Andy Worthington's Blog, page 86

Video: Andy Worthington’s Band The Four Fathers Play New Version of ‘Song for Shaker Aamer’ Reflecting His Release from Guantánamo

Just a quick note to let you all know that, on Saturday, my band The Four Fathers were filmed playing a revised version of my “Song for Shaker Aamer,” to reflect Shaker’s release from Guantánamo on Friday.

Primarily, it was heartening for me to change the words of the chorus from the present to the past tense, but also not to have to sing, any more, that he was “stuck in a cell alone, though the US says it wants to let him go.”

Here’s the revised chorus:

Shaker Shaker

They chained your body but they could not chain your mind

You told truth to power

Even though you were behind the wire

The recorded version of the song (featuring Shaker’s voice, recorded in Guantánamo) is featured on our debut album, “Love and War,” and is available as a download — for 80p ($1.23), although you can pay more if you like. 25% of the takings will be donated to Shaker’s family.

The video recorded on Saturday is below, as featured on The Four Fathers’ YouTube channel (and please feel free to subscribe to us):

“Song for Shaker Aamer” was featured in the campaign video for We Stand With Shaker, which I established with the activist Joanne MacInnes last November, and which played a part in securing Shaker’s release — along with the campaigning of MPs and the support of the mainstream media here in the UK. The campaign video, I’m glad to note, has now been seen by over 4,000 people.

Please also note that the ‘Love and War’ album is also available to download, for just £4.50 ($7) or more if you wish — or it can be bought as a CD for £7 ($10.85).

If you’re in London, or reasonably near, and would like us to play, please do get in touch. We’re available for political events, pub gigs, parties.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Shaker Aamer, Freed from Guantánamo, Is Reunited With His Family

Now that Shaker Aamer, the last British resident held in the US prison at Guantánamo, is back home in the UK, we are beginning to hear some information about his health, and his reunion with his family. Shaker arrived at Biggin Hill Airport on Friday and was then taken to a secret location — a clinic — for a medical evaluation after years of medical neglect in Guantánamo, where, on Saturday, he was reunited with his family, his wife and his four children, who are all British citizens. A Saudi by birth, Shaker was granted residency in the UK in 1996.

The Mail on Sunday had the first story of Shaker being reunited with his family, noting that, on Saturday, he “finally embraced the teenaged son he had never seen yesterday in a tearful meeting on his first full day of freedom in 14 years.” Faris, Shaker’s youngest child, was born on February 14, 2002, the day Shaker arrived at Guantánamo, and the meeting, as the MoS explained, “came at a London clinic” where Shaker, who has four children with his British wife, “is being treated for a catalogue of physical and psychological illnesses.” Faris was joined by Johina, who turned 18 last week, and Michael, 16, and Saif, 15.

The Mail on Sunday also explained that, as Shaker arrived back in the UK, “more details emerged about the arrangements being made for his new life — and his continuing fears for his safety.” The article stated that a “private London Hospital owned by an American firm — the Hospital Corporation of America (HCA) — refused to treat him at the last minute,” that Shaker “was so worried about being poisoned by his American captors that he didn’t dare eat or drink anything during his private jet flight home,” and that a “£1 million compensation package has already been agreed with the UK government” after his long ordeal of nearly 14 years held without charge or trial and subjected to torture and abuse, and years of solitary confinement.

The MoS also noted that a Metropolitan Police investigation into his claims of British complicity in his torture, which were first aired in a UK court in 2009, “has been closed down, but could be restarted now that he is free.”

The newspaper also claimed that Shaker “will be closely monitored by British security services though there are unlikely to be restrictions on his freedom of movement” — although to my mind the second half of that claim rather tends to contradict the first. I doubt, actually, that Shaker will be subjected to significant close monitoring, above and beyond the casually sweeping monitoring of communication that, I have no doubt, is already in place for anyone of interest to the British government, but nor do I expect him to do anything untoward, because he has persistently demonstrated in his comments from Guantánamo that he has no interest in any sort of violence.

A key member of Shaker’s medical team, it has now been publicly revealed, is consultant neurologist and human rights campaigner Dr. David Nicholl, from Hagley, near Birmingham, who is the main source of information about Shaker in these early days of his freedom. Dr. Nicholl told the MoS that Shaker’s medical team also “involves another four specialists.”

The first doctor to see Shaker on his return, Dr. Nicholl also explained how “plans for his care were thrown into chaos when the private hospital where he had been due to be treated in seclusion abruptly withdrew its co-operation only four days before his return.”

“The medical staff in this country were fantastic,” he said, “and there was no question of them not being able to meet his needs. Then on Monday the decision was suddenly taken to pull out, saying it wasn’t the right place for him.”

He said he concluded that “the decision not to accept Mr. Aamer had been taken by HCA in the US,” as the MoS described it. “Everybody in the UK was happy,” he said. “Nothing had changed with his clinical status. Somebody made this decision.”

A spokesman for HCA denied this claim, claiming that it had been a medical decision rather than a political one, but did not, evidently, provide further explanation.

Dr. Nicholl also raid that Shaker now had “very serious problems trusting doctors after what happened to him at Gitmo,” where, as the MoS put it, “Doctors supervised force feeding when he was on hunger strike, and medical staff forcibly took his blood,” and where he “was also given five times the normal dose of the controversial anti-malarial drug Mefloquine on arrival at Guantánamo in 2002.”

The newspaper added, “The US military stopped using it after it was linked to psychotic episodes in which soldiers who had been given it went on the rampage,” adding, “There is no risk of malaria in Cuba.”

