And to Razak Ali and the other men...

I will not give up...

To the mothers of the men being held at Guantanamo...

I usually play this song on this blog on mother's day but with my client (and the remaining men) in their 18th year without charge it somehow felt right to play this today.

An insiders look at Gitmo....

What does the naval station at Guantánamo Bay look like? How does it feel to visit the men detained in the prison? Just two of the questions our Advocacy Program Manager Aliya Hussain asked Senior Staff Attorney Wells Dixon and Senior Managing Attorney Shayana Kadidal in “Close and personal with Guantánamo,” the 10th episode of “The Activist Files.” Wells and Shayana have been working with clients in Gitmo for more than a decade and give us an insider look into what Guantánamo was and what it has become. From the food options on the island to the experience of meeting a client for the first time while having to deliver them shocking news, our lawyers explain why it’s crucial to keep fighting against the continued indefinite detention of Muslim men detained at Guantánamo without charge or fair trial.

LISTEN TO THE ACTIVIST FILES

TOMORROW IN WASHINGTON, D.C.: Join us for two important events to mark the 17th anniversary of the prison’s opening: Congressional briefing on Guantánamo and afternoon rally to close Guantánamo and call for a stop to the cruelty, fear, racism, and Islamophobia perpetuated by this administration.

Was there a black site at Guantanamo?

Just in time for the anniversary of Guantanamo's opening Carol Rosenberg has a new report suggesting that a black site was run out of Guantanamo. And that CIA director Gina Haspel was in charge of the site.
Wouldn't surprise me....

Read more here.

MORE on the events sponsored by "close guantanamo now....."

Details of the events are below:

Friday January 11, 12.15 pm-1.45 pm: Seventeen Years of Guantánamo
New America, 740 15th St. NW #900, Washington, D.C. 20005
Tom Wilner and Andy Worthington, with Laura Pitter, the interim deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Americas program, discuss the prison’s present and future, in a panel discussion moderated by New America’s David Sterman, asking, "What will happen to the prison and its detainees in the remaining years of the Trump administration? Will anyone else be released? Will the prison ever close?"
See the event page here, and please RSVP if you’re coming along.

Friday January 11, 2.30-4pm: Rally to Close Guantánamo - Rule of Law, Not Rule of Trump
Outside the White House, Lafayette Square, 1608 H St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20006
Andy Worthington joins speakers from 12 rights organizations at the annual vigil outside the White House calling for the closure of Guantánamo: Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, Close Guantánamo, CODEPINK: Women For Peace, Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Defending Rights & Dissent, Justice for Muslims Collective, September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, Torture Abolition and Survivors Support Coalition International (TASSC), Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Witness Against Torture and the World Can't Wait.
See the event page on Facebook here.

Please also check out Witness Against Torture’s page about their Fast for Justice, a week of events in Washington, D.C. involving fasting and political actions.

Sunday January 13, 5-7pm: Andy Worthington Talks at Revolution Books NY
Revolution Books, 437 Malcolm X Boulevard/Lenox Ave (at 132nd Street), New York 10037
As Revolution Books states, "Andy Worthington, the British journalist who has covered the men imprisoned in the U.S. torture camp at Guantánamo since 2006, speaks on the state of the prison under Trump; the 40 men who are still held, and on what released prisoners have encountered as they've been scattered across the world. Andy, a member of The Four Fathers, may sing for us. Q&A to follow."
See the event page on Facebook here.

Join "Close Guantanamo Now" events in DC and NYC January 11th.....

Events marking the 17th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo



Dear friends and supporters,

Seven years ago, on January 11, 2012, the 10th anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, the attorney Tom Wilner and I set up the Close Guantánamo campaign, to maintain the pressure on Barack Obama to fulfill the promise to close the prison that he made when he first took office three years before.

As we all now know, Obama sadly failed to fulfill his promise, and we’re now nearing the start of Donald Trump’s third year as president, in which Obama’s failed promise has been discarded as though it never existed.

Donald Trump is an enthusiast for keeping Guantánamo open, an imbecile who lacks the ability to understand that the prison’s very existence is fundamentally, devastatingly wrong, as its creator, George W. Bush, finally recognized in his second term in office, and as Barack Obama also recognized throughout his presidency, even though he lacked the political will to follow through adequately on this recognition.

To mark the disgraceful 17th anniversary of the opening of the prison, where 40 men are still held, mostly without charge or trial, our co-founders Andy Worthington and Tom Wilner will be in Washington, D.C. for two events — a panel discussion and a vigil outside the White House — and Andy, who is visiting from the UK, will also be in New York for an event two days later.

All the details can be found in our latest article, Close Guantánamo Events Marking the 17th Anniversary of the Opening of Guantánamo.

