahmed, Fahmi (Yemen)

107. 689 Salam, Mohamed (Yemen)

108. 690 Qader, Ahmed Abdul (Yemen)

109. 691 Al Zarnuki, Mohammed (Yemen)

110. 694 Barhoumi, Sufyian (Algeria)

111. 695 Abu Bakr, Omar (Omar Mohammed Khalifh) (Libya)

112. 696 Al Qahtani, Jabran (Saudi Arabia)

113. 702 Mingazov, Ravil (Russia)

114. 707 Muhammed, Noor Uthman (Sudan)

115. 708 Al Bakush, Ismael (Libya)

116. 713 Al Zahrani, Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)

117. 722 Diyab, Jihad (Syria)

118. 728 Nassir, Jamil (Yemen)

119. 753 Zahir, Abdul (Afghanistan)

120. 757 Abdul Aziz, Ahmed Ould (Mauritania)

121. 760 Slahi, Mohamedou Ould (Salahi) (Mauritania)

122. 762 Obaidullah (Afghanistan)

123. 768 Al Darbi, Ahmed Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)

124. 832 Omari, Mohammed Nabi (Afghanistan)

125. 836 Saleh, Ayoub Murshid Ali (Yemen)

126. 837 Al Marwalah, Bashir (Yemen)

127. 838 Balzuhair, Shawki Awad (Yemen)

128. 839 Al Mudwani, Musab (Musa’ab Al Madhwani) (Yemen)

129. 840 Al Maythali, Hail Aziz Ahmed (Yemen)

130. 841 Nashir, Said Salih Said (Yemen)

131. 893 Al Bihani, Tawfiq (Saudi Arabia)

132. 894 Abdul Rahman, Mohammed (Tunisia)

133. 899 Khan, Shawali (Afghanistan)

134. 928 Gul, Khi Ali (Afghanistan)

135. 934 Ghani, Abdul (Afghanistan)

136. 975 Karim, Bostan (Afghanistan)

137. 1015 Almerfedi, Hussein (Yemen)

138. 1017 Al Rammah, Omar (Zakaria al-Baidany) (Yemen)

139. 1045 Kamin, Mohammed (Afghanistan)

140. 1094 Paracha, Saifullah (Pakistan)

141. 1103 Zahir, Mohammed (Afghanistan)

142. 1119 Hamidullah, Haji (Afghanistan)

143. 1453 Al Kazimi, Sanad (Yemen)

144. 1456 Bin Attash, Hassan (Saudi Arabia)

145. 1457 Sharqawi, Abdu Ali (Yemen)

146. 1460 Rabbani, Abdul Rahim Ghulam (Pakistan)

147. 1461 Rabbani, Mohammed Ghulam (Pakistan)

148. 1463 Al Hela, Abdulsalam (Yemen)

149. 10001 Bensayah, Belkacem (Bosnia-Algeria)

150. 10011 Al Hawsawi, Mustafa (Saudi Arabia)

151. 10013 Bin Al Shibh, Ramzi (Yemen)

152. 10014 Bin Attash, Waleed (Saudi Arabia)

153. 10015 Al Nashiri, Abd Al Rahim (Saudi Arabia)

154. 10016 Zubaydah, Abu (Palestine-Saudi Arabia)

155. 10017 Al Libi, Abu Faraj (Libya)

156. 10018 Al Baluchi, Ammar (Ali Abd Al Aziz Ali) (Pakistan-Kuwait)

157. 10019 Isamuddin, Riduan (Hamlili) (Indonesia)

158. 10020 Khan, Majid (Pakistan)

159. 10021 Bin Amin, Modh Farik (Zubair) (Malaysia)

160. 10022 Bin Lep, Mohammed (Lillie) (Malaysia)

161. 10023 Dourad, Gouled Hassan (Somalia)

162. 10024 Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh (Pakistan-Kuwait)

163. 10025 Malik, Mohammed Abdul (Kenya)

164. 10026 Al Iraqi, Abd Al Hadi (Iraq)

165. 3148 Al Afghani, Haroon (Afghanistan)

166. 10029 Rahim, Muhammad (Afghanistan)

Please also note that an additional prisoner, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (ISN 10012, Tanzania) was transferred to the US mainland from Guantánamo in May 2009 and received a life sentence after a federal court trial in January 2011. He is being held in the Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. To send a letter, the address is as follows (the number following his name is his unique prison number):

Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani (02476-748)

USP Florence Admax

U.S. Penitentiary

PO Box 8500

Florence, Co. 81226

Note: For further information on the prisoners, see my four-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list (Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four).

Eleven Years of Guantánamo: Andy Worthington Visits the US to Campaign for the Prison’s Closure

Contact me from 10am Eastern Time on January 9 (until January 16) on 347-581-2677.