Dr. Nicholl also explained that Shaker is “suffering from severe, intense headaches, sciatica and back pain, and was undergoing a battery of tests,” which “included a range of toxicological tests to confirm he had not been poisoned.” He said that Shaker’s distrust of US personnel was such that he “did not eat or drink anything after boarding the plane at Guantánamo. He was still fearful that they might spike it with something, even at this very late stage.”

He also said that Shaker recognised that “the psychological impact of what he’s been through is going to be at least as big as the physical one. He really has been to hell and back.”

However, he added, Shaker “has still got a fantastic sense of humour and a beaming smile,” although he “looks a lot older than he does in the familiar pictures. That might just be helpful, because it means it’s going to be easier to do what he most needs — to live quietly with his family beneath the publicity radar.”

Dr. Nicholl also said that when Shaker arrived, he had almost no luggage, just “a small red carry-on holdall containing all his worldly goods from 14 years of imprisonment.” The baggage tag, he added, “had ‘Prisoner 239’ on it,” his prison number in Guantánamo, by which was known throughout his imprisonment, “rather than his name.” As Dr. Nicholl explained, “So far as the Americans were concerned, that’s who he was, right to the end.”

In contrast, “when he boarded his [British] flight home, the captain shook his hand and said: ‘Welcome aboard, Mr Aamer.’”

Gareth Peirce also spoke briefly to the MoS, stating, “He’s got three priorities. His wife, his children, and his medical condition. That is all I can say.”

The Mail on Sunday also noted how Shaker’s participation in a civil claim for damages against the British government in 2010, along with all the released prisoners, was “partly settled” in a deal “brokered by former Cabinet minister Ken Clarke” in 2010, adding, “Under the terms of the settlement, 16 British citizens and residents held at Guantánamo Bay between 2002 and 2010 [including Shaker] agreed to drop their torture claims against the UK government in return for payments of up to £1 million each.”

The Mail on Sunday also noted that a spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police said they would “consider any further evidence” relating to Shaker’s “specific allegation that British secret agents were complicit in his torture while he was being held by the Americans in Afghanistan and Guantánamo,” claims central to his 2009 court case, and to an investigation by the Metropolitan Police that led to officers traveling to Guantánamo to interview him — in particular about his claim that, as the MoS put it, “a British officer from MI5 or MI6 was present when he was interrogated and when his head was being banged ‘against a wall’” by US operatives.

Shaker’s US lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of Reprieve, said that Shaker “was not interested in money and not looking to persecute anyone for what had happened to him.” He also said that Shaker “would have known he was about to be freed when he was asked to change from his orange jumpsuit into a white one.” As he explained, “That is the moment most prisoners finally smell freedom. Then it becomes real that they are going home.”

Stourbridge News had more on Dr. Nicholl’s role, noting that he was “one of the first people” Shaker wanted to meet, because he “had done almost everything he could conceive, from running marathons to going on hunger strike, to try and keep Mr. Aamer’s plight in the public eye.”

Dr. Nicholl said he was “still in a state of shock” after meeting Shaker. he explained that he will likely “have psychological demons that will last for years,” but added, “He’s a really nice guy; he’s got a lovely sense of humour, he’s very determined and he’s so grateful for all the work that everyone’s done.”

He added, “I feel my job is done. I wanted him to be in a position that he could present himself as a witness to the police not as a terror suspect. Whatever people think about Shaker Aamer no person should be in prison for 13 years without charge. We have a right to a fair trial; it’s a fundamental policy of democracy.”

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

WORLD EXCLUSIVE: Roger Waters Writes About the Release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo

A friend of mine for several years now — and a great supporter of the campaign to get Shaker Aamer released from Guantánamo — the musician Roger Waters, formerly of Pink Floyd, has written an article about Shaker’s release, which he has made available exclusively to me, on behalf of all those who have campaigned for Shaker’s release. Thank you, Roger!

A relentless campaigner against injustice, unlike far too many high-profile musicians, Roger became involved in the campaign to free Shaker after he was sent a letter from Shaker about a year and a half ago, via his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of Reprieve, in which Shaker had been quoting from Roger’s song “Hey You” (from the album “The Wall”). The song begins:

Hey you, out there in the cold

Getting lonely getting old

Can you feel me?

Hey you, standing in the aisles

With itchy feet and fading smiles

Can you feel me?

Hey you, don’t help them to bury the light

Don’t give in without a fight

Roger then got involved with the We Stand With Shaker campaign that I launched with the activist Joanne Macinnes last November, attending the launch outside Parliament (see the photo above), and also visiting the US Embassy on Valentine’s Day, the date of Shaker’s arrival at Guantánamo in 2002, which was also the date of birth of his youngest son, when we were trying to hand in a giant Valentine’s Day card saying, “There is no love in Guantánamo,” which was signed by numerous celebrities and MPs. Roger also wrote an article for the Daily Mail, signed the open letter we wrote to President Obama on Independence Day, and, just two weeks ago, took part in the Fast For Shaker, when over 400 celebrities, MPs and concerned citizens around the world fasted for 24 hours in solidarity with Shaker.

Roger’s article, as well as discussing Shaker, also takes in the military industrial complex, the struggle of the majority  — “We The Many” — against a corrupt elite, the illegal invasion of Iraq and the 15 million people who protested against it, the importance of habeas corpus, the idiocy of Donald Trump, propaganda as entertainment (Zero Dark Thirty, 24, Homeland), and the West’s role, via blowback, in creating ISIS. Enjoy!

