Andy Worthington
U.S. Premier of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantanamo”
- Category: Andy Worthington
Follows Successful London Debut; More Showings Set for California, Virginia
By Andy Worthington
The launch of “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” at the Cochrane Theatre in London was a great success. The documentary was extremely well received, with numerous members of the audience explaining afterwards that it spelled out “man’s inhumanity to man” in the context of the “War on Terror” with clarity and eloquence.
Amongst the comments I’ve received is an email thanking me for an “excellent event” and an “important film” that was “very informative and very moving,” and another stating: “The film was brilliantly powerful — both understated and shocking.
Bringing Guantánamo to New York
- Category: Andy Worthington
By Andy Worthington
So it’s three days since I arrived in New York, at the start of a ten-day promotional tour (also taking in Washington D.C. and the Bay Area in California) to show my new documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed with filmmaker Polly Nash) and to discuss Guantánamo with activists, lawyers, and anyone else who realizes that the prison hasn’t actually shut down, and that President Obama will be hard-pressed to meet his deadline of January 22, 2010 for its closure.
Since arriving, I have done a talk at Revolution Books (on Wednesday), have shown the film at Soho House (on Thursday), in a screening organized by the Center on Law and Security at NYU School of Law and the Center for Constitutional Rights, and have also shown the film at Alwan for the Arts (on Friday), in an event organized in conjunction with The World Can’t Wait. I’m pleased to report that the film was very well-received at both screenings, with viewers enthusing about its humanity, its concern for the law, and its understated sympathy for the wrongly detained victims of the Bush administration’s lawless, cruel and incompetent response to the 9/11 attacks.
“Model Prisoner” at Guantánamo, Tortured in the “Dark Prison,” Loses Habeas Corpus Petition
- Category: Andy Worthington
By Andy Worthington
On Monday, District Court Judge Thomas F. Hogan handed the government its ninth victory (against 31 losses to date) in the habeas corpus petitions of the prisoners held at Guantánamo, ruling that the government had established, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Musa’ab al-Madhwani, a 28-year old Yemeni, could continue to be held indefinitely, because of his connections with al-Qaeda.
Guantánamo: The Definitive Prisoner List (Updated for 2010)
- Category: Andy Worthington
By Andy Worthington
Back in March, I published a four-part list identifying all 779 prisoners held at Guantánamo since the prison opened on January 11, 2002, as “the culmination of a three-year project to record the stories of all the prisoners held at the
As I explained at the time, the first fruit of my research was my book The Guantánamo Files, in which, based on an exhaustive analysis of 8,000 pages of documents released by the Pentagon (plus other sources), I related the story of Guantánamo, established a chronology explaining where and when the prisoners were seized, told the stories of around 450 of these men (and boys), and provided a context for the circumstances in which the remainder of the prisoners were captured.
Tortured Afghan Man Faces Trial by Military Commission
- Category: Andy Worthington
By Andy Worthington
The Associated Press reported on January 6 that, in court filings, Justice Department lawyers stated that Attorney General Eric Holder has decided that a sixth Guantánamo prisoner — an Afghan named Obaidullah — will be put forward for trial by Military Commission.
On November 13, when Holder announced that five prisoners — including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — would face federal court trials for their alleged involvement in the 9/11 attacks, he also announced that five other men, previously charged in the Bush administration’s Military Commissions, would be tried in a revamped version of the Commissions that the administration and Congress concocted over the summer.
On “Democracy Now!”: Andy Worthington Discusses Guantánamo, Yemen, Lies, Hysteria and the False Recidivism Report
- Category: Andy Worthington
By Andy Worthington .jpg)
On January 8, I made my way to a TV studio in central London to hook up with Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez in New York to discuss the recent uproar over the release of Yemeni prisoners from Guantánamo, and the Pentagon’s most recent claims that 1 in 5 released prisoners have engaged in terrorist activities, for Democracy Now! The segment, entitled, “After Years in Guantánamo Prison Without Charge, Future Even More Uncertain For Yemeni Detainees,” is available below, and is featured here on the Democracy Now! Website.
Interview with Andy Worthington, on the Eighth Anniversary of Guantanamo’s Opening
- Category: Andy Worthington
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The following interview, with Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files, was conducted by email by Elizabeth Ferrari, and was originally published on Democratic Underground.
Elizabeth Ferrari: Andy, last week was a terrible week for lies and misinformation regarding Guantánamo, particularly concerning the Yemeni prisoners and a Pentagon statement alleging that 1 in 5 released prisoners had engaged in terrorist activities. You wrote a number of articles about these topics (see here, here and here), and also discussed them onDemocracy Now! on Friday, and I was hoping in this interview to follow up on some of these stories.
Rubbing Salt in Guantánamo’s Wounds: Task Force Announces Indefinite Detention
- Category: Andy Worthington
By Andy Worthington
With a stunning lack of sensitivity, Barack Obama’s Guantánamo Task Force chose the anniversary of the President’s failed promise to close the prison to announce its conclusions regarding the eventual fate of the 196 prisoners who are still held, stating, with no trace of irony, that “nearly 50” of the men “should be held indefinitely without trial under the laws of war,” as the Washington Post explained.
The administration’s invocation of the laws of war actually refers to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), passed by Congress in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which authorized the President “to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001” (or those who harbored them), as interpreted by the Supreme Court in June 2004, in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, in which it was asserted that “Congress has clearly and unmistakably authorized detention” of individuals covered by the AUMF.
London Police Launch Inquiry into U.S./U.K Torture of Shaker Aamer; He Remains in Guantánamo
- Category: Andy Worthington
By Andy Worthington .jpg)
On Friday, it emerged in a UK court that the London Metropolitan Police are investigating allegations that MI5 was complicit in the torture, in US custody in Afghanistan, of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident still held at Guantánamo.
In the High Court, Richard Hermer QC, counsel for Aamer, told Mr. Justice Sullivan that Met officers had visited his solicitors, Birnberg Peirce, on Wednesday. “It became apparent they are now investigating allegations raised by Mr. Aamer into the alleged complicity of the UK security service in his mistreatment,” he said, adding that the police had made an application to the court “for release of relevant documents” relating to Aamer’s allegations that the confessions he made in US custody were obtained through torture.
Torture Whitewash from the “Department of Justice”
- Category: Andy Worthington
By Andy Worthington 
The long-awaited report by the OPR (the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility) into the conduct of the lawyers in the OLC (Office of Legal Counsel), regarding their role in approving the use of torture, has finally been published (PDF).
The Black Hole of Guantánamo
- Category: Andy Worthington
By Andy Worthington 
When it comes to dealing with the question of how to close Guantánamo, the remaining prisoners have been caught between two competing systems