It’s over 24 hours since I arrived in the US, with the support of Witness Against Torture, World Can’t Wait and Close Guantánamo, for a series of events to mark the 11th anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a shameful anniversary that should not have come to pass. Four years ago, when he took office, President Obama promised to close the prison within a year, but he failed to fulfil that promise. His lack of courage has been matched by opportunistic intervention from Congress, where lawmakers have passed legislation designed to thwart any efforts to close Guantánamo. To complete the failures of all three branches of the US government, the courts too have added their own contribution, with the D.C. Circuit Court gutting the habeas corpus rights of the prisoners, which lawyers spent many years fighting for, and the Supreme Court refusing to revisit the prisoners’ cases, when given the opportunity last year.

As I — and others who still care about the closure of Guantánamo — continue to point out, the ongoing existence of Guantánamo is an affront to all notions of justice and fairness. Distressingly, of the 166 men still held, 86 were cleared for release by President Obama’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force, and yet, through the combination of cowardice, indifference, opportunism and scaremongering outlined above, they remain held, even though one long-cleared prisoner, Adnan Farhan Abdul Latif, died at Guantánamo last September, and even though President Obama won reelection in November, and is now free to act to secure his legacy rather than focusing all his attention on campaigning — and not mentioning anything contentious. If he wants a legacy that doesn’t describe him, amongst other things, as the man who promised to close Guantánamo but then failed to do because it was politically inconvenient, he needs to act now.

Below is a list of events that I will be involved in over the coming week, in which I will be calling on President Obama to revisit his promise, and this time to fulfill it. If you would like to interview me, or want me to take part in an event, please phone me. Until next Wednesday, I’ll be available on 347-581-2677, or, of course, you can always email me.

Thursday January 10, 7.30pm: “Eleven Years of Guantánamo.” A discussion with Andy Worthington and Col. Todd Pierce.

First Trinity Lutheran Church, 501 4th St, NW, Washington, D.C. 20001 (4th & E Streets).

On the evening before the 11th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, Andy Worthington, freelance investigative journalist, author, filmmaker and photographer, will be joined by Maj. Todd Pierce at the church being used as a base by the anti-torture activists Witness Against Torture.

Andy has spent the last seven years researching and writing about Guantánamo, and the men held there. He is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison, and the co-director, with Polly Nash, of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo.” Todd Pierce is a military defense lawyer who worked on the case of Ali al-Bahlul, tried by military commission in 2008.

For further information, see the Witness Against Torture website. Also see the church’s website.

Friday January 11, 10am to 11.30am: “America’s indefinitely detained.” A panel discussion with Andy Worthington, Col. Morris Davis and Tom Wilner, moderated by Peter Bergen.

New America Foundation, 1899 L Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20036.

Andy Worthington and Tom Wilner, the steering committee of the “Close Guantánamo” project, will be joined by Col. Morris Davis for this event on the morning of the 11th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo.

As the New America Foundation describes the event, “Friday, January 11 will mark eleven years since the United States opened the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center. Almost 800 suspected militants have been held at the prison in that time, and despite White House’s refrain that the administration “remains committed to closing the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay” 166 individuals still remain incarcerated. Has the Obama administration de facto embraced a policy of indefinite detention without trial? Please join the New America Foundation’s Security Studies Program for a panel discussion moderated by Peter Bergen on what the future looks like for Guantánamo.”

Tom Wilner is a Partner at Shearman & Sterling LLP, and represented the Guantánamo prisoners before the Supreme Court in the Rasul v. Bush and Boumediene v. Bush cases. Col. Morris Davis is the former chief prosecutor of the military commissions at Guantánamo, who resigned in 2007 when he was placed in a chain of command under William J. Haynes II, the Pentagon’s chief counsel, who was a major player in the Bush administration’s torture program. Col. Davis now teaches at Howard University School of Law. Peter Bergen is the Director of the National Security Studies Program at the New America Foundation.

Friday January 11, 12 noon to 1.30pm: Day of Action Against Guantánamo.

Rally and March from the Supreme Court to the White House, via the Capital.

Speakers include Col. Morris Davis, Ramzi Kassem, Pardiss Kebriaei, Michelle Ringuette, Debra Sweet, Jeremy Varon and Andy Worthington.

The centerpiece of the protests on the 11th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo is the rally and march beginning at the Supreme Court, and moving on to the White House via the Capitol. 26 organisations are involved in the event, and the speakers will address the crowd at the different locations, representing the failure of all three branches of the US government to close Guantánamo and to bring justice to the me still held there. As the media advisory states, “The organizations are urging President Barack Obama to keep his promise and shut down the detention facility. The activists are calling on the Obama administration and Congress to uphold the rule of law. During the event, activists will be wearing orange jumpsuits and holding a myriad of signs and other visuals expressing their desire to close down the detention center. There are solidarity events occurring in Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami and London, England.”

