Andy Worthington's Blog, page 166

For Ramadan, Write to the Forgotten Prisoners in Guantánamo

Friday was the start of the holy month of Ramadan, and it seems to me that, for both Muslims and non-Muslims alike, there is no better time to send a message of support to the remaining 168 prisoners in America’s reviled prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

This is a campaign initiated two years ago by two Facebook friends, Shahrina J. Ahmed and Mahfuja Bint Ammu, and repeated every six months (see here, here, here and here), but it is depressing to note that just eleven prisoners have left Guantánamo alive in the last two years, and two others left in coffins.

The men still held at Guantánamo have been failed by President Obama, who promised to close the prison within a year of taking office in January 2009, and then resoundingly failed to do so. Compounding this failure, President Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force, comprising career officials, lawyers and experts from all the relevant government departments and from the intelligence agencies, who analyzed the prisoners’ cases throughout 2009, concluded that 87 of the remaining 168 prisoners should be released, although they are still held.

The prisoners have also been abandoned by the Supreme Court, which granted them habeas corpus rights in June 2008, but then refused to get involved, in June this year, when several prisoners appealed for their intervention to rescue habeas corpus from the appeals court judges in the D.C Circuit Court, who, for their own narrow, ideological reasons — essentially supporting the paranoia and injustice of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” — have gutted habeas corpus of all meaning, preventing any prisoner at Guantánamo from securing his release through legal means.

The prisoners have also been failed by the US Congress, where lawmakers — through cynicism or political cowardice, or the same paranoia that infects the D.C. Circuit Court — have repeatedly restricted the President’s ability to release prisoners. This has contributed enormously to the ongoing detention of the 87 prisoners cleared for release, but it has also been compounded by President Obama’s refusal to release any Yemenis because of bogus security concerns following the arrest, in December 2009, of a Nigerian would-be plane bomber– Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab — who was recruited in Yemen.

Last year, while the cleared Yemenis (58 of the 87 cleared prisoners) continued to be held on the basis of “guilt by nationality,” lawmakers sank to new depths when they approved passages in the National Defense Authorization Act, making it mandatory for terror suspects in future to be held in military custody without charge or trial, possibly for the rest of their lives.

One hope for the prisoners is that the NDAA also contains a waiver allowing the President to bypass Congress to authorize the release of prisoners, and this needs publicizing as widely as possible, so that people who remain appalled by the continued existence of Guantánamo can begin to apply pressure on the Obama administration to bring this stain on Barack Obama’s Presidency to an end, and to free the 87 prisoners cleared for release.

In the meantime, please go ahead and 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 168 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. 156 Latif, Adnan Farhan Abdul (Yemen)

33. 163 Al Qadasi, Khalid (Yemen)

34. 165 Al Busayss, Said (Yemen)

35. 167 Al Raimi, Ali Yahya (Yemen)

36. 168 Hakimi, Adel (Hakeemy) (Tunisia)

37. 170 Masud, Sharaf (Yemen)

38. 171 Alahdal, Abu Bakr (Yemen)

39. 174 Sliti, Hisham (Tunisia)

40. 178 Baada, Tareq (Yemen)

41. 189 Gherebi, Salem (Libya)

42. 195 Al Shumrani, Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)

43. 197 Chekhouri, Younis (Morocco)

44. 200 Al Qahtani, Said (Saudi Arabia)

45. 202 Bin Atef, Mahmoud (Yemen)

46. 223 Sulayman, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)

47. 224 Muhammad, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)

48. 232 Al Odah, Fawzi (Kuwait)

49. 233 Salih, Abdul (Yemen)

50. 235 Jarabh, Saeed (Yemen)

51. 238 Hadjarab, Nabil (Algeria-France)

52. 239 Aamer, Shaker (UK-Saudi Arabia)

53. 240 Al Shabli, Abdullah (Saudi Arabia)

54. 242 Qasim, Khaled (Yemen)

55. 244 Nassir, Abdul Latif (Morocco)

56. 249 Al Hamiri, Mohammed (Yemen)

57. 251 Bin Salem, Mohammed (Yemen)

58. 254 Khenaina, Mohammed (Yemen)

59. 255 Hatim, Said (Yemen)

60. 257 Abdulayev, Umar (Tajikistan)

61. 259 Hintif, Fadil (Yemen)

62. 275 Abbas, Yusef (Abdusabar) (China)

63. 280 Khalik, Saidullah (Khalid) (China)

64. 282 Abdulghupur, Hajiakbar (China)

65. 288 Saib, Motai (Algeria)

66. 290 Belbacha, Ahmed (Algeria)

67. 309 Abdal Sattar, Muieen (UAE)

68. 310 Ameziane, Djamel (Algeria)

69. 321 Kuman, Ahmed Yaslam Said (Yemen)

70. 324 Al Sabri, Mashur (Yemen)

71. 326 Ajam, Ahmed (Syria)

72. 327 Shaaban, Ali Hussein (Syria)

73. 329 Al Hamawe, Abu Omar (Syria)

74. 434 Al Shamyri, Mustafa (Yemen)

75. 440 Bawazir, Mohammed (Yemen)

76. 441 Al Zahri, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)

77. 461 Al Qyati, Abdul Rahman (Yemen)

78. 498 Haidel, Mohammed (Yemen)

79. 502 Ourgy, Abdul (Tunisia)

80. 506 Al Dhuby, Khalid (Yemen)

81. 508 Al Rabie, Salman (Yemen)

82. 509 Khusruf, Mohammed (Yemen)

83. 511 Al Nahdi, Sulaiman (Yemen)

84. 522 Ismail, Yasin (Yemen)

85. 535 El Sawah, Tariq (Egypt)

86. 549 Al Dayi, Omar (Yemen)

87. 550 Zaid, Walid (Yemen)

88. 552 Al Kandari, Fayiz (Kuwait)

89. 553 Al Baidhani, Abdul Khaliq (Saudi Arabia)

90. 554 Al Assani, Fehmi (Yemen)

91. 560 Mohammed, Haji Wali (Afghanistan)

92. 564 Bin Amer, Jalal (Yemen)

93. 566 Qattaa, Mansoor (Saudi Arabia)

94. 569 Al Shorabi, Zohair (Yemen)

95. 570 Al Qurashi, Sabri (Yemen)

96. 572 Al Zabe, Salah (Saudi Arabia)

97. 574 Al Wady, Hamoud (Yemen)

98. 575 Al Azani, Saad (Yemen)

99. 576 Bin Hamdoun, Zahir (Yemen)

100. 578 Al Suadi, Abdul Aziz (Yemen)

101. 579 Khairkhwa, Khairullah (Afghanistan)

102. 680 Hassan, Emad (Yemen)

103. 682 Al Sharbi, Ghassan (Saudi Arabia)

104. 684 Tahamuttan, Mohammed (Palestine)

105. 685 Ali, Abdelrazak (Algeria)

106. 686 Hakim, Abdel (Yemen)

107. 688 Ahmed, Fahmi (Yemen)

108. 689 Salam, Mohamed (Yemen)

109. 690 Qader, Ahmed Abdul (Yemen)

110. 691 Al Zarnuki, Mohammed (Yemen)

111. 694 Barhoumi, Sufyian (Algeria)

112. 695 Abu Bakr, Omar (Omar Mohammed Khalifh) (Libya)

113. 696 Al Qahtani, Jabran (Saudi Arabia)

114. 702 Mingazov, Ravil (Russia)

115. 707 Muhammed, Noor Uthman (Sudan)

116. 708 Al Bakush, Ismael (Libya)

117. 713 Al Zahrani, Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)

118. 722 Diyab, Jihad (Syria)

119. 728 Nassir, Jamil (Yemen)

120. 753 Zahir, Abdul (Afghanistan)

121. 757 Abdul Aziz, Ahmed Ould (Mauritania)

122. 760 Slahi, Mohamedou Ould (Salahi) (Mauritania)

123. 762 Obaidullah (Afghanistan)

124. 766 Khadr, Omar (Canada)

125. 768 Al Darbi, Ahmed Mohammed (Saudi Arabia)

126. 832 Omari, Mohammed Nabi (Afghanistan)

127. 836 Saleh, Ayoub Murshid Ali (Yemen)