Roger Waters Writes About the Release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo

“Read all abaht it! Shaker Aamer released from Guantánamo Bay after 14 years in the clink.”

Firstly, Shaker, your supporters are profoundly glad to see you reunited with your brave family. You have been mightily wronged and your illegal detention and torture at the hands of the military industrial complex has served and will continue to serve as a reminder to us all that the battle has just begun.

Those who led the campaign for your release, Andy Worthington, Joanne Macinnes, Clive Stafford Smith at Reprieve, and all the others, including the MPs who went to lobby in Washington on your behalf, represent the tip of an iceberg.

Beneath the icy waters of political and economic domination by the few, “We The Many” are massing our forces and we will mount a formidable challenge to the deadly domination of those few.  Dwight D. Eisenhower warned, in 1960, in his famous speech, of the perils of the unchecked advance of the Military Industrial Complex. I quote:

“In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

“We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together … the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.”

Sadly the citizenry is anything but alert and knowledgeable. The Military Industrial Complex has invaded our living rooms where we sit mesmerized by “thirteen channels of shit on the TV.” The hired legal guns in Washington, in the Justice Department, write their memos and briefs to accommodate our new moral, ethical and legal standards. Torture and targeted assassination are legal now, regarded as morally acceptable in the corridors of power.

The entertainment industry has become a propaganda adjunct to the Military Industrial Complex. For instance, according to the movie Zero Dark Thirty, it was the use of torture that led to the capture and execution of Osama Bin Laden. That blatant untruth was fed to the makers of the film by the CIA. As we know, torture doesn’t produce reliable intelligence and, “We The Many” will not be subjoined into The Military Industrial Complex’s Gestapo.

“We The Many”, 15,000,000 of us, took to the streets all over the world on February 15th 2003 to demonstrate against Bush and Blair and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz and Rice and Rove’s determination to dash headlong into war in Iraq.

They ignored us, lied to us, trumped up fake evidence, and went ahead with their insane plan. We mourn the dead. The calumny of the invasion of Iraq will remain a stain on our history forever.

“We The Many” were right then and we are right now and armed with our resolve to do the right thing we lie in wait beneath the surface of the icy waters that are The New World Order. Let their Titanic beware, we are here and we are strong and our love for all our brothers and sisters and the Law and Mistress Liberty is stronger than their love of money and power and they will founder on us.

All this may sound like a digression from Shaker Aamer, but it is not. Shaker was imprisoned without trial for 14 years! Incarceration without due process is fundamentally antipathetic to any civilized society. For many years I have used an inflatable pig, as a theatrical device, which has sported the slogan “Habeas Corpus Matters”. It does. The legal requirement that no one can be disappeared, that everyone accused of a crime has a right to his or her day in court is a cornerstone of jurisprudence that is to be protected at all costs!

I feel I may be losing the attention of some of the dimwits at the back of the class — “Yes, Trump, I’m talking to you.” There should be a wider conversation — “Trump, pay attention!” — a wider conversation about circumventing the law, and whether decisions to circumvent the law should be left up to generals or politicians.

Fundamentally the question is this: do “We The Many” want to abrogate our rights as individuals under the Law and submit to the authority of the State? Will we be content for Uncle Sam to become indistinguishable from Uncle Joe Stalin? “Trump!!! Wake up!! Pay attention!”

Where does The Law come from? Who decides that torture or incarceration without trial, are suddenly legal? “Trump? Trump!! Wake up.”

If Trump were not asleep he would probably trot out, ”Terrorist threat, foreigners, ticking bomb, national security, immigrants, torture works … I’ve seen it on TV … Kiefer Sutherland, 24 … just shoot’em in the leg … they’ll tell you where the dirty bomb is!”

So really, what Trump is saying is that it’s OK by him that The Law is a malleable device controlled, at its sole discretion, by the executive branch of government, ratified and rewritten by trained flunkies in the Justice Department and then sold to an ill informed public through the fantasy of network or cable TV shows like 24 and Homeland.

Speaking of Terrorism and the Law, I suspect Trump approves of targeted assassinations, which are illegal by all international standards. Targeted assassinations, whether by drone attack or other means are international acts of terror, which create enmity and exacerbate the problem they pretend to address. We’ve all heard the theory. The theory is this, if you “cut the head off a snake”, if you take out the top guy of any organization, be it drug cartel, or radical political group or even some inconveniently elected government or politician, the target organization will wither and die.

This theory is generally acknowledged by top DEA and/or Military authorities to be complete rubbish. Kill whoever it might be and all his friends and relations are drawn to the cause, whatever it might be. Far from killing the snake you are building a pyramid with an ever broadening base. The inevitable results are escalating violence in the so called war on drugs and the spread of all negative aspects of the illegal trade in narcotics, the tyranny that always follows political assassinations, and, most obviously of all, the compounding of disasters like the invasion of Iraq. By continuing the senseless slaughter, you create ISIL, just as you effected the spread of Al-Qaida in Iraq all those years ago.

On a happier note:

Shaker Aamer, you are a man of incalculable spirit and courage and doubtless also faith. Your indomitable resistance in the face of remorseless persecution lights a corner of the dark. We owe you an enormous debt of gratitude. Welcome home, my friend.