Of the speakers, Pardiss Kebriaei is a senior staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, Michelle Ringuette is Amnesty International USA’s Chief of Campaigns and Programs, Debra Sweet is the director of World Can’t Wait, and Jeremy Varon is an organizer with Witness Against Torture.

To register for the event, please visit the Amnesty International page here.

Saturday January 12, 10am to 11.30am: Vigil at CIA Headquarters Against the Use of Drones.

900 block, Dolly Madison Boulevard, McLean, Virginia.

Andy Worthington will be joining representatives of many other groups, including Witness Against Torture, Code Pink, Episcopal Peace Fellowship DC, Northern Virginians for Peace & Justice, Pax Christi-Pentagon Chapter and World Can’t Wait for this protest against the Obama administration’s shameful replacement for the “black sites,” torture and indefinite detentions of the Bush administration — mass murder in drone attacks.

Sunday January 13, 4pm: “Guantánamo: The concentration camp that won’t go away.” A discussion with Andy Worthington and Ramzi Kassem.

Revolution Books, 146 West 26th Street (between 6th & 7th Ave.), New York, NY 10001.

To mark the 11th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, Andy Worthington and Ramzi Kassem, attorney for a number of Guantánamo prisoners, including Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, will be discussing strategies for securing the prison’s closure and the release of Shaker Aamer, four years after President Obama took office and promised to close the prison. Ramzi Kassem is an Associate Professor of Law at City University of New York, and is the Director of the Immigrant and Non-Citizen Rights Clinic.

For further information, see the Revolution Books 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.

Andy Worthington Discusses Eleven Years of Guantánamo with Michael Slate

On Friday, I was delighted to talk to Michael Slate on his long-standing progressive show, on KPFK in Los Angeles, about Guantánamo, as I prepared to fly to the US for a series of events to mark the 11th anniversary of the opening of the prison, and to demand its closure, as promised by President Obama when he first took office four years ago. The show is here, as an MP3 and our interview lasts for around 20 minutes, and is the second interview in the hour-long show, starting about 20 minutes in. For anyone interested in my current whereabouts, I’m now in Brooklyn, having traveled here safely today.

I hope you can listen to the show. Michael and I have spoken before (see here, here, here and here, most recently following President Obama’s reelection) and it’s always a pleasure, as he is an extremely well-informed host.

In this latest interview, Michael helpfully promoted the imminent anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, not only asking me about the events in Washington D.C., and promoting my website and the “Close Guantánamo” campaign, but also pointing out that, in Los Angeles, there will be a silent vigil at 10am on January 11, and a rally and press conference at 10.45am, at the Federal Building in Downtown LA, on the corner of Temple and Los Angeles Streets, which my friend Andy Griggs, the program director of Interfaith Communities United for Justice and Peace, had also let me know about.

For those who haven’t yet seen any promotional material regarding the protests in Washington D.C., there will be a panel discussion at the New America Foundation, at 1899 L Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20036, beginning at 10am, featuring myself and the attorney Tom Wilner, representing Close Guantánamo, along with Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor of the military commissions, and Ramzi Kassem, the attorney for a number of Guantánamo prisoner including Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison.

At 12 noon, we will be joining representatives of 26 different groups, including Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Witness Against Torture and World Can’t Wait, at the Supreme Court, for a rally and march that will feature numerous speakers (myself included), ending up at the White House via the Capitol.

In our interview, as well as discussing Friday’s baleful anniversary, and the reasons for Guantánamo’s continued existence, which involves the failures of all three branches of the US government, I also had the opportunity to point out the unrelenting shame of holding 86 men, out of 166 in total at Guantánamo, who have been cleared for release since 2009 at the latest, and in some cases since 2004.

I also mentioned the significance of the list of 55 cleared prisoners that was released by the Justice Department in a court case in September, and Michael and I also spoke about the latest shocking news, revealed in the Washington Post last week, in which the use of rendition to bring terror suspects to justice in the US was discussed, This is a tricky issue, as I explained in the interview, and although preferable to Obama’s mass killing by drones — and Bush’s “black sites” and indefinite detention — it is a gray area that is, sadly, horribly typical of the ways i which the law has been shredded since 9/11, and remains, essentially, in tatters.

I hope you have time to listen to the show, which also featured Richard Falk, UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinian Human Rights, and Guy Davidi, the co-director of the acclaimed documentary, “5 Broken Cameras,” which, as Michael puts it, chronicles “five years of struggle against encroaching settlers and the Israeli military in the West Bank village of Bil’in.” Guy also spoke about his attempts to get the film shown to students in Israel, and the obstruction he is facing, and if you would like to get involved in this project, click here.

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.