128. 837 Al Marwalah, Bashir (Yemen)

129. 838 Balzuhair, Shawki Awad (Yemen)

130. 839 Al Mudwani, Musab (Musa’ab Al Madhwani) (Yemen)

131. 840 Al Maythali, Hail Aziz Ahmed (Yemen)

132. 841 Nashir, Said Salih Said (Yemen)

133. 893 Al Bihani, Tawfiq (Saudi Arabia)

134. 894 Abdul Rahman, Mohammed (Tunisia)

135. 899 Khan, Shawali (Afghanistan)

136. 928 Gul, Khi Ali (Afghanistan)

137. 934 Ghani, Abdul (Afghanistan)

138. 975 Karim, Bostan (Afghanistan)

139. 1015 Almerfedi, Hussein (Yemen)

140. 1017 Al Rammah, Omar (Zakaria al-Baidany) (Yemen)

141. 1045 Kamin, Mohammed (Afghanistan)

142. 1094 Paracha, Saifullah (Pakistan)

143. 1103 Zahir, Mohammed (Afghanistan)

144. 1119 Hamidullah, Haji (Afghanistan)

145. 1453 Al Kazimi, Sanad (Yemen)

146. 1456 Bin Attash, Hassan (Saudi Arabia)

147. 1457 Sharqawi, Abdu Ali (Yemen)

148. 1460 Rabbani, Abdul Rahim Ghulam (Pakistan)

149. 1461 Rabbani, Mohammed Ghulam (Pakistan)

150. 1463 Al Hela, Abdulsalam (Yemen)

151. 10001 Bensayah, Belkacem (Bosnia-Algeria)

152. 10011 Al Hawsawi, Mustafa (Saudi Arabia)

153. 10013 Bin Al Shibh, Ramzi (Yemen)

154. 10014 Bin Attash, Waleed (Saudi Arabia)

155. 10015 Al Nashiri, Abd Al Rahim (Saudi Arabia)

156. 10016 Zubaydah, Abu (Palestine-Saudi Arabia)

157. 10017 Al Libi, Abu Faraj (Libya)

158. 10018 Al Baluchi, Ammar (Ali Abd Al Aziz Ali) (Pakistan-Kuwait)

159. 10019 Isamuddin, Riduan (Hamlili) (Indonesia)

160. 10020 Khan, Majid (Pakistan)

161. 10021 Bin Amin, Modh Farik (Zubair) (Malaysia)

162. 10022 Bin Lep, Mohammed (Lillie) (Malaysia)

163. 10023 Dourad, Gouled Hassan (Somalia)

164. 10024 Mohammed, Khalid Sheikh (Pakistan-Kuwait)

165. 10025 Malik, Mohammed Abdul (Kenya)

166. 10026 Al Iraqi, Abd Al Hadi (Iraq)

167. 3148 Al Afghani, Haroon (Afghanistan)

168. 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

P.O. 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).

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.

Sun, Sky and Property: A Photographic Journey along the Thames from London Bridge to the Isle of Dogs

Sun, Sky and Property: Along the Thames from London Bridge to the Isle of Dogs, a set on Flickr.

Regular readers will be aware that, for the last month, I have been posting photos to an account I set up on Flickr, and publicizing them here, adding a new outlet for my creativity, and my perceptions of the world, to the other methods — primarily the written word, but also TV and radio shows, personal appearances and film-making — which I have been using to chronicle the injustice of Guantánamo and the “war on terror” for the last six years, and the horrors of life in Britain under a Tory-led coalition government, which I have been chronicling for the last two years.

Taking photos is a great passion of mine, but one that I largely let slip from 2006, as I began researching and writing about Guantánamo on a full-time basis, until Christmas last year, when my wife gave me a digital camera. I then took photos of my Guantánamo-related visits to the US in January, and Kuwait in February, and began taking photos in London — and on various trips in the UK — on an occasional basis until, in May — on May 11, to be specific — when the sun started shining after roughly six weeks of almost unremitting rain, I decided to start making journeys by bike around London on a regular basis, taking photos of whatever interests me — buildings old and new, rivers, canals, parks and trees, and forgotten corners of this vast city, where the unusual, the unremarked and the abandoned exist beyond the illusions of endless wealth and perfect order conjured up by those in positions of power.

The intention of my photographic journeys by bike is eventually to chronicle the whole of London at this fascinating but troubling time in its history, with that huge wealth I alluded to above still nakedly on display, while the rest of the country — and much of the capital — is suffering a permanent recession, with the cruel and incompetent Tory-led coalition government further stifling an already depressed economy by introducing savage austerity cuts to everyone who can least afford to be further impoverished — the young, the working poor, students, the unemployed and the disabled.

This latest set of photos records one of the first journeys I undertook as part of this project, when, on May 22 — a gloriously hot and sunny day — I cycled from London Bridge to Island Gardens on the Isle of Dogs along the Thames Path that runs alongside the river for most of that distance. I was slightly astonished to discover that I had never undertaken most of this journey before — beside the river on the edge of the City, through the grounds of the Tower of London (which I hadn’t visited since I was a wide-eyed child, visiting London for the first time), through St. Katharine Docks (which I had only visited once before, around 20 years ago), and then through Wapping, with its tall, gentrified wharf buildings, which I had never visited before, although I have often seen them from the other side of the river. From there, I travelled through Limehouse and on past Canary Wharf, past ostentatious towers and other apartment blocks, to Island Gardens, at the south of the Isle of Dogs, where I took the Greenwich Foot Tunnel back to my home in south east London.

Unlike other journeys I took through Millwall and the Isle of Dogs, and other journeys I have taken through south east London, this journey was almost relentlessly one that involved ostentatious displays of wealth, of a kind that was unimaginable when I first moved to London in 1985.

In this series, and in some of my other writing, I have begun to explore, in more depth, how it is that such wealth has been created, why it clusters in London, and whether or not it is sustainable. It is, of course, a story that invokes the City of London and the unprincipled practices of the investment banks whose greed crashed the global economy in 2008, and it is a story that has not come to an end, as those responsible have not been held to account, and the gulf between the super-rich and almost everyone else remains an affront to decency.

Much of what is captured in these photos represents that world, unaffordable for all but the top few percent of earners, and the foreign investors wooed by those in power. My feeling is that, although it all looks solid, it is actually as transient as the docks that once thrived here, and the houses of those who toiled here, helping to create the wealth of an empire that is also, now, a long-vanished dream.

Time will tell if I’m right …

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.

Bagram: Still a Black Hole for Foreign Prisoners

Back in March 2009, three foreign prisoners seized in other countries and rendered to the main US prison in Afghanistan, at Bagram airbase, where they had been held for up to seven years, secured a legal victory in the District Court in Washington D.C., when Judge John D. Bates ruled that they had habeas corpus rights; in other words, the right to challenge the basis of their imprisonment under the “Great Writ” that prevents arbitrary detention.

The men — amongst dozens of foreigners held in Afghanistan — secured their legal victory because Judge Bates recognized that their circumstances were essentially the same as the prisoners at Guantánamo, who had been granted habeas corpus rights by the Supreme Court in June 2008.

Unfortunately, the Obama administration appealed Judge Bates’ careful and logical ruling, and the judges of the D.C. Circuit Court agreed, overturning the ruling in May 2010, and returning the three men to their legal black hole.

In April 2011, the Associated Press reported that the three men — Redha al-Najar, a Tunisian seized in Karachi, Pakistan in May 2002; Amin al-Bakri, a Yemeni gemstone dealer seized in Bangkok, Thailand in late 2002; and Fadi al-Maqaleh, a Yemeni seized in 2004 and sent to Abu Ghraib before Bagram — had all been cleared for release by review boards at Bagram, or, as it is now known, the Parwan Detention Facility.

That same month, Daphne Eviatar of Human Rights First visited Parwan and discovered that 41 foreign prisoners were still held, even though “more than a dozen” had been recommended for release. She added that the foreign prisoners were “from Pakistan, Tunisia, Kuwait, Yemen and even Germany,” but could not find any explanation for why, even when cleared, they were still held. She noted that “one soldier complained about how frustrating it is to be unable to tell innocent prisoners when they’ll be going home, or what’s causing the holdup,” and that US officials in Afghanistan had only been able to state that the problem was “somewhere in Washington.”