With great respect and love,

Roger Waters

New York City

Friday October 30th 2015

Below is Roger’s video about Shaker, and see below that for his interview with Sky News outside the US Embassy in February:

Shaker Aamer from Roger Waters on Vimeo.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Shaker Aamer’s Statement on His Release from Guantánamo

At lunchtime on October 30, 2015, a plane carrying Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, back to the UK as a free man, to be reunited with his family after nearly 14 years without charge or trial in US custody, landed at Biggin Hill airfield. Soon after, Shaker was whisked away by his UK lawyers to receive medical care and to be reunited with his family, and, I am led to believe, he is doing remarking well considering his long ordeal.

The following statement was issued by his UK lawyers and I’m delighted to post it below. It reveals the eloquence, generosity and concern for others that has been a hallmark of Shaker’s words from Guantánamo over the years. All his many supporters should take heart from the fact that he says, “I feel obliged to every individual who fought for justice not just for me but to bring an end to Guantánamo,” adding, “Without knowing of their fight I might have given up more than once; I am overwhelmed by what people have done by their actions, their thoughts and their prayers and without their devotion to justice I would not be here in Britain now.”

Shaker Aamer’s statement, October 30, 2015

“The reason I have been strong is because of the support of people so strongly devoted to the truth. If I was the fire to be lit to tell the truth, it was the people who protected the fire from the wind.

“My thanks go to Allah first, second to my wife, my family, to my kids and then to my lawyers who did everything they could to carry the word to the world. I feel obliged to every individual who fought for justice not just for me but to bring an end to Guantánamo.

“Without knowing of their fight I might have given up more than once; I am overwhelmed by what people have done by their actions, their thoughts and their prayers and without their devotion to justice I would not be here in Britain now.

“The reality may be that we cannot establish peace but we can establish justice. If there is anything that will bring this world to peace it is to remove injustice.”

His UK lawyers, Irène Nembhard and Gareth Pierce at Birnberg Pierce, prefaced his statement with the following words: “Shaker Aamer is an extraordinary man who determined for 14 years that he would return to Britain in the face of the determination of the most powerful of states that he would never do so. He achieved this by unimaginable, heroic, sustained courage, the strength of his character and of his faith being for years his only resource. No one knows and no words can describe torture, isolation, despair, even less for the length and intensity that he has endured. He by the grace of God is now home and this is a new beginning. He has asked us to send the message below to everyone who has cared about him.”

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Shaker Aamer Finally Freed from Guantánamo: We Stand With Shaker Responds to the News

Please support my work!

Great news finally, as Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, has just arrived back in the UK, at Biggin Hill airport. Below is a version of a press release I wrote and sent out this morning on behalf of the We Stand With Shaker campaign.

Responding to the news of Shaker Aamer’s arrival back in the UK from Guantánamo, Andy Worthington, the co-director of the We Stand With Shaker campaign, said, “We are delighted to hear about Shaker Aamer’s return to the UK, bringing to an end his long and unacceptable ordeal in US custody for nearly 14 years. Eight years ago, under George W. Bush, Shaker was first told that the US no longer wanted to hold him, and in 2009 the Obama administration also approved him for release. To be held for so long, after being approved for release, is unforgivable.”

Andy added, “We hope that on his return he is not detained by the UK authorities, and will immediately be allowed to be reunited with his family, and to begin to receive the medical and psychological care that he urgently needs to begin to put his life back together again. We thank all the campaigners who have worked tirelessly for Shaker’s release, the MPs from across the political spectrum who have devoted their energies to addressing this terrible injustice, his lawyers, the media who have understood the importance of his case and the principles at stake, and, of course, the concerned citizens around the world who have recognised his plight and acted on it.”

Andy also said, “We also recall the 112 other men still held at Guantánamo, and note that 52 of them have also, like Shaker, been approved for release by high-level US government review processes. We call for them also to be released as soon as possible.”

We Stand With Shaker was set up by independent journalist Andy Worthington and activist Joanne MacInnes last November, to call for Shaker Aamer’s release from Guantánamo. They publicised Shaker’s plight by having celebrities and MPs stand with a giant inflatable figure of him. The campaign struck a chord with the media and the general public alike, and contributed to the pressure to secure Shaker’s return to the UK.

Two weeks ago, Andy and Joanne also set up Fast For Shaker, successfully encouraging celebrities, MPs and concerned citizens around the world to fast in solidarity with Shaker.

For further information, please contact:

Joanne MacInnes on 07867 553580 or email.

Andy Worthington on 020 8691 9316 or email.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Finally, President Obama Vetoes Defense Bill That Contains Onerous Guantánamo Restrictions

I wrote the following article for the “Close Guantánamo” website, which I established in January 2012 with US attorney Tom Wilner. Please join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email.

Last week, for only the fifth time in his Presidency, Barack Obama vetoed a bill sent for his approval by Congress. The bill in question was the draft of next year’s National Defense Authorization Act, which provides funding for the military, but which, for several years now, has also been used by Republicans to impose restrictions on the president’s ability to release prisoners from Guantánamo — as well as an absolute ban on bringing any prisoner to the US mainland for any reason.

In a Veto Message on October 22, President Obama wrote, “I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 1735, the ‘National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2016.'” He added that “the bill would, among other things, constrain the ability of the Department of Defense to conduct multi-year defense planning and align military capabilities and force structure with our national defense strategy, impede the closure of the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, and prevent the implementation of essential defense reforms.”