Photos: Deptford and Rotherhithe on New Year’s Day

Deptford and Rotherhithe on New Year’s Day, a set on Flickr.

On New Year’s Day, from 11.30pm until 1am on the morning of January 2, I decided to take a bike ride around my neighbourhood, in part because I’m almost permanently enthusiastic about cycling and taking photos at night, but even more particularly because I’d taken a late night bike ride down to Greenwich in the early hours of New Year’s Eve that had been so enjoyable that I could hardly wait to do it again.

So just before midnight on January 1, after tidying the house following our annual family Hogmanay party, I set off down the hill from Brockley in south east london, where I live, thinking that I might visit the River Thames in Greenwich (a favourite destination), although after reaching Deptford — one of my favourite haunts — I surprised myself by not travelling to the river, but heading north along Evelyn Street towards Surrey Quays in Rotherhithe, in the London Borough of Southwark. Surrey Quays was created as part of the huge Docklands redevelopment in the 1980s, which forever changed the face of Rotherhithe. This is an area of London that was once full of docks, and although it is a great shame that south London lost almost all its docks and canals in this period, there are places in the Surrey Quays redevelopment area that were wonderfully successful — Russia Dock Woodland, in particular — which feature fleetingly in this set. I also have other photos from summer that show more of the area, which I hope to publish soon.

This is the 71st set in my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, which I began in May last year. I’ll be away from London’s streets for ten days now, as tomorrow I’m flying to the US for events in New York City and Washington D.C. to mark the 11th anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo, and to call on President Obama to fulfil his promise to close the prison, which he made when he first took office four years ago.

For a change, if you’re interested, have a look at the photos I took in January last year — in New York, in Washington D.C., and in San Francisco and Chicago — and, although the occasion of my visit is a thoroughly depressing affair, I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to talk about the importance of closing Guantánamo, and I’m also looking forward to being reunited with old friends, and taking photos.

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.

Canada’s Shameful and Unending Disdain for Omar Khadr

Three months ago, Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen seized as a child and held and abused by the US government in Guantánamo for ten years, was returned to Canada, where he now languishes in a maximum-security prison.

Technically, the Canadian government is entitled to imprison him for another five years and ten months, according to a plea deal Khadr agreed to in October 2010. Under the terms of that deal, he received an eight-year sentence for his role in a firefight in Afghanistan that led to his capture in July 2002, with one year to be served in Guantánamo and seven more in Canada.

Notoriously, however, the Canadian government dragged its heels securing his return, which only happened at the end of September last year, instead of in November 2011. This was typical, given that, throughout Khadr’s detention, his government ignored its obligations to demand his rehabilitation under the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, to which both the US and Canada are signatories, as did his US captors.

So grave was the Canadian government’s violation of Khadr’s rights as a citizen that, in 2010, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that his rights had been violated when Canadian agents interrogated him at Guantánamo in 2003, when he was just 16. The Court stated, “Interrogation of a youth, to elicit statements about the most serious criminal charges while detained in these conditions and without access to counsel, and while knowing that the fruits of the interrogations would be shared with the US prosecutors, offends the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of detained youth suspects.”

For many people — lawyers included — who have been watching Khadr’s case, it was hoped that, although the Canadian government ignored the Supreme Court’s ruling, ministers would face legal challenges on his return, which would lead to his speedy release, and the chance to resume his life after what is now nearly ten and a half lost years.

However, as the Toronto Star noted in an article on December 20, rather than being released, Khadr, who is currently held in the Millhaven Institution, a maximum security facility, will remain incarcerated there “with little chance of rehabilitation or parole for at least two years.” Held in the hospital since his return on September 29, he “is now expected to be moved to a range in the general population with other maximum security inmates.”

The Toronto Star obtained a report by the Correctional Service of Canada, which stated that, “due to his Guantánamo conviction, Khadr was assessed as an inmate convicted of first-degree murder and terrorism and therefore is automatically designated ‘maximum security.’” This means that, although, in theory, he will be “eligible for day parole in March,” it is unlikely that his parole will be granted. As the Star explained, “it is extremely rare for anyone with this designation to be approved,” and it is far more likely that he will remain imprisoned without parole until at least 2015, as his status will not be reviewed until December 2014.

Anthony Doob, a criminologist at the University of Toronto, told the Star he was “dismayed” that the Correctional Service had chosen to “apply the standardized ‘Custody Rating Scale’ for Khadr, which automatically designates him maximum security, despite the unique aspects of his case and reports of his good behaviour during his 10-year incarceration at Guantánamo.”