One story told to Daphne Eviatar concerned Hamidullah Khan, a Pakistani who was just 16 years old when he was seized in the summer of 2008. When he was allowed to communicate with his family, in 2010, he explained that his case had been reviewed, and he had been recommended for release, but he was still held. Khan was one of seven Pakistanis who, in 2010, began the process of suing the Pakistani government “either for its alleged role in their capture or for failing to secure their release,” and two others — Yunus Rahmatullah and Amanatullah Ali — were seized in Iraq by British Special Forces in 2004, and subsequently handed over to US forces who rendered them to Bagram.

The case of Yunus Rahmatullah — also cleared for release by a review board at Bagram back in 2010, but still held — has been used to exert pressure on the US by lawyers in the UK, who succeeded in convincing the Court of Appeal to grant him a writ of habeas corpus last December, and to order the British government to take custody of him, even though, in February this year, the court conceded that it had no power to order his release. As the senior judge Lord Neuberger, the Master of the Rolls, explained, “when the UK defence forces handed over [Rahmatullah] to the US authorities in questionable circumstances in 2004 they most unfortunately appear to have sold the pass with regard to their ability to protect him in the future.”

The case is now before Britain’s Supreme Court, and it undoubtedly continues to send ripples of dissatisfaction across the Atlantic, even though, as with all the prisoners mentioned in this article, there appears to be no particular trigger to force the release of any of them.

As for Redha al-Najar, Amin al-Bakri and Fadi al-Maqaleh, nothing more was heard about them — and the other foreign prisoners still held at Bagram — until January this year, when the Washington Post noted that, with discussions taking place regarding the transfer of Parwan to Afghan control, as part of the planned withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, US officials had begun to think about what to do with the foreign prisoners — now numbering “close to 50,” including “up to two dozen Arabs of various nationalities, according to administration and foreign officials.”

US officials told the Post that they believed the Afghan authorities would be “unlikely to have any interest in either continuing to hold the foreigners or in putting them on trial,” but failed to mention that many of them had been cleared for release, and that letting them go should not, therefore, pose a problem.

The only mention of any specific obstruction came in an analysis of the particular problems facing Yemeni prisoners and “complicating their possible repatriation.” This was based on a moratorium on releasing any Yemenis from US custody, “because of concerns about the security situation in Yemen,” which President Obama issued in response to the failed airline bomb plot in December 2009 by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian man recruited in Yemen, and which still stands to this day.

In March, a memorandum of understanding between the US and Afghanistan formally agreed the transfer of prisoners at Bagram to Afghan control by September, although foreign prisoners were not included.

Four months later, it appears that all of the foreign prisoners at Bagram are still held, and on Monday lawyers for Redha al-Najar, Amin al-Bakri and Fadi al-Maqaleh returned to the US courts to try and secure their release, arguing that “they were brought to Bagram for the purpose of keeping them out of the courts,” as Tina Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network, and one of the lawyers for the men, explained to Aram Roston of Newsweek.

Ramzi Kassem, an associate law professor at City University of New York, who also represents the Bagram prisoners, made a similar claim to the Miami Herald, telling Carol Rosenberg, “Our clients are being kept at Bagram to circumvent [a court's] jurisdiction.”

In court, the government maintained its position, with Justice Department attorney Jean Lin arguing that, although “the United States does not intend to hold anyone longer than necessary,” the administration also wants to “prevent enemy fighters from returning to the battlefield.” Lin also said that “nothing has changed to alter” the D.C. Circuit Court’s ruling in May 2010.

Judge Bates clearly struggled with this, asking, during the two-hour hearing, “How can I possibly make a decision that goes in a different direction from the D.C. Circuit?” However, as the Miami Herald noted, he also took on board the defense attorneys’ complaints, suggesting that “there might be evidence that US officials had shipped prisoners to Bagram specifically to avoid judicial oversight,” and he “pressed the Justice Department hard on whether changing circumstances, including a slowdown in fighting and the coming withdrawal of most US forces from Afghanistan, might warrant a second look.”

In seeking to find out further information, Aram Roston spoke by phone to Amin al-Bakri’s brother Khaled, who runs a furniture shop in Medina, Saudi Arabia. “We don’t know why he is being held,” Khaled al-Bakri said, noting that his brother, who has three children, “wasn’t a religious fanatic pursuing jihad but a businessman.” He acknowledged that, in the 1980s, his brother had traveled to Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union, but also stated that “his Islam is very moderate.” He added, “My brother is multilingual, he’s open-minded to others and he’s tolerant. We just don’t think he was involved” in any wrong-doing.

This, of course, makes sense, given that al-Bakri has been cleared for release, so the question that remains is: whether continuing to hold foreigners in Bagram who have been cleared for release is solely to do with overwrought security concerns, or is a sign of something more sinister. Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale, a Pentagon spokesman, told Roston that “Bagram happens to be a legitimate and established military detention facility. That’s what works for now.” He added that America’s “short term goal” was “to maintain custody of third country nationals,” even while the Afghan government takes over control of the Afghan prisoners.

Responding to a question about what Roston described as “one of the central conundrums of the ongoing fight against Al-Qaeda — where to put potential detainees,” Lt. Col. Breasseale acknowledged that “[s]ending a detainee to Guantánamo Bay is not an option” being considered by the Obama administration, but the result, as Andrea Prasow of Human Rights Watch explained, is that, “As the US prepares to withdraw its troops and wind down the war in Afghanistan, what possible rationale is there for continuing to detain these people there unless its purpose is that it is supposed to be the US global jail?”

That is a very good question, and one that, despite years of bluster, in and out of courtrooms, the Obama administration seems unwilling to answer.

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.

Docks, Wharves and Water: Photos of a Journey Along the Thames from Deptford to Tower Bridge

Docks, Wharves and Water: A Journey Along the Thames from Deptford to Tower Bridge, a set on Flickr.

Back in May, when the sun started shining again after long weeks of relentless rain, I found myself unable to stay in my apartment chained to my computer, and took to the roads of London on my bike, with my camera, to take exercise and get fit, to explore this extraordinary city that has been my home for the last 27 years, and to capture London at this strange transitional period in its history — with great wealth still apparent on the one hand, and with deepening poverty on the other, as the Tory-led coalition government’s savage austerity cuts, aimed at the poor and not at the rich, for malevolent ideological reasons, begin to bite.

That first journey — an appetiser — was around Greenwich and Deptford, close to home, and I followed it up with a ride through Nunhead and Forest Hill to Dulwich Park and back. A few days later, on May 16, 2012, I decided to follow the river from Deptford to Tower Bridge and back, mostly along the route of the long-distance Thames Path — or rather, that’s how it turned out, but when I set off I had no firm idea of where I would go or what I would do.

This set of photos — my eleventh set of London photos — captures the highlights of that journey, with parts of it familiar to me, and other parts completely unknown. It is a journey that is now my preferred route into central London and back, a substitute for the trains that I have used for many years, and one that involves travelling through Rotherhithe and Bermondsey — both areas that have not been subjected to a wholesale invasion of gentrification, with the exception of parts of Rotherhithe — primarily around Canada Water — and the parts of Bermondsey nearest to Tower Bridge, in the huge former warehouse complex of Butler’s Wharf, which was one of the earliest riverside areas to be developed in London in the 1980s.

This first journey was mostly along the side of the River Thames, but since then I have regularly got lost further inland, as this set of photos partly reveals, and there are many more photos to come. I’ll soon be posting photos of a journey I took along the other side of the river, from London Bridge through Wapping and past Canary Wharf to Island Gardens on the Isle of Dogs and the Greenwich Foot Tunnel, which I took to return home, and I’ll also be posting several sets of photos from a journey I took last week, along the Thames Path from Greenwich out east — through Woolwich and on to Thamesmead. I’ll also be posting some photos of journeys through south London to the City of London — and a set of photos of the City at night.

For now, however, I hope you enjoy this journey with me along the River Thames, with its reminders of Britain’s industrial past and its maritime history, and the replacement of that history with two worlds — of property development and financial speculation — which have failed to serve the majority of the people of London, but which continue to be the dominant mode of business, even as the recession and the government’s savage austerity cuts make the poor even poorer and make these towers of glass even more unaffordable — and even more insulting — than ever.