On Guantánamo, President Obama wrote, in further detail:

I have repeatedly called upon the Congress to work with my Administration to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and explained why it is imperative that we do so. As I have noted, the continued operation of this facility weakens our national security by draining resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners, and emboldening violent extremists. Yet in addition to failing to remove unwarranted restrictions on the transfer of detainees, this bill seeks to impose more onerous ones. The executive branch must have the flexibility, with regard to those detainees who remain at Guantánamo, to determine when and where to prosecute them, based on the facts and circumstances of each case and our national security interests, and when and where to transfer them consistent with our national security and our humane treatment policy. Rather than taking steps to bring this chapter of our history to a close, as I have repeatedly called upon the Congress to do, this bill aims to extend it.

For many years, Congress has imposed restrictions on President Obama that have made it more difficult to release prisoners and to take steps towards closing the prison, as he promised on his second day in office in January 2009. For several years, it should also be noted, President Obama has had access to a waiver provision in the legislation, which has allowed him to bypass Congress when it comes to provisions relating to Guantánamo, but he has chosen not to use it. We understand that this is for political reasons. It is clear that the president has decided that it is not worth spending political capital on Guantánamo and enraging Republicans — but it remains a disappointment that he has not once used his waiver.

Instead, he has allowed his hands to be tied by lawmakers, who have imposed a ban on any prisoner being brought to the US mainland for any reason, and have required the defense secretary to certify that, if a prisoner is to be released, steps have been taken to mitigate any risk. They have also imposed a 30-day notification period before any prisoner can be released, and, over the years, bans on repatriations to certain countries regarded as dangerous.

From September 2010 to August 2013, the restrictions were so onerous that only five prisoners were released from Guantánamo. In May 2013, after the prisoners, in despair at ever being released or securing anything resembling justice, embarked on a prison-wide hunger strike that drew unwelcome international attention to Guantánamo, President Obama promised to resume releasing prisoners. Since that  time, 52 men have been freed, which is a huge improvement on the distressing situation that existed from 2010-13.

However, every year the NDAA contains restrictions that are extremely unhelpful to President Obama’s intention to close Guantánamo — particularly because of the ban on bringing any prisoner to the US mainland — and every year he has threatened to veto it, although he hasn’t done so until now.

The differences between this year and previous years are two-fold, relating both to immediate concerns and to the bigger plan of closing Guantánamo before President Obama leaves office.

On the first of these two points, this year’s bill spitefully includes increased restrictions that are not justifiable. As well as maintaining the ban on bringing Guantánamo prisoners to the US mainland, it “would also make it slightly more difficult to transfer detainees to foreign countries by requiring Defense Secretary Ash Carter to certify that the transfer is in the interest of national security,” as The Hill described it. In addition, as well as maintaining a ban on transferring any prisoner to Yemen, it would add bans on any transfers to Syria, Libya and Somalia.

The entire US establishment is unwilling to repatriate any Yemenis, but the majority of the prisoners approved for release — currently, 43 of the 54 men approved for release — are Yemenis. Since 2013, the Obama administration has been finding third countries to take these men instead, and 18 Yemenis have been given new homes, in Europe, Asia and the Gulf. The ban on Yemen is therefore of little or no concern to the administration — although we believe it is unacceptable to impose a blanket ban on an entire country because of security concerns — but the proposed ban on Syria, Libya and Somalia would unjustifiably extend the notion that a prisoner’s nationality is more significant than a decision, by a high-level, inter-agency US government review process, that they do not pose a threat to the US.

In a letter to Representatives on September 30, 14 NGOs, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights First and Human Rights Watch, stated that the bill “would impose the most comprehensive set of obstacles to closing Guantánamo that have ever been included in a conference bill.” Their take on the passage imposing foreign transfer restrictions was that it “effectively reinstates … a series of restrictive overseas transfer requirements that a bipartisan majority of Congress rejected and replaced in the NDAA for FY 2014 and FY 2015.”

They added, “The core foreign transfer section … does not have any explicit time restriction, raising the question of whether those transfer restrictions would become permanent.” After also noting the new country-specific prohibitions, the NGOs added that the bill “includes certain reporting requirements that could impede the willingness of foreign countries to accept detainees for resettlement.”

On the second point, relating to President Obama’s plan to close Guantánamo before leaving office, it is clear that, with just 15 months left of his Presidency, this is, realistically, his last chance to close the prison — or, rather, to do so via some sort of arrangement with Congress, rather than, say, by an executive order sometime next year.

When Sen. John McCain, the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, mentioned that the ban on bringing prisoners to the US mainland was being extended for another year, he made a point of stating, specifically, “If the administration complains about the provisions concerning Guantánamo, then it’s their fault because they never came forward with a plan that we could have probably supported.”

That plan has been discussed for months, and has involved the administration suggesting prisons — military or otherwise — that could be used to hold prisoners pending trials, or, in the short-term, to continue to be held without charge or trial. However, after meeting opposition to every proposal, the administration has yet to submit a detailed plan to Congress.

Personally, I think it was unwise for the administration to publicly discuss potential prison sites, knowing that there would be loud opposition from lawmakers and local officials. However, the planned closure of Guantánamo is clearly a difficult issue. As well as having to locate a facility — or facilities — that can be used, the administration has to contend with NGOs and lawyers who are adamant that no prisoner can be brought to the US mainland to be held without charge or trial.

Here at “Close Guantánamo,” we have a different take on this problem, believing that the Constitution and US laws do not allow the type of indefinite detention without charge or trial that has existed for nearly 14 years at Guantánamo, and further believing that, if a few dozen men are moved from Guantánamo to the mainland, any attempt to continue holding any of them without putting them on trial will be met with new legal challenges that will not end up with rulings that are favorable to the government.