Doob said, “They should be looking at his past, the circumstances of his offence, how old he was.” He added, “It’s perpetuating this view that he’s the same as the guy who is a terrorist or member of organized crime who killed somebody on the streets of Toronto yesterday. The thing about approaching this the way they did ensures the outcome. I’ve never met Omar Khadr, I know nothing about him and I can go to the web and see that he’s going to be classified as maximum security.” Adding criticism of the fact that the Correctional Service took three months to reach its decision, he also asked, “Isn’t that a little bizarre? Why didn’t it take three minutes instead of three months if that is all they were going to do?”

His comments provide a good summary of how, in the so-called “war on terror,” the fundamental notions that anyone accused of a crime should be arrested, given their rights, and then, if tried, convicted and sentenced, should serves their sentence and be allowed to return to society, have been discarded. When the word “terrorism” is invoked — and especially when it is accompanied by the word “Guantánamo” — the notion of serving time and paying one’s debt to society has been replaced by a hysterical notion of people being a permanent peril, a designation that previously would only have applied to a very small number of people with a deep-rooted violent psychosis.

In Omar Khadr’s case, this is ridiculous, as the success of his rehabilitation, even at Guantánamo, is clear from the role played by Edmonton professor Arlette Zinck, who spent several years communicating with Khadr, and was even allowed to visit him prior to his release, to help facilitate his transition from Guantánamo to life back in Canada, as I related here.

However, Anthony Doob’s words also accurately describe how, yet again, the Canadian establishment is dragging its heels when it comes to dealing fairly with Omar Khadr. A three-month wait for a decision that was already made is typical of the disdain for Khadr that has been persistent since 2002.

Doob’s criticisms were echoed by Khadr’s lawyer, John Norris, who, as the Star put it, said that he was disappointed that the designation will limit the Correctional Service’s ability to “provide rehabilitation options,” with the exception of the “education and religious counselling” that he is receiving “from a prison-approved imam.” Norris said, “Their hands really are tied by the fact that he’s stuck in max, because they can’t help him get ready to return to the community.”

Norris added that he was “weighing the options” regarding legal challenges, and also said, “What he really needs is the ability to re-integrate into the community. Re-integration is one of the cardinal principles of dealing with child soldiers. It’s also a key principle in dealing with young people in general.”

Shorn of his right to be treated, however belatedly, as a child who was manipulated by his father and then punished by both the US and Canada, in defiance of their obligations regarding child prisoners, it seems that Khadr will only receive the same rights as other adult inmates, although this will include the right to have visitors — a contrast to Guantánamo, of course, where, in eleven years, Khadr is the only prisoner to have received a visit from a civilian, when Arlette Zinck visited him in May last year.

Elaborating, Norris told the Star that Khadr’s mother, Maha Elsamnah, had been allowed to visit him, as had Arlette Zinck.

The lawyer also explained how Khadr’s “maximum security” designation was worked out, and why it was so misleading. A rating over 134 points automatically defines a prisoner as maximum security, and Khadr has 139 points — “69 points for a murder conviction, 20 points for a terrorism offence, 30 points for his age at the time of conviction (he was 25) and 20 points for his sentence length (eight years).” As Norris pointed out, however, “This says absolutely nothing about whether Omar is a danger to the public and it’s critical people understand it’s completely divorced from that.” He added, crucially, that the scoring method actually required the Correctional Service to ignore any evidence establishing that he is “not a danger.”

Ludicrously, the assessment report recommended that Khadr be kept in a “highly structured environment in which individual and group interaction is subject to direct and constant supervision,” as though he is at risk of being influenced negatively. The report noted that, “During the intake assessment interview Khadr emphasized that his current sentiments/beliefs reflect pro-social changes in attitudes promoting peaceful resolution to conflicts,” but added that, “given Khadr’s limited access to other inmates since his arrival,” it was “difficult to assess” how he would interact with other prisoners.

The report added, “Not to negate the length of time he has spent in custody (in Guantánamo) with no evidence of attitudinal or behaviour problems, Khadr is a new arrival to the Canadian federal correctional system … Correctional Services Canada has not had the opportunity to assess the risk he may pose to the security of the institution, other offenders or the risk to his own safety.”

To their credit, the Correctional Service noted “positive assessments” of Khadr by Katherine Porterfield, a clinical psychologist at New York’s Bellevue Hospital and forensic psychiatrist and retired US Army Brig. Gen. Stephen Xenakis, who both spent hundreds of hours with Khadr at Guantánamo, adding, “it would appear that Khadr demonstrated the ability to develop positive interpersonal relationships.”

The report’s authors also ignored negative assessments by other supposed experts, like the psychiatrists Michael Welner or Alan Hopewell, whose bleak and biased assessments were requested from US defence secretary Leon Panetta by the Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, “delaying Khadr’s expected transfer to Canada and infuriating Obama administration officials eager to transfer” him, as the Star described it — not out of kindness, it should be noted, but because of a desire to persuade other Guantánamo prisoners that it is worth making plea deals.