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.

Families of US Citizens Killed in Drone Attacks in Yemen Take Obama Officials to Court

Yesterday, in New York, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit (PDF) accusing US defense secretary Leon Panetta, CIA director David Petraeus, and William McRaven and Joseph Votel, the commanders of Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), of violating the Constitution and international law when they authorized and directed drone strikes that resulted in the deaths of three US citizens in Yemen last year — Anwar al-Aulaqi (aka al-Awlaki) and Samir Khan in a strike on September 30, 2011, which I wrote about here, and al-Aulaqi’s 16-year old son, Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi, in another strike on October 14, 2011, at an open-air restaurant (a strike that killed at least seven people, including another child, Abdulrahman’s 17-year old cousin).

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Nasser Al-Aulaqi, the father and grandfather of Anwar and Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi, and Sarah Khan, the mother of Samir Khan, and please see below a heart-breaking video of Nasser al-Aulaqi speaking about his grandson, in which he explains, “I want Americans to know about my grandson. He was a very nice boy he was very caring boy … I never thought that one day this boy, this nice boy, will be killed by his own government for no wrong he did certainly.” Abdulrahman had no connection to terrorism, and had merely been trying to find his father, who he missed, having last seen him before he went into hiding in 2009.  

As the lawsuit states:

Since 2001, and routinely since 2009, the United States has carried out deliberate and premeditated killings of suspected terrorists overseas. The US practice of “targeted killing” has resulted in the deaths of thousands of people, including many hundreds of civilian bystanders. While some targeted killings have been carried out in the context of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, many have taken place outside the context of armed conflict, in countries including Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Sudan, and the Philippines. These killings rely on vague legal standards, a closed executive process, and evidence never presented to the courts … The killings violated fundamental rights afforded to all US citizens, including the right not to be deprived of life without due process of law.

The lawsuit also states:

Defendants’ killing of Anwar Al-Aulaqi was unlawful. At the time of the killing, the United States was not engaged in an armed conflict with or within Yemen. Outside the context of armed conflict, both the United States Constitution and international human rights law prohibit the use of lethal force unless, at the time it is applied, lethal force is a last resort to protect against a concrete, specific, and imminent threat of death or serious physical injury. Upon information and belief, Anwar Al-Aulaqi was not engaged in activities that presented such a threat, and the use of lethal force against him was not a last resort. Even in the context of an armed conflict, the law of war cabins the government’s authority to use lethal force and prohibits killing civilians who are not directly participating in hostilities. The concept of “direct participation” requires both a causal and temporal nexus to hostilities. Upon information and belief, Defendants directed and authorized the killing of Anwar Al-Aulaqi even though he was not then directly participating in hostilities within the meaning of the law of war.

Defendants’ killing of Samir Khan and Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi was also unlawful. Upon information and belief, neither Samir Khan nor Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi was engaged in any activity that presented a concrete, specific, and imminent threat to life; nor was either of them directly participating in hostilities. The news media have reported, based on statements attributed to anonymous US government officials, that Samir Khan was not the target of the September 30 strike and that Abdulrahman Al- Aulaqi was not the target of the October 14 strike. If the Defendants were targeting others, they had an obligation under the Constitution and international human rights law to take measures to prevent harm to Samir Khan, Abdulrahman Al-Aulaqi, and other bystanders. Even in the context of an armed conflict, government officials must comply with the requirements of distinction and proportionality and take all feasible measures to protect bystanders. Upon information and belief, Samir Khan and Abdulrahman Al- Aulaqi were killed because Defendants failed to take such measures.

CCR and the ACLU are undoubtedly right, but it is unlikely that they will prevail, even though there are profound questions about the legality of killing people in drone attacks — and particularly of killing people in countries with which the United States is not at war, as that plays horribly into George W. Bush’s dreadful notion of the entire world as an endless battlefield.

As the New York Times noted in a profoundly alarming article six weeks ago, the enthusiasm for extrajudicial killing in the White House is such that, as I described it at the time, President Obama “holds regular meetings to decide who should be on a ‘kill list’ for drone strikes — in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia,” and “insists on approving the targets of drone raids, which is his primary method of dealing with the perceived terrorist threat, by ‘poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war.’”

Disturbingly, the Times article also noted that President Obama has “embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties,” which “in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants … unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.”

The President is not the only enthusiast for extrajudicial killings, which, to put them in context, mark a return — with new weapons — to a program of assassination that was mired in controversy throughout the 1980s and 90s, and was replaced by  extraordinary rendition and torture under the Bush administration.

As Attorney General Eric Holder explained in a speech in March, “Given the nature of how terrorists act and where they tend to hide, it may not always be feasible to capture a United States citizen terrorist who presents an imminent threat of violent attack. In that case, our government has the clear authority to defend the United States with lethal force.”

He added, “Some have argued that the president is required to get permission from a federal court before taking action against a United States citizen who is a senior operational leader of al-Qaida or associated forces. This is simply not accurate. ‘Due process’ and ‘judicial process’ are not one and the same, particularly when it comes to national security. The constitution guarantees due process, not judicial process.”

Moreover, the courts have shown no willingness to tackle the government’s assassination program. In December 2010, the ACLU and CCR challenged the authorization for Anwar al-Aulaqi’s death that had been announced in April 2010, filing a lawsuit on behalf of al-Aulaqi’s father, but in the District Court Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case, ruling that al-Aulaqi’s father lacked standing to bring suit, and that the request was “judicially unreviewable.”

Announcing the submission of of this new lawsuit, Jameel Jaffer, the ACLU’s deputy legal director, said, “This suit is an effort to enforce the Constitution’s fundamental guarantee against the deprivation of life without due process of law. The Constitution does not permit a bureaucratized program under which Americans far from any battlefield are summarily killed by their own government on the basis of shifting legal standards and allegations never tested in court.”

CCR Senior Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei added, “When a 16 year-old boy who has never been charged with a crime nor ever alleged to have committed a violent act is blown to pieces by US missiles, alarm bells should go off. The US program of sending drones into countries in and against which it is not at war and eliminating so-called enemies on the basis of executive memos and conference calls is illegal, out of control, and must end.”

I couldn’t agree more.

Note: For more on Abdulrahman al-Aulaqi, see: Michelle Shepard, Drone Death in Yemen of an American Teenager, Toronto Star, April 14, 2012 and Tom Junod, The Lethal Presidency of Barack Obama, Esquire, July 9, 2012.

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.

Green London: Photos of Nunhead, Dulwich and Blythe Hill

Green London: Nunhead, Dulwich and Blythe Hill, a set on Flickr.

As part of my ongoing project to travel the whole of London by bike, taking photos of whatever interests me, and whatever I think reflects the state of London at this particular time in its history — the ongoing manifestation of a hideously greedy property boom, for example, or the luscious greenery brought about through endless rain, which is very probably a sign of serious climate change — I’ve just posted to my Flickr account my tenth set of photos of London, and the first in a sub-set of photos of “Green London.”

This project of mine — to record London by bike — began two months ago, through a need for exercise after six years of sitting at a computer, a need to experience the sunshine — whenever the sun emerged — after the rainiest March and April in living memory (a trend that continues), and through a renewed fascination for photography (a love of mine since I was a teenager) after my wife bought me a digital camera for Christmas.

As opposed to the photos taken on specific journeys — around the Isle of Dogs, for example, or through Canary Wharf, or alongside canals to the East End, or in search of the Olympics — “Green London” will be an occasional series, capturing particular green environments — parks and cemeteries, for example — as well as other examples of wonderful greenery. These photos will, in general, be glimpses caught on longer journeys, or just one-off photos, as things that are green and growing constantly draw my attention, their organic forms so complex compared to much that is man-made, their patterns a permanent source of fascination.

I hope you enjoy this green world, as a contrast to the grey blocks that make up so much of human life in London and elsewhere. With so much of London seized upon by developers, I remain permanently grateful for those who — mostly in Victorian times — fought to keep or to establish parks and other green spaces, resisting enclosure, and preserving the lungs of the city, and its spaces of freedom to roam and to play and to think and to breathe, without which the pressures on our mental health would be even more sustained than they already are.

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.