We believe, in short, that although the Supreme Court rulings in Rasul v. Bush (2004) and Boumediene v. Bush (2008) granted habeas corpus rights to the Guantanamo prisoners, the prison remained  — and remains — US soil to a lesser degree than the US mainland, where legal protections against indefinite detention without charge or trial are considerably stronger.

In conclusion, we agree with the NGOs that the version of the NDAA presented to President Obama by Congress appears to offer a gesture of conciliation on the one hand while taking it away with the other. As the NGOs stated in the conclusion of their letter to Representatives, “While the conference report does provide for the president to submit a plan to close Guantánamo, the bill’s restrictions effectively thwart closure efforts.”

Now that President Obama has taken the step to issue a veto, we look forward to hearing that lawmakers will respond in a responsible and dignified manner, and will, as the president urged in his Veto Notice, work with him to close Guantánamo, and not against him, to keep it open. The prison needs to be permanently closed by the time President Obama leaves office, not just for his legacy, but also because every day it remains open is a blot on the US’s claim to be a nation that respects the rule of law.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Keep Up the Fast For Shaker Aamer, As Foreign Office and State Department Say Release Delayed Until Late This Week or Early Next Week

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Join the Fast For Shaker here!

After all the expectation that Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, would be returned to the UK on Sunday, at the end of the 30-day notification period required by Congress (following the announcement on September 25 that he would be freed), it has been disappointing few days, with only rumours and vague reassurances to indicate that his release is imminent.

Today, for example, the Daily Mail reported that Shaker “is expected to return to the UK within days” — adding that he is “due to leave the infamous camp later this week or early next according to sources in the UK and US.”

A source in Whitehall told the Mail, “He will be out within days. We’re working on the practical details of how it will happen.”

In addition, a senior official in the US State Department said, “Shaker is coming home and it will be in the near term. The delay past the 30-day mark is due to logistical arrangements. We cannot release the exact date he will be released due to security concerns. Shaker will be coming home.”

The Mail also noted the claims, aired widely yesterday, that Shaker’s release “was delayed to appease” three Republican Senators visiting the prison, who were said to be on a “fact-finding” mission. Today came further rumours that Shaker’s release is being delayed because of the media visiting for the latest pre-trial hearings relating to the proposed trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other men accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of Reprieve, and one of Shaker’s lawyers, said, “Sadly, as we have said all along, it looks like those who don’t want Shaker released are dragging their feet. We want to thank all those who have been committed to helping Shaker, but we must all continue to press the authorities on both sides of the Atlantic to do as they promised.”

Clive added, “Surely 14 years of abuse is enough — every additional day is an additional insult to justice. He has to come home now, and his family must be put out of their eternal misery.”

Downing Street refused to make an official comment on Shaker’s delayed release, but David Cameron’s spokesman said, “We have been working with the US to make sure the case is dealt with as quickly as possible.”

In the afternoon I went to a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Shaker Aamer, attended by six MPs, including co-chairs John McDonnell and David Davis, and vice-chairs Andrew Mitchell and Andy Slaughter. The APPG will be issuing a statement tomorrow morning, but in the meantime I spoke to the Wandsworth Guardian, who asked for a statement.

I said, as the co-director of We Stand with Shaker and Fast for Shaker, “While we are delighted to hear of Shaker Aamer’s impending release, we remain cautious until his plane has touched down on UK soil and he is reunited with his family. There have been too many false promises over the years, since he was approved for release in 2007, under George W. Bush, and again under Barack Obama in January 2010.”

I added, “We are encouraging supporters to continue the Fast For Shaker that we started on October 15 until Shaker is back in the UK. Over 400 people, including celebrities, MPs and concerned citizens around the world, have been fasting for 24 hours in solidarity with Shaker since that date. It is time that his long and completely unjustifiable ordeal is finally over.”

Note: Thanks to Benedick Tranchell for the posters held by The Four Fathers at the top of this article. Check out ‘Song for Shaker Aamer‘ on Bandcamp (where you can also buy it as a download), as featured on the album ‘Love and War.’

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Photos: Shaker Aamer’s 5000th Day in Guantánamo – Vigil Outside 10 Downing Street, October 24, 2015

See my photo set on Flickr here!

On Saturday (October 24), campaigners for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, held a vigil on Whitehall, opposite 10 Downing Street, to mark Shaker’s 5000th day in Guantánamo, and the last day before his anticipated return from Guantánamo. The vigil was organised by the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, with support from other groups including We Stand With Shaker and the London Guantánamo Campaign.

President Obama announced Shaker’s release on September 25, and Congress was then given a 30-day notification period, as required in US law in recent years. During the 30 days, Shaker told his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve, that he had embarked on a hunger strike because of ill-treatment, and that he feared not making it out of Guantánamo alive, and as a result, myself and Joanne MacInnes, the founders and directors of the We Stand With Shaker campaign, set up Fast For Shaker, to encourage supporters to fast for 24 hours, on a day of their choice, in solidarity with Shaker, to encourage him to give up his hunger strike (which he did), and to keep up the pressure on the US and UK governments to make sure his release is not further delayed. We are encouraging people to sign up to fast until Shaker is released, joining the 406 people who have already done so.

After hearing that Shaker’s release has been delayed because of a visit to the prison by three Republican Senators over the weekend, we now hear that he may not be released until Friday, because of the presence of journalists for pre-hearings in the proposed trial of those accused of involvement in the 9/11 attacks.