Typically, the Correctional Service reported that the authorities at Guantánamo had failed to provide any information to them “pertaining to his behavior while detained at the facility.” Nevertheless, although the Canadian prison authorities are obliged to follow their rules, it remains apparent that the Canadian government continues to think that, when it comes to Omar Khadr, their own actions should not be subjected to any rules whatsoever.

For anyone concerned with fairness and justice, the Canadian Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling ought to provide the basis for securing Omar Khadr’s swift release and return to a life of freedom, and I hope that a legal challenge will be mounted if the delays continue. It is time for Omar Khadr to be released.

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 of Greenwich on the Last Day of the Year

Greenwich on the Last Day of the Year, a set on Flickr.

Some of my regular readers will have realised that, although I like cycling and photographing London in all weather, and that I am thoroughly enjoying experiencing the seasons first-hand, I am particularly fascinated by the city at night. I have always been a night owl, and at university, more years ago than I care to remember, I would, in winter, stay up all night, cycling around and taking photographs until dawn, and then returning to my room to sleep.

I don’t stay up all night anymore, but recalling those days reminds me of how, although some things in life change fundamentally, others don’t. My love of cycling, which began when I was a small child, has never left me, and nor, it seems, has my love of the night, and of taking photographs at night.

This set, the 70th in my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, features photos taken mainly in Greenwich, near my home in Brockley in south east London, in the early morning hours of the last day of the year, December 31, 2012 — between 1.30am and 3am, to be accurate. Probably as a result of being in Scotland for Christmas without a bike, and with my wife’s family, I was itching to get out on the bike on my return to London, and so it came to pass that I found myself cycling to Greenwich late at night when, literally, there was almost no one else around.

The journey I took includes a few familiar locations — Greenwich Market and St. Alfege Church, for example — but many other places that I had either not photographed, had not photographed at night, or had not even visited before. A major attraction, it transpired, was the underground car park beneath Cutty Sark Gardens, very close to the River Thames, which I have travelled over on countless occasions, but haven’t actually visited for many, many years. It’s not a great example of architectural beauty, but I love its pillars, and I also enjoyed composing shots and photographing some of the tattier and more weathered parts of the whole edifice.

A strange enterprise at 2.30 in the morning, perhaps, but one that, I happily concede, gives me great pleasure, and as a result I’ll be making more nighttime photos available soon. I hope you enjoy this journey with me, and will stay around as 2013 unfolds.

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.

Join Me in Washington D.C. on January 11, 2013 to Tell President Obama to “Close Guantánamo”

[image error]I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 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. 

As the 11th anniversary of the opening of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay approaches, we at “Close Guantánamo” are making our preparations for being in Washington D.C. to call on President Obama to fulfill the promise he made four years ago, when he took office, to close the prison for good.

At 12 noon on Friday January 11, 2013, the 11th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, the attorney Tom Wilner and the journalist Andy Worthington, who make up the steering committee of “Close Guantánamo,” will be joining members of 24 other groups outside the Supreme Court to call for the closure of Guantánamo. See Amnesty International’s page here, and the flyer here.

The 25 groups involved are: Amnesty International USA, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Catholic Worker, Center for Constitutional Rights, Close Guantánamo, Code Pink, Council on American Islamic Relations, International Justice Network, Liberty Coalition, National Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance, No More Guantánamos, North Carolina Stop Torture Now, Pax Christi USA, Physicians for Human Rights, Rabbis for Human Rights North America, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Tackling Torture at the Top, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition, Veterans for Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, War Resisters League, Washington Region Religious Campaign Against Torture, Witness Against Torture, Women Against Military Madness, and World Can’t Wait.

After meeting at noon, those calling for the closure of Guantánamo will march to the White House via the Capitol. The whole event will last until 1.30pm, and there will be speakers at the three venues.

Afterwards, Tom Wilner and Andy Worthington will head to the New America Foundation, at 1899 L Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, D.C. 20036, for a panel discussion, beginning at 3pm, which will also feature Col. Morris Davis, the former chief prosecutor of the military commissions, who resigned in 2007, in protest at plans to use information derived through the use of torture, and Ramzi Kassem, an attorney for prisoners at Guantánamo including Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, whose story has featured regularly on the “Close Guantánamo” website in the last year. Ramzi helped to make notes from his meetings with Shaker available to Andy, at Shaker’s request, which were featured in the articles, EXCLUSIVE: “They Want Me to be Harmed”: Shaker Aamer, the Last British Resident in Guantánamo, Describes His Isolation, ”‘I Affirm Our Right to Life’: Shaker Aamer, the Last British Resident in Guantánamo, Explains His Peaceful Protest and Hunger Strike,” and “EXCLUSIVE: A Demand for ‘Freedom and Justice’ from Shaker Aamer in Guantánamo.”