Six Years without Charge or Trial: An Evening of Poetry, Film and Tributes to Talha Ahsan in London, July 19

On Thursday, I’ll be taking part in an event in London to raise awareness of the plight of Talha Ahsan, a British citizen, and a poet who suffers from Asberger’s Syndrome. Talha, who also gained a first class honours degree in Arabic from SOAS (the School of Oriental and African Studies, part of the University of London), planned to become a librarian, but has been imprisoned for six years without charge or trial in the UK, while pursuing legal challenges to prevent his proposed extradition to the US. The event is taking place on the sixth anniversary of his arrest at his home, on July 19, 2006.

This will be my second appearance at an event in support of Talha. Two weeks ago, I took part in a moving event in Bethnal Green, in East London, The event in Bethnal Green, at the premises of the arts organisation no.w.here, involved a screening of the new documentary film, “Extradition,” directed by Turab Shah, which tells the stories of Talha Ahsan and also of Babar Ahmad, imprisoned for eight years without charge or trial, who also faces extradition to the US. The film features interviews with the human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce, the playwright Avaes Mohammad, the fathers of Babar and Talha, and Talha’s brother Hamja, all framed by Talha’s prison poetry, and at the event on July 4, there was a palpable feeling that, within days, Talha and Babar might find their last appeal to the European Court of Human Rights turned down, leading to their imminent extradition to the US — and solitary confinement in a Supermax prison.

Fortunately, the date that a decision on the appeal was to be made — July 10 — has now been extended to September, allowing campaigners some more time to try to persuade the British government to intervene. Talha and Babar Ahmad are accused of hosting a website from 1997 to 2004 promoting jihad in countries where Muslims faced oppression, but it is difficult to see what justification there is for extraditing them to the US, where a biased judicial system will probably sentence them to decades in solitary confinement, for two particular reasons.

The first reason is that there are severe problems with the definition of the “crimes” in the first place, because the Crown Prosecution Service had “insufficient evidence” to prosecute Babar Ahmad –and by extension Talha Ahsan — in the UK, and also because the alleged crimes took place in the UK, and what evidence does exist was obtained in the UK by the British police. Secondly, the US-UK Extradition Treaty, approved by Tony Blair in 2003, needs an urgent overhaul, if it is to be at all fair and proportionate. Liberty, for example, has a long-running campaign, in which it has been calling for the following three amendments to the treaty:

Someone should not be extradited to another country for actions that are not criminal in the UK;
A basic case should be made to a British court before someone can be sent abroad to face trial in another country; and
If a significant part of the conduct that led to the alleged crime took place in the UK, then a British court should be able to decide if it is in the interests of justice to extradite.

This Thursday, to mark the sixth anniversary of Talha’s imprisonment, I’ll be taking part in an event in central London, the details of which are below:

Marking 6 years of Detention without trial or charge for Talha Ahsan: Poetry, film & tributes from friends, artists, writers & family

Thursday, July 19, 2012, 7pm to 9pm: Zakat House, 233 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2H 8EE.

Speakers: Gareth Peirce, Hamja Ahsan, Amrit Wilson (writer and activist), Zita Holborne (poet and activist), and Andy Worthington (investigative journalist and activist). There will also be a representative of Doctors Against Extraditions, introducing a new campaign point with the British Medical Association.

This event will be webcast by the Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC).

Nearest tube: Tottenham Court Road.

Below are statements of support for Talha by the novelist A.L. Kennedy and the Children’s Laureate Michael Rosen, and below that is a video of Avaes Mohammad reading out Talha’s powerful poem “Extradition”:

“I know Talha Ahsan as a poet and I have written to him during his confinement at Long Lartin prison. I have been moved and sustained by his optimism, humour and gentleness in those letters. That Talha has been imprisoned for years without trial in my country shames me as a UK citizen. Talha is also a UK citizen. He is being held at the request of a foreign power under the terms of a treaty which does not require the production of prima facie evidence and, indeed, no evidence of that nature has been produced. It also seems clear that whatever allegations have been concocted are partly the fruits of torture and therefore not only morally corrosive, but also thoroughly unreliable. That my government would give Talha no assistance in a time of absolute need and would, in fact, help engineer his distress is another indication of its utterly reckless, unsustainable and inhuman stance on human rights.”

A. L. Kennedy, novelist

‘Between them, the USA and the UK have invented a policy — imprisonment without trial. What do we say to this? It is both utterly wrong in principle and wrong in the particular case of Talha Ahsan and others suffering under this policy. This threatens every single one of us. It is in effect a de facto not a de iure law that appears on no statute books and yet can be used any time two countries with extradition agreements decide to apply it. Talha is suffering because of this. No, he has already suffered. Even if he was guilty of anything, it would be still utterly wrong in terms of the justice we are all entitled to that he has been imprisoned without trial. Let’s not forget Pastor Niemoeller’s words — and let’s adapt them too: “First they came for Talha Ahsan, and because I am not a Muslim, I said nothing …”

Michael Rosen, poet, broadcaster and Children’s Laureate

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.

Street Art, Sunshine and the River: Photos of Deptford and Greenwich

Street Art, Sunshine and the River: Deptford and Greenwich, a set on Flickr.

Three weeks ago, I posted my first set of photos of my journeys around London on my new Flickr account — a set I took on May 11, cycling around Greenwich and Deptford, down the hill from my home in Brockley, south east London — when I first began to realise that I had a need for exercise, a need to be outdoors whenever the sun shone in this rainiest of years, and a great desire to explore this vast city that has been my home for the last 27 years, even though I have never visited much of it, and have only partial knowledge of its contours, its hidden corners, and even some of its more obvious glories.

Combined, these various motives have progressively unmoored me from being enslaved to my computer, after six years of pretty relentless blogging, and have opened my mind and my body to the sights and the sounds of London, to the sun and showers, the torrential rain, the fast-changing skies like epic dramas, and also to the pleasures of the back roads, away from the tyranny of cars and lorries, where the unexpected can more easily be found, and where much of the city is silent in the daytime, its former industries replaced by apartments, its workers away — in the City or elsewhere — earning the money to pay for the “luxury” apartments in which, in many cases, they do not spend much time.

Repeatedly, I have found myself drawn to the River Thames and its tributaries and canals, most now flanked by towering new apartment blocks or converted wharves — and to classical compositions and perspectives of buildings and sky, clouds and water. Always, though, I find myself in search of unusual sights, glimpses of less obvious worlds in this city of millions of stories, places where the money has run out, or the standardising waves of gentrification cannot reach. Idiosyncratic places, touched by mavericks, or largely abandoned.

This particular set of photos — my ninth set of London photos — was taken between May 18 and June 26, and is a short diversion from my bigger series of photos based on longer journeys. These photos are, essentially, snapshots of cycle rides with my son — after school or at weekends, sometimes wandering without any particular objective, but at other times following fixed routes — down to Greenwich and the Cutty Sark, along the river through Deptford, back along Deptford High Street, and up Tanner’s Hill to Brockley. I also have photos of Brockley that I will publish soon, and of other short journeys around south east London, as well as photos of a long journey I took along the Thames Path, from Greenwich to Thamesmead, and other photos of a rainy tour of the City of London.

Deptford, however, continues to draw me in, and I was both fascinated — and slightly appalled — when the first episode of a BBC documentary series, “The Secret History of Our Streets” told the story of Deptford High Street, focusing on the damage wrought by developers in the 1960s, when much of old Deptford was condemned as slums, razed to the ground and replaced with modern housing estates. Although it was a fascinating programme, it also had a middle class, gentrified focus and extremely unfortunate racist undercurrents.

In response, a website was established, “Deptford: Putting the Record Straight,” which pointed out how Deptford High Street “is packed full of churches, cafes, restaurants, community centres, all doing things to bring communities together and improve lives”. The website East London Lines, set up and run by journalism students and tutors at Goldsmith’s College, in New Cross, also noted that contributors pointed out that “the documentary also failed to mention that the market was saved after a campaign by local residents in 1975 and was even voted ‘the most vibrant and diverse market in London’ by Yellow Pages in 2005.”