The photos capture, I hope, something of the buoyancy of the day, as campaigners generally felt more hopeful than ever before. I still feel confident that Shaker will be released soon, I have to say, but I’m fed up with the dreary predictability of the delays. Tomorrow, I expect, MPs in the cross-party Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group — meeting in the afternoon, along with campaigners, myself included — will have something to say about the failure to get Shaker back on Sunday.

Included in the photos are the actress Harriet Walter and Tania Mathias MP, who came along to show their support, and Bren Horstead and Andrew Fifield, two members of my band The Four Fathers, prior to us playing a version of Song for Shaker Aamer, featured on our debut album, Love and War, and also in the campaign video for We Stand With Shaker. See a photo of us playing here. There’s also a photo outside 10 Downing Street of myself and other campaigners preparing to hand in a letter to David Cameron — and see here for a video of me handing in the letter and delivering a message to the Prime Minister.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Clive Stafford Smith’s Fast For Shaker Aamer Hunger Strike Diary

Today, October 25, was supposed to be the day that Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, was released and flown back to the UK to be reunited with his family, who he has not seen for over 14 years.

Shaker is still held, despite being approved for release eight years ago, under George W. Bush (and again under President Obama in January 2010), although campaigners for his release, his lawyers, and, of course, his family and Shaker himself, are hoping it will take place in the next couple of days.

Sustained campaigns — and significant pressure from MPs — finally led, a month ago, to a promise by President Obama that Shaker would be freed, and today is the end of the 30-day notification period demanded by Congress before any Guantánamo prisoner can be released.

And yet, Shaker is still not home — and, as the Mail on Sunday reported today, “The release of the last Briton held at notorious US detention centre Guantánamo Bay has been delayed. Shaker … saw his hopes of finally being reunited with his family this weekend dashed thanks to a political visit to the base … [T]he visit of three Republican senators, on a ‘fact-finding’ mission to the base, once again delayed his long-awaited flight to freedom.”

Shaker’s lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith, said, “Shaker is being held for purely logistical and political reasons now, which is dreadful. They [the US authorities] have had 30 days to prepare [for his release] — it only took 28 days after 9/11 to start a war in Afghanistan.”

As I wrote in an article yesterday:

I am pleased to have played a role in this story — as a campaigning journalist for the last ten years, and through campaigning with the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, and, in the last year, through the We Stand With Shaker campaign I set up with Joanne MacInnes, with its giant inflatable figure of Shaker that attracted so much celebrity support, and initiatives like the open letter to President Obama on July 4, and the Fast For Shaker campaign that has been running for the last two weeks.

With Shaker’s return delayed, now is a good time to fast — or to fast again — to keep pressure on the Obama administration to honour its commitment to free Shaker immediately. 393 people have so far fasted or pledged to fast — and 23 people are fasting tomorrow, including Dr. David Nicholl, neurologist and human rights campaigner, and Tom Davies and Lucy Wake of Amnesty International.

Why not join them? We are committee to maintaining the rolling 24-hour fasts until Shaker’s return, and to help you, I’m cross-posting below an article by Clive Stafford Smith from the Huffington Post, written after Clive had been fasting for two days. He intended to fast for a week, but made it to Day Five — quite an achievement, as I found just one day difficult enough, although as Clive points out, this is nothing compared to what Shaker and other Guantánamo prisoners have been through over the years.

Joining the Guantánamo Bay Hunger Strike

By Clive Stafford Smith, Huffington Post, October 21, 2015

I have now been without food for 48 hours. That is not very long. Shaker Aamer has frequently done it in Guantánamo Bay for weeks. I suspect I’ve dropped a couple of pounds. Shaker’s weight has fluctuated from roughly 16 stone (224lbs) when he was first taken into US custody, to ten stone (140 lbs) at the nadir of his many hunger strikes. He is currently towards the lower end of the scale. There have been times in the past when Shaker has been put through the gratuitously violent force feeding process — illustrated when the rap star Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) agreed to undergo the procedure for us on video [note: seen by 6,676,145 people!]

As his lawyers, at Reprieve we thought it sensible to persuade him to let us take his strike on, so he could start eating again, and be somewhat more healthy to come home — we hope — at the end of the 30-day Congressional notice period, on October 24th. A second purpose is to keep the pressure up, so that the bureaucrats in London and Washington do not delay Shaker’s reunion with his family after 13 long years. Some wonderful folk have organized this and more than 250 people have taken the challenge [note: now nearly 400 people] – for example, David Morrissey did October 16th, Brandon Neely (a former Guantánamo guard) is taking the 17th, David Davis MP (former Home Secretary) the 18th, Harriet Walter the 19th, Juliet Stevenson the 20th, and Mark Rylance joins Roger Waters the following day. Perhaps by the 22nd, we will have heard news that Shaker is about to be put on a plane, and this will save Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell MP the trauma, but I fear he’ll have to limit himself to water.

I decided to see how long I could go, rather than limit myself to one day. I went for a week once before, in sympathy with the mass strike back in 2013. Mine was a fairly piffling commitment compared to Shaker’s, and to the other seven men who are still engaged in their peaceful protest. Ahmed Rabbani, my Pakistani client, is a simple taxi driver rather than the mega-terrorist promised to us by the Bush Administration. He has been on strike without a break for a year and three quarters now. They force feed him, but he is now not much above six stone (84 lbs), barely still alive.

I have followed Shaker’s rules for hunger striking since he is, in his own words, a professional. That meant eating mainly prunes and other fruit for a couple of days before the strike. Shaker says that the worst fate of a striker is to suffer from constipation, and I don’t want to find out if he is right.