If you’re in Washington, D.C. or New York, we hope to see you — and we hope we can count on your support throughout 2019 as we continue to make the case for why Guantánamo must be closed.

If you can make a donation to support our work it will be very greatly appreciated. To do so, visit the homepage of our website, and click on the ‘Donate’ button to make a payment via PayPal.

If you can make a regular monthly donation, that would be especially welcome. Please tick the box marked, "Make this a monthly donation," and fill in the amount you wish to donate every month.

Many thanks!

The "Close Guantánamo" team

P.S. Please, if you will, also ask your friends and family to join us — just an email address is required to be counted amongst those opposed to the ongoing existence of Guantánamo, and to receive updates of our activities by email. Please also join us on Facebook and Twitter.

January 11, 2002

That is the day Guantanamo opened for business with the first detainees. 20 arrived that first day. They were placed in cages.
Now 40 remain. Many sit in solitary confinement. Most have never been charged with a crime.
Why do they remain at Guantanamo? Because the military can.
It is the symbol of the military's strength in this country.
No politician -- not even the fucking president-- has been allowed into the base to talk with any detainee.
No court -- not even the fucking U.S. Supreme Court -- has been allowed access to these men.
And now we celebrate the 18th year of military control.
Go to D.C. ?..If you dare and raise your voice in protest.
Or sit home and watch a fucking football game.

good riddance 2018

Yes, I say goodbye to 2018 knowing it was just another year in my country's downward spin. How much worse can things get? I have thought so many times that we couldn't go any lower and yet....

The forever prisoners...

Saifullah Paracha, the oldest prisoner in Guantánamo Bay, will probably die in detention without ever being charged. His son is currently in a US prison. Both have been in custody for almost 15 years, accused of aiding al-Qaida. But did they?

Read the rest here.

Happy holidays.... sigh.

Although I don't believe everything Steve says in his prelude.... it is a damn good song.

RIP John Gibbons.

One of the leaders in the Guantanamo litigation died this past week. Retired Judge John Gibbons argued before the U.S. Supreme Court in the famous Rasul case -- the ruling that allowed the men at Guantanamo to have legal representation and to contest their detention in the courts.
The Rasul case was an important case, even though most of the men that were released were not released through the court process, because having legal representation allowed a window into Guantanamo. That window had been shut tight by GW Bush and the military but after Rasul it was more difficult for the military to engage in some of their worst practices --because we were allowed in and publicly exposed those practices. Although there have been many battles over the ensueing years when our representation was again threatened the Rasul case was pivotal.
Gibbons was a true patriot in the best sense of the word.

Read more about John Gibbons here and here.

6177 Days....

That is how long Guantanamo has been open. Sixteen years, ten months and 28 days. Andy Worthington, our Gitmo historian, comments on the time these men have spent in prison ( i am reporting this two days later which is why the number of days has fluctuated from Andy's.

When I first volunteered to represent a man at Guantanamo (first one man and then a few months later I took on another client-- my second client still remains at Guantamamo) I remember discussing the probono project with a few of my friends and I naively thought that my representation would last about a year. That was in 2005. Unfortunately I was way off the mark on that one!

Unfortuantely, I had not come to terms with just how cruel and lawless my country had become (yes, my country has had a long history of lawlessness). Depite our lawless past the detention of these men and the positions taken by our justice department were still shocking to me. Now, nothing my country does shocks me as I watch every day with horror the new lows we continue to reach.

A word from our friend----the talking dog.

Although the dog's post is not about Guantanamo this time around I thought it was important to share for two reasons:
1. To show that we can all be trying to do something to help those here in our country who are being treated like shit;
But also,
2. It reminded me of the plight of Mr. Al-Ghizzawi who was sent from Guantanamo to the country of Georgia in the dead of winter with absolutely nothing but the clothes on his back... and of course the clothes on his back reflected the tropical conditions of Guantanamo. My husband and I flew to Georgia to meet up with Mr. Al-Ghizzawi upon his arrival and we brought with us winter clothes that we, and several of our neighbors, donated. Like the man seeking asylum and held in detention for 7 long months -- Mr. Al-Ghizzawi, after being held in detention for more than 10 years, was in awe of  his new found freedom -- the taste of real food and the ability to walk around without shackles.

Read about the talking dogs help for one immigrant seeking asylum here.

Musical interlude....

It is Thanksgiving here in the U.S. of A. I wish I felt more hopeful.

Released CIA report on the torture of Abu Zubaydah....

A 2007 report from the CIA's Office of Medical Services (OMS) was released after an ACLU lawsuit. Part of it describes how Abu Zubaydah was subject to an "amateurish experiment" when he was waterboarded in 2002.

read the rest here.

h/o to Walt