Particularly, a resident named Samantha Hunt “attacked the ‘undercurrent’ to the programme’s narrative, ‘which seemed to be saying that once all the hard working white families moved out, the immigrants arrived and the whole place went to the dogs,’” and local councillor Mike Harris agreed, stating, “I found the characterisation of immigration as a negative influence on the area as factually incorrect, and entirely misleading.”

For my part, I’m proud to back up those who have criticised the programme. Deptford undoubtedly suffered as a result of town planning in the 1960s — and it is a sad moment in the BBC programme when a local noted ruefully that Greenwich, in contrast, kept all its old housing stock, which, he said, was identical to the streets in Deptford that were swept away. Nevertheless, judging an area by its gentrified housing stock is as damaging now as it was when Charles Booth, in 1886, began his 17-year survey of London, colour-coding streets according to whether they were rich or poor, an analysis that formed the basis of the BBC’s six-part series.

In fact, while the BBC’s website notes, “In Booth’s time, Deptford High Street was ‘the Oxford Street of South London,’” but “today, marooned amid 70s housing blocks, it is one of the poorest shopping streets in London,” what that description completely fails to acknowledge is that Deptford is an extremely vibrant place in which elements of gentrification sit alongside its melting pot of generally less wealthy inhabitants without driving them out, patronising them or pretending they don’t exist, as has so often been the case, from Booth’s time right up to the present day — a place where the alleged “poverty” of the shops is actually an almost complete absence of corporate blandness and ubiquity, and one in which coffee shops, clothes boutiques, restaurants and galleries sit alongside the butchers, fishmongers and market stalls that have long defined the area.

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.

Olympics Disaster: The G4S Security Scandal and Corporate Sponsors’ £600 Million Tax Avoidance

As the cracks in the Tory-led coalition government grow more and more obvious, the biggest question may be whether it is incompetence or corruption that will depose the clowns who have been pretending to run the country for the last two years. In terms of the Olympics, which, two months ago, I described as a militarised, corporate, jingoistic disgrace, the incompetence particularly involves security and travel, and in terms of corruption, it involves the tax haven created for the duration of the Games, as reported last week.

On the security front, it was revealed that G4S, the biggest employer listed on the London Stock Exchange, with more than 650,000 staff worldwide, had spectacularly failed to fulfil its £284 million Olympics contract, in which it was supposed to provide 13,700 personnel for the Games. Just two months ago, it was reported that G4S had had 100,000 applications for 10,000 job vacancies, the inference being that all was proceeding smoothly.

That, however, was spectacularly untrue, as became apparent on Thursday, with just two weeks to go before the Games begin, when it was revealed that the government was arranging for 3,500 military personnel to be provided to make up for G4S’s inability to meet its commitment.

As the Guardian noted, “The news was met with disbelief. Diana Johnson, the shadow home office minister, tweeted: ‘This is the same G4S who aspire to win policing services through privatisation. Not reassuring.’”

Not reassuring indeed, and in the wake of the news Surrey police announced that they were withdrawing from plans to engage in the part-privatisation of their services, in a deal with West Midlands police, which I wrote about here and signed a letter about here. As the Guardian explained, Surrey police announced that they were suspending their “involvement in the £1.5bn joint ‘business partnership programme’ with the West Midlands police after a discussion in which the failure of G4S to deliver on Olympics security was cited as a factor.”

For G4S, the fallout from the scandal may be hugely damaging, possibly toppling CEO Nick Buckles — whose salary last year was £830,000 — and costing the firm up to £50 million. For the credibility of the government, however, it was not the only damaging revelation last week. At Heathrow, the government has persistently demonstrated its inability to find sufficient additional workers to prevent damaging queues at immigration, despite there being 2,650,000 unemployed people in the UK.

The problem began last November, when Brodie Clark, the head of the UK Border Force, was sacked by Theresa May after responding to savage austerity cuts by introducing “looser checks on lower-risk passengers in order to focus on those perceived to be a potential threat,” as the guardian explained. The plan “relied on good intelligence and the discretion of experienced border guards,” and, according to experts, was both safe and cost-efficient, but Clark was sacrificed after the tabloid picked up on the changes and started fearmongering.

As a result, “today every passenger is checked when they enter the UK,” and with 20 percent cuts to staff and a 10 percent increase in passenger numbers, the result has been chaos, with lengthy queues that have been reported for months, and that are doing serious damage to Britain’s reputation as a decent country to visit.

On Sunday, the Observer reported that, because the government failed to respond adequately to the staffing problems when they were first discovered, “inexperienced new recruits, deployed to shorten queues after complaints over lengthy waiting times, are repeatedly ‘missing’ passengers of interest who should be referred to counterterrorism officers when they reach passport control.” The sources who spoke to the Observer said that a handful of people on a government watch list “had been waved through by staff” since the start of July.

While the G4S scandal has exposed why an obsession with privatisation is such a bad idea, and the Heathrow staffing scandal has demonstrated, yet again, the problems with the government’s savage austerity programme, the tax avoidance scandal is an example of the inability of governments — whether Labour-led or a Frankenstein-like Tory/Lib Dem hybrid — to say no to corporations, or, of course, bankers, when it comes to tax avoidance.

In a report published by Ethical Consumer, it was revealed that the Olympic Games’ corporate partners and service providers are exempted from UK corporation tax and UK income tax during the Games, and that, as a result, even though they are expected to bring in £2.7bn in revenues, they will avoid paying over £600m in tax. The Worldwide Olympic Partners are Coca-Cola, Acer, Atos, Dow, GE, McDonalds, Omega, Panasonic, P&G, Samsung and Visa, and the London 2012 Olympic Partners are Adidas, BMW, BP, British Airways, BT, EDF and Lloyds TSB.

As the Ethical Consumer article also noted, the legislation “also exempts all foreign nationals working on the games in the UK from paying income tax on any earnings. Thousands will be exempt from taxation from competitors to media workers (including journalists, technicians and producers) to representatives of official Games bodies and technical officials (including judges, referees and classifiers) along with the athletes themselves.”

The article also explained that LOCOG itself, “chaired by Paul Deighton, a former Chief Executive of Goldman Sachs during the period the bank were using offshore schemes to pay executive bonuses,” is “also exempt from taxation,” and is “using much-criticised employee benefit trusts, often registered in Jersey or Guernsey, to pay organisers’ bonuses once the Games are over. The article added, “With the additional sums that LOCOG could have been liable for, the total figure lost approaches £700 million.”

As UK Uncut described it, “The Olympic site has become the world’s newest temporary tax haven. Instead of funding our vital public services, or refunding the British public for paying for the Olympics, billions of pounds of profits made by multinational companies with monopoly rights to exploit the Games will flow directly into the pockets of shareholders and CEOs.”

Responding to the report, Green MP Caroline Lucas said, “LOCOG [the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games] and the Olympics team have a serious case to answer in allowing the Park to become a temporary tax haven and so does the Government which has managed to find around £11 billion to fund the Games while at the same time imposing severe economic austerity on normal working people.”

In addition, Richard Murphy of the Tax Justice Network said, “We’re giving money away that we need to … preserve essential public services. It’s a scandal that at the same time that David Cameron is criticising Jimmy Carr for using a tax haven, one has been created right in the heart of London.”

To take action, please sign the petition initiated by 38 Degrees — demanding that the corporate sponsors give up their Olympic tax breaks and publish full financial details to prove they have done so — which already has over 90,000 signatures.

Next Monday, July 23, you can also attend the Austerity Games on Hackney Marshes, organised by UK Uncut and trade unionists, which are intended to “highlight the plight of young people in the shadow of these expensive and corporate Olympic Games.” As UK Uncut’s press release explains, “Take part in the Race to the Bottom, Job Jump, Deficit Discus, Hardship Hurdles and more.”

UK Uncut also note:

Whilst the rich get ready for their costly few weeks of fun young people face a future of poverty and inequality with rising fees, the slashing of EMA, soaring rents, slave-labour Workfare schemes and sky-high unemployment. All to pay for a crisis created by the banks and big business. We are told that there isn’t the money to invest in jobs and education yet the bill for the Olympics continues to rise and there is a £750bn cash pile sitting in the banks of big business. They caused this crisis, but they refuse to invest into the futures of the next generation.

We’re getting organised to demand that the fantastic facilities built for the Olympics, instead of being demolished or sold to the private sector, be used to provide genuinely affordable housing and used to benefit local communities.