We hope you can join us for these events. 2013 is the year that public pressure needs to be exerted on President Obama to release the 86 prisoners, out of the 166 men still held, who have been cleared for release since 2009 (and in some cases since George W. Bush was President), and, of the remaining 80, to try those proposed for trials by President Obama’s interagency Guantánamo Review Task Force, which published its report three years ago, and, preferably, to consult with us at “Close Guantánamo” regarding the others, who are currently held indefinitely without charge or trial, on the basis that they are allegedly too dangerous to release, even though insufficient evidence exists to put them on trial. We can confirm that what this means is that the so-called evidence is no such thing, and instead consists primarily of unreliable statements, mainly made by other prisoners in the “war on terror,” not only at Guantánamo, but also in the CIA’s “black sites.”

We are ready to meet with government officials to discuss the fundamentally unreliable basis of the so-called evidence against the majority of the prisoners at Guantánamo, and are making plans to publicize our findings as the year progresses.

But first, we hope to see as many of you as possible outside the Supreme Court, the Capitol and the White House on January 11 to tell the President that Guantánamo must be closed, and that the history books will regard him as a poor President if he failed to close Guantánamo, as he promised, because it was politically inconvenient.

The evils enshrined at Guantánamo must be brought to an end because they continue to poison America’s standing in the world. Shockingly, these involve hiding evidence of torture and abuse, sanctioned at the highest levels of the US government, through political maneuvering designed to keep the prison open forever, and to ensure that indefinite detention without charge or trial will continue, even though it is one of the hallmarks, not of civilized countries, but of brutal dictatorships with no respect for the law.

Please note: I am currently scheduling further events in the US, and will be announcing details soon.

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.

End the Tory Butchers’ Assault on the Disabled: For New Year, Please Sign the War on Welfare Petition

[image error] Please sign the “War on Welfare” petition now to call for an end the Tory-led government’s assault on the disabled!

Since the Tories came to power two years and seven months ago, with the assistance of the Liberal Democrats, they have reshaped the political landscape in the UK in the most horrific manner, launching a savage age of austerity aimed at the young, the working poor, the unemployed, the ill, the old and the disabled, in defiance of the Christian values they supposedly hold.

In response, a group of concerned citizens have launched an e-petition urging the government to change course, which already has over 9,000 signatures since its launch just three weeks ago, and needs 100,000 signatures by December 12, 2013 to be eligible for a Parliamentary debate. The “War on Welfare” petition, which has a website here, and is being promoted as the #wowpetition, calls for “a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform, and a New Deal for sick and disabled people based on their needs, abilities and ambitions.”

Driven by a Thatcherite and neo-conservative obsession with destroying the state (with a few exceptions, including their own salaries and expenses). the Tories have been taking advantage of the economic crisis created by bankers and politicians (themselves included) in the global crash of 2008 not to rein in the bankers, but to endorse the enthusiasm for austerity amongst so-called economists — those who have not learned that austerity measures in a recession lead only to economic collapse.

The results have been predictable. With unprecedented cuts to the welfare budget, including the butchering of the NHS, the start of an unprecedented assault on the school system, and an attempt to destroy access to universities for all but the rich, there is  widespread and ever-increasing misery, and the austerity programme has been a complete failure. The cuts to the welfare budget will continue to hit the working poor very hard in 2013, as well as those unfortunate enough not to have a job, because most benefits are paid to those in work, rather than those who are unemployed, and savage cuts across the board will come into effect at the start of the new financial year in April.

In 2012, however, for those paying attention, the worst effects of the government’s assault on the most vulnerable members of society fell on the disabled, as a result of the Work Capability Assessment, designed to find disabled people fit for work when they are not, in order to reduce costs. This vile system is administered by Atos Healthcare, which is employing medical personnel willing to betray their profession for their masters in Atos’s management, and in the government. For further information, see my articles, Where is the Shame and Anger as the UK Government’s Unbridled Assault on the Disabled Continues?, Call Time on This Wretched Government and Its Assault on the Disabled and The End of Decency: Tories to Make Disabled People Work Unpaid for Their Benefits. Also see my photos of a protest against Atos here, which includes the photo featured above.

Despite this, as evidence of the failure of the government’s austerity programme, George Osborne is on target to borrow £212 billion more than he promised by 2016 in his spending review in 2010, and council leaders in  Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield are warning of massive civil unrest unless the government halts cuts which they say “unfairly penalise the north relative to the south,” in the Guardian‘s words.

As the Guardian explained:

Reacting to the latest cuts announced to council budgets this month — under which a further 2% of spending reductions were unveiled by the chancellor, George Osborne, in addition to the 28% already in train — the council chiefs say ministers in Whitehall appear to be adopting a “Dickensian” view of the world, which is a betrayal of traditional one nation conservatism.