Then, rather more than 48 hours ago now, I just stopped taking in anything but water and — thankfully, permitted by Shaker — black tea or coffee.

For the past two days, I have been surrounded by food. Somehow it is all people mention. And the process of baking a fresh loaf — for that marvellous smell in the morning! — to prepare a packed lunch for my seven year old to take to school has become torturous. And yet I am the fortunate one. I have been very busy, in part spending two days with a class of ten year olds, re-enacting the trial of Nurse Edith Cavell, executed as a British spy by the Germans 100 years ago last Monday. The kids did better than the German high command, and did not shoot her at dawn this time. What with this and keeping busy on a number of real capital cases, I did not have time to ponder what I was missing.

But imagine being Shaker, cleared for release in 2007. Imagine sitting lonely in a cell in Guantánamo Bay, wondering whether the promise of release means anything at all this time. Imagine not having the pleasure of preparing your child for school, because you have not even been allowed to see him for 13 years (Shaker has never even met his youngest son, Faris, who was born on February 14th, 2002, the very day Shaker arrived in the Cuban prison). Imagine having no work to do, and not being allowed to read — many of the books I have taken for him have been banned, including predictably the Gulag Archipelago. Imagine how the ache for food would consume your day then.

So as I move forward with my own pettifogging hunger strike, I magnify my discomfort perhaps 1000 times. Then, at last, I might be approximating what Shaker and the others with him suffer every day.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.

Shaker Aamer’s 5000th Day in Guantánamo – and My 2500th Post

Please support my work!

My friends,

It’s a big day today — 5000 days since Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, arrived at the prison from Afghanistan, where he had already been held for two or three months in appalling conditions. If all is well, Shaker will not stay much beyond his 5000th day, as today is also the day that the statutory notification period required by Congress before they will allow President Obama to release anyone from Guantánamo expires — and a month ago the president told David Cameron that Shaker would be freed.

5000 days would be a long sentence if Shaker had committed any kind of crime, but in fact he has never been charged or tried by the US, and he was first told eight years ago, under President Bush, that the US no longer wanted to hold him, and was told the same thing almost six years ago, under President Obama, as a result of the recommendations of the high-level, inter-agency Guantánamo Review Task Force that Obama set up shortly after taking office in January 2009.

His imprisonment for all these years is an indictment of the fundamental lawlessness of Guantánamo. Because Shaker is an eloquent, charismatic and irrepressibly outspoken critic of the US’s post-9/11 lawlessness and cruelty, he was, first of all, subjected to discussions about whether he could be sent back to the country of his birth, Saudi Arabia, where he would have been silenced, rather than to the UK, where he was granted indefinite leave to remain, and where he has a British wife and four British children.

When that option was ruled out, it was followed by the dragging of heels until campaigners in the UK exerted sufficient pressure to awaken widespread indignation, large parts of the media supported Shaker’s release, and there was support from a cross-party group of MPs — set up by John McDonnell MP, who is now the Shadow Chancellor, and featuring Jeremy Corbyn, who is now the leader of the Labour Party.

The Shaker Aamer Parliamentary group, also including the Conservative MPs David Davis and Andrew Mitchell, Green MP Caroline Lucas and Shadow Justice Secretary Andy Slaughter, tabled a Parliamentary motion in March calling for the government to support Shaker’s release (which they did), and in May a delegation also visited the US to meet Senators and representatives of the Obama administration.

I am pleased to have played a role in this story — as a campaigning journalist for the last ten years, and through campaigning with the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, and, in the last year, through the We Stand With Shaker campaign I set up with Joanne MacInnes, with its giant inflatable figure of Shaker that attracted so much celebrity support, and initiatives like the open letter to President Obama on July 4, and the Fast For Shaker campaign that has been running for the last two weeks. Sign up here if you’d like to join 378 other people fasting for 24 hours in solidarity with Shaker.

Today is also a personal milestone — this is my 2500th post since I began publishing articles as a freelance investigative journalist back in May 2007 — after 14 months spent researching and writing my book The Guantánamo Files.

Noticeably, my work on Guantánamo has repeatedly involved Shaker’s case. 270 of my 2500 articles — over 10% of the total — are about Shaker, more than for any other prisoner, as befits someone who has been the most diligent, prominent and persistent of the critics of Guantánamo inside the prison — “behind the wire”, as I put it in my ‘Song for Shaker Aamer.’ As I state in the chorus:

Shaker Shaker

They chain your body but they cannot chain your mind

You tell truth to power

Even though you are behind the wire

If you’d like to support me financially, please click on the donate button above. I have no salary or institutional support for my work, and, as a result I am very largely dependent on your generosity to enable me to work as tirelessly for the closure of Guantánamo as I do.

I’m going out now, to talk and play at a vigil for Shaker, from 2-4pm, opposite 10 Downing Street, marking his 5000th day in Guantánamo. I’ll be playing ‘Song for Shaker Aamer‘ with members of my band The Four Fathers, with whom I recorded ‘Song for Shaker Aamer’ for our debut album ‘Love and War’, and also for the campaign video for We Stand With Shaker, posted below.

I am hoping that very soon I can change all the lyrics to the past tense, and rewrite a few key passages!

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ is available for download or on CD via Bandcamp — also see here). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, and The Complete Guantánamo Files, an ongoing, 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011. Also see the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

Please also consider joining the Close Guantánamo campaign, and, if you appreciate Andy’s work, feel free to make a donation.