For further information, see the Facebook page here.

Also on Saturday July 28, as the Games begin, the Counter Olympics Network has organised a demonstration against the Corporate Olympics, in which they state, ‘While cutting welfare, privatising the NHS, and bailing out the banks, the government plan to use the Games to trumpet the message that austerity Britain is content and open for business … We reject Cameron and Coe’s corporate Games.” The demonstration begins at 12 noon at Mile End Park, and more information is available on the Facebook page here.

Note: As I was preparing to publish this article, another scandal broke, this one involving cleaners for the Olympics, who, unlike the tax-dodging corporate sponsors, are squeezed into portacabins in east London, with 25 people in each cabin. Those seeking jobs — who have been arriving from across Europe — are being made to pay £18 a day — £550 a month — to sleep in the cabins, even after being told that there was no immediate work. Some of the cabins are leaking, and 25 people are made to share each toilet, with 75 sharing each shower. The Daily Mail reported that one 24-year old worker, from Hungary, said conditions were “very bad” inside the camp but there was nowhere else for him to go. “It is like a slum inside,” he added, also stating, ‘The toilets are dirty and the space is very little.”

Andrea Murnoz, a 21-year-old student from Madrid, said, “I couldn’t believe it when I saw the places people were sleeping. I was thinking I would apply for a job, but I have changed my mind. My two friends signed up, but I think they are regretting it. When I first saw the metal gates and the tall tower in the middle, it reminded me of a prison camp. It looks horrible.” The Mail also noted that workers had been made to sign “gagging orders preventing them from talking to the Press and have been banned from having family and friends visit ‘for security reasons.’”

The Mail also noted that plans for the accommodation were backed by LOCOG and “waved through by the local council, Newham, even though environmental health officers said the toilet and shower facilities were ‘unlikely to be adequate,’ while landscape architects said the sleeping arrangements were ‘cramped.’” Craig Lovett, of Spotless International Services, which runs the camp, told the Mail, ‘This is not a prison. Nobody is forced to stay there. Many of our staff have come from areas where there is extremely high unemployment and are very happy to be working in the Games.” A spokesman for LOCOG also stated, “Cleanevent [part of Spotless] have assured us that the accommodation they are providing their workers is of a suitable standard.”

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 Omar Khadr from Guantánamo! Please Support Senator Roméo Dallaire’s Campaign

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.

But first, please sign the petition initiated by Canadian Senator Roméo Dallaire, urging Public Safety Minister Vic Toews to sign the paperwork to bring Omar Khadr home from Guantánamo, as agreed in October 2010. This petition has gone viral, and hundreds of people have been signing it every hour. With your help, we can turn this petition into a torrent of concern and indignation that the Canadian government — and the mainstream media — cannot ignore.

Just last week, we encouraged you, our readers, to sign a petition calling for the Canadian government to secure the release from Guantánamo of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen and former child prisoner who was supposed to have been returned to Canada last November, as part of a plea deal he agreed to in October 2010.

If you’ll forgive us for the intrusion on your time, we’d now like to ask you to sign another, similar petition, initiated by Senator Roméo Dallaire, a former Lieutenant-General in the Canadian Army, described on his website as a devoted humanitarian. The founder of the Child Soldiers Initiative, a project aimed at eradicating the use of child soldiers, Senator Dallaire recently appeared at a press conference in Ottawa to urge the Canadian government to honor its part of the deal, and to bring Omar home.

In its first day, this petition went viral, securing over 10,000 signatures, and we need the pressure to build to force the Canadian government to act, and to bring Omar home. As Senator Dallaire’s campaign explains, “A deal is a deal.”

Under the terms of his plea deal, Omar pleaded guilty to what were defined by the US as war crimes, but only to prevent him from serving a 40-year sentence. Under the terms of the deal, he was to serve eight years, one in Guantánamo and the remaining seven in Canada.

Unfortunately, however, the Canadian government, which persistently ignored Omar’s rights as a Canadian citizen and as a child prisoner, is now ignoring its obligation to bring him home, as promised. Please sign and share this petition – addressed to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews — as widely as possible, and let’s aim for tens of thousands of signatures to show the Canadian government that this continuing injustice must be brought to an end. At the time of writing, it has over 14,000 signatures.

This is the text of Senator Dallaire’s petition:

The case of Omar Khadr — a Canadian citizen and former child soldier — is a stain upon our society and shows a blatant disregard for Canada’s obligations under international law.

During his 10 nightmarish years at Bagram and Guantánamo Bay, Omar Khadr’s rights have been violated time and again. He has been denied the right to due process and a fair trial, the right to protection from torture, and the rights stemming from the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict.

After years of dragging its feet, Canada finally agreed to his return in 2010, so long as he served one additional year in Guantánamo. No one forced the government’s hand. It made its promise voluntarily. That year has passed, and yet the transfer request continues to gather dust on the minister’s desk awaiting his signature. This is simply unacceptable.

Just days ago, Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, chief defense counsel for military commissions openly chastised Canada for crippling US efforts to enter into plea agreements: If the US “can’t carry through on their end of the bargain, it has a chilling effect on the willingness of others to plead. There was an expectation by all parties involved that Khadr was going to be home last fall. It’s July, and he’s not.”

The Americans have held up their end of the deal. Omar Khadr has held up his end of the deal. Why is the Canadian government refusing to follow through on its commitment?

Enough is enough. Canada must keep its word — and Minister Toews must authorize Omar Khadr’s return without delay. A deal is a deal.

If thousands join me, we can force Canada to honour its promise. Now is the time to speak up and spread the word. Please sign this petition and help me bring Omar Khadr home.

LGen Honourable Roméo A. Dallaire, (Ret’d), Senator

Below, for further information, is a speech that Senator Dallaire delivered to the Canadian Parliament just two weeks ago, which provides an excellent recap of Omar’s story, his torture and abuse in US custody, and the shameful manner in which the Canadian government has persistently refused to act on his behalf, even as courts — up to and including the Canadian Supreme Court — have established that his rights have been violated by the Canadian government.

Senator Dallaire’s Speech on Omar Khadr, June 29, 2012

Honourable senators, I am rising now to put on the record the case of the only child soldier prosecuted for war crimes.

Canada has been the world leader in drafting and promoting the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict, specifically addressing child soldiers. This convention entered into force in 2002 and has been signed by 130 countries.

That same year, Canada again led the charge in developing that optional protocol, and now 150 countries have signed to it.

This protocol prohibits the use and recruitment of children under the age of 18 in armed conflict.

The Optional Protocol led to the drafting of the Paris Principles, which clearly established the definition of a child soldier. I have read this definition in the chamber previously, but I wish to do so again simply to remind us:

Any person under 18 years of age who is compulsorily, forcibly or voluntarily recruited –

Of course, in conflict zones, the term “voluntary” is questionable.

– or used in hostilities by any kind of armed forces or groups in any capacity, including, but not limited to, soldiers, cooks, porters, messengers, sex slaves, bush wives and those accompanying such groups. It includes girls recruited for sexual purposes and forced marriage. It does not, therefore, refer exclusively to a child who is carrying or has carried arms.

Imagine, honourable senators, that you are a 13-year-old boy. For your whole life your family has moved around, never settling for very long. You live in a culture where your father is never questioned. If he says “Jump,” you ask “How high?” No matter what he asks you to do, you comply. You are barely an adolescent; you cannot fully grasp the meaning or consequences of your tasks. You live in a country where armed conflict surrounds you. Listening to your father is, in fact, your survival.

Your father sends you to live and work with his associates. He tells you to stay there and to listen to what you are told. As you are working one day, the compound you are in comes under attack by U.S. Special Forces. In the firefight frenzy, you are shot three times. Then you are wrenched from the rubble and accused of killing an American soldier. It is 2002, you are 15 years old, and your name is Omar Khadr.

To produce a professional soldier, the minimum standard in NATO is about one year. That is a basic infantryman. To produce a Special Forces soldier, the minimum time and experience is four years of service, plus up to another year to year and a half of special training.

This compound was first, as we say, softened up by air attacks, bombed by 500-kilogram bombs from the air, and then assaulted by a full-fledged Delta Special Force, which Omar Khadr finds himself in the middle of.