Calling for a change in the way funding is allocated, to make it fairer to the north, they say that while everyone agrees on the need for savings, the coalition austerity programme has gone too far and will soon backfire with chaos on the streets and further economic stagnation. “Rising crime, increasing community tension and more problems on our streets will contribute to the break-up of civil society if we do not turn back,” they write.

“The one nation Tory brand of conservatism recognised the duty of government to help the country’s most deprived in the belief that economic and social responsibility benefited us all. The unfairness of the government’s cuts is in danger of creating a deeply divided nation. We urge them to stop what they are doing now and listen to our warnings before the forces of social unrest start to smoulder.”

2013 needs to be the year that people in Britain — and England in particular — rise up against the unparalleled cruelty of the Tory-led government in numbers that cannot be ignored. I will be doing all I can to work towards an alternative future for the UK — one that doesn’t involve a return to horrendous poverty and an ever-increasing chasm between the rich and the poor — and encouraging those who claim to have faith to ask themselves if what they are doing in response to the government’s policies is appropriate, but in the meantime, as the New year unfolds, the least I can ask you to do is to sign the “War on Welfare” petition, and show the Tories that there are at least 100,000 people who very actively care about their hideous assault on the disabled.

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.

A Winter Wonderland: Photos of the Scottish Highlands in Perthshire

A Winter Wonderland: The Scottish Highlands in Perthshire, a set on Flickr.

From Dunkeld, in Perthshire, in Scotland, beside the A9 (the major route through northern Scotland), the A822, a mixture of former drovers’ routes and military roads, heads west, and then south, for around 16 miles in total, ascending to forlorn, blasted heathland that is very dear to me. Every year, we — my wife, my son and I — visit my wife’s family in Edinburgh for Christmas, and every Boxing Day my wife and I leave our son with his grandparents, drive north to the Highlands, in Perthshire, and stay one night in a hotel. The following day, we return via this stretch of the A822, which passes through a particularly beautiful, but largely unknown part of the Highlands.

This landscape never fails to provide a reminder that, just around the corner from places where humans have settled for hundreds of years, or for millennia, are other places that have proven far more inhospitable. The highest pass on this road between Dunkeld and Crieff is a sublime example of this, where a strip of road runs across boggy, wind-swept land that has repulsed all those who have tried to tame it by living here. The road remains, as do electric pylons and, somewhere nearby, a wind farm, but no permanent settlements still stand.

The most poignant place on this stretch of road is the tiny hamlet of Amulree, once home to many hundreds of people, and with regular markets for cattle and sheep, where, nowadays, only a handful of people live, alongside a church and a 12-room hotel, currently closed, but on sale for £295,000, less than many a small two-bedroom flat in London without a garden. Whether anyone will buy the hotel and turn it into some sort of going concern remains to be seen, but at present the odds would seem to be against it, and Amulree — a name so enchanting that my wife and I considered it as a name for a daughter, if we had had a daughter — may one day cease to be, another place in the highlands defeated by the climate and by economics.

I hope you enjoy these photos of a world so different from my usual haunts in London. I’m now back at home, and preparing to publish some more photos, to follow on from the Christmas set I published on Christmas Eve. I also hope you have all had a happy, healthy and peaceful holiday season.

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.

Photos: Christmas in London, 2012

Christmas in London, 2012, a set on Flickr.

Best wishes for the holiday season to those following my work, or to anyone who has just stumbled across it. This is a selection of Christmas-themed photos that I’ve taken over the last month during my journeys around London, as part of my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, which I began in May this year.

This is the 69th set of my London photos, and it was fun to go through all the photos I’ve been accumulating from my almost daily journeys, large and small, over the last month, picking out those with a Christmas theme — from locations in north London, in central London and the City, on the Isle of Dogs and at various places in south east London, where I live — including my home in Brockley, and also Blackheath, Camberwell, Deptford, Greenwich, Honor Oak, Lewisham and Rotherhithe.

I have now published 1,400 photos of London — just a fraction of the total number of photos I have taken as part of my project over the last seven months, as I have more than 6,000 photos to publish as we near 2013, accumulated over the last five months, and, of course, I’ll be undertaking many more journeys as winter turns to spring.

I hope you enjoy this Christmas set, which, like most of my work, is intended to capture glimpses of life in London — and the fabric of the city — that are not generally seen, and that you’ll stay with me as my project develops. Do let me know if there are any areas of London you’d like to see me photograph. I may have been there already, and am just awaiting for the opportunity to publish them, or it may be somewhere that I need to put on my to-do list.

If you’re off work for a few days at least — and I hope you are — then have a great break. I’ll be back soon with more Guantánamo-related material, although I will be spending most of the next few days with my family, and hopefully getting a chance to relax.

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.