Today, honourable senators, I speak about the case of Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen and former child soldier currently held in prison at Guantánamo Bay. It is my intention to speak about the nightmares this now man has suffered, the failures of our government to protect him, and the immediate necessity for this government to sign the transfer agreement and bring Omar back home.

It is believed that during the firefight, Omar Khadr threw a grenade, killing Sergeant Christopher Speer, a Delta Force strategic forces soldier and special forces medic. He was sent to the Americans’ notorious Bagram prison. Once identified, the Canadian government sought and was denied consular access.

In September 2002, Foreign Affairs sent a diplomatic note to the U.S. Department of State. The note made three points.

First, there was “ambiguity as to the role Mr. Khadr may have played” in the battle of July 27, 2002.

Second, Guantánamo Bay “would not be an appropriate place for Mr. Omar Khadr to be detained,” since “under various laws of Canada and the United States,” his age provided “for special treatment of such persons with respect to legal or judicial processes.”

Finally, the diplomatic note went on to ask for “discussions between appropriate officials on Mr. Khadr prior to any decisions being taken with respect to his future status and detention.”

In spite of our government’s concerns, Omar was transferred to Guantánamo Bay, where he has remained a prisoner for the last 10 years. Despite the best efforts of the truth, what has followed in the last 10 years has been a nightmare for this ex-child soldier, a stain upon our society, and a fundamental reproach upon our respect for international law and conventions that we have signed.

We have since learned that after being hospitalized at Bagram, this seriously injured 15-year-old was pulled off his stretcher onto the floor and his head was covered with a bag while dogs barked in his face. Cold water was thrown on him; he was forced to stand for hours with his hands tied above his head and to carry heavy buckets of water to aggravate his wounds. He was threatened with rape, and bright lights were shone on his injured eyes. In fact, he has lost one eye.

We have learned that, while prepping him for American and Canadian interrogators at Guantánamo Bay, this boy was subjected to further tortures, such as extreme sleep deprivation and endless hours of standing up, designed to exhaust him. After being held without charge for three years, Omar is charged by the U.S. as an “enemy combatant” in November 2005 and put to trial through the Military Commissions Act.

During the 10 years that this nightmare has gone on, we have realized that the most serious violations of Khadr’s rights have been covered up — violations of the right to due process, the right to protection from torture, the right to protection from arbitrary imprisonment, the right to protection from retroactive prosecution, the right to a fair trial, the right to confidential legal representation at the appropriate time and place, the right to be tried by an independent and impartial tribunal, the right to habeas corpus, the right to equality before the law and the rights stemming from the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The status of child means that the person concerned is unable to understand the world into which he was thrown. The need to protect and take care of children has always been the code of humanity. The use of child soldiers is a violation of that code. The status of child soldier means that the person concerned is subject to the most atrocious form of indoctrination, to physical and psychological torture and to the most poignant mental poverty into which an innocent child can be thrust.

For too long, we have done nothing. We must remember that the substance of the Khadr case involves children’s rights. In this type of case, we must demonstrate wisdom, compassion and a true willingness to take into account the overall context and remember that all children have inalienable rights, even if they or their families have done things of which we disapprove. These rights are meaningless if we respect them only selectively.

When the military commission in Guantánamo dismissed the charges on a technicality in June 2007, the Government of Canada could have exerted pressure to have Omar repatriated, particularly given the Kafkaesque possibility that the United States government would, as it had promised, appeal the decision before a tribunal that had yet to be set up.

I went to Washington to talk to members of Congress, the Senate and the State Department. They said that the only entity refusing to go ahead with Omar’s departure was the Pentagon, backed by the Canadian government’s lack of action.

From the outset, the U.S. administration adopted rules as the need arose whereas Canada’s representatives shirked their responsibilities towards a citizen. The charges of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, material support for terrorism and espionage under the Military Commission Act are reiterated in the appeal.

While Omar was waiting for his trial to begin in Guantánamo Bay, the Canadian courts studied his case. In May 2008, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Canada’s representatives had violated Omar Khadr’s rights, which were guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, when he was illegally interrogated in 2003.

The court ordered that the fruits of the interrogations sent to the American authorities be disclosed to Omar. Canada complied with the order to disclose the information, but it has done nothing to put an end to this nightmare.

In January 2010, once again, the Supreme Court of Canada concluded that the Government of Canada had continued to infringe Omar’s rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, finding that the treatment Omar was subjected to offended the most basic Canadian standards. The court stopped short of ordering the government to repatriate Omar, because of the Crown’s prerogative over foreign affairs.

Therefore, the situation is focused specifically on the Crown.

The government sent a diplomatic note to the United States to ask the Americans not to use the fruits of the Canadian interrogation. This was nothing but a symbolic gesture that did nothing to compensate for the serious, fundamental violation of Omar’s rights by Canadian agents.

In August 2010, Omar Khadr’s trial started in Guantánamo Bay, even though he was a child soldier. He decided to plead guilty because he wanted a chance to live. Ultimately, he is the one who took responsibility.

Canada was intimately involved in the pre-trial plea deals and negotiations. In October 2010, Canada committed to return Omar to complete his sentence in Canada after he served one additional year in Guantánamo Bay.

On November 1, 2010, in the House of Commons, then Minister of Foreign Affairs Lawrence Cannon said that Canada will implement this deal; yet, eight months later, he was eligible to return to Canada and we have seen nothing from the government. Why the delay?

This government has turned what should have been a technical, bureaucratic decision into a political game, a political football. The Americans have held up their end of the deal. Omar Khadr has held up his end of the deal. The Americans have signed his release, dated April 16, so that the Canadian government can take him and incarcerate him in appropriate establishments in this country in order that he can receive, as other prisoners do, rehabilitation and reintegration into our society. Why is the Canadian government refusing to follow through on its word? If this is a political decision, what is the political impediment for bringing him here?

The U.S. government is not known for being soft on terrorism. The U.S. would never agree to transfer a detainee, especially to an ally, if they believed that that detainee was in any way a threat.

He will not be walking the streets; he will be going to a Canadian prison. Despite this, our government continues to stonewall the United States’ efforts to return Omar Khadr to Canada. In fact, the Canadian specialist or technocrat in Washington refused to meet with the Americans to even start discussing the details of how to bring him back, under what means and under whose control.

The Minister of Public Safety tells us that the matter is under consideration. That is not a particularly good response. Perhaps, as Mr. Khadr’s Canadian lawyers have said, the minister thinks that it has not been that long, but the minister has not been in Guantánamo Bay for a decade under less than appropriate conditions, even compared to our jails. The minister does not sit shackled to a floor waiting for the decision to return him to Canada. Khadr does.

There is a great deal of frustration in the American government towards Canada. Not only is the patience of our closest ally wearing thin, but the world has been watching Canada’s missteps in this case. Just this month, the UN Committee against Torture in its report urged Canada to promptly approve Omar Khadr’s transfer application. Canada’s reputation as a defender of human rights continues to be sullied the longer this process and his detention in Guantánamo Bay continue. It is a simple fact of fulfilling a promise; you either sign the deal and you implement it, or you go against the deal and lose your credibility as being a fair negotiator with your closest ally.

As Omar Khadr’s defence lawyer put it last week in a press conference:

The United States and Canada are supposed to be the good guys. We’re supposed to be the people that the other places in the world who are looking for freedom look at for how things are supposed to be done the right way. We’re supposed to stand for human rights, dignity and the rule of law. The cornerstone of the foundation on which the rule of law is built is honouring your agreements.

Canada must honour the agreement it has with Omar Khadr and return him immediately to Canada. There are all kinds of planes waiting to bring him back. There is a whole program already in place through the university in Edmonton where he has already commenced his rehabilitation while incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay.

There can be no doubt, and I conclude, that the case of Omar Khadr taints this government, this country and all of its citizens. Our credibility in attempting to extricate, demobilize, rehabilitate and reintegrate child soldiers, as I recently was doing in the Congo and South Sudan, is affected by the fact that we are not playing by the rules that we have instituted and want other people to play by. They are not stupid. They know we are not playing by the rules. It was put into my face that the Khadr case is an example where we sign the papers, we even make deals with our allies, but we do not have the guts to implement them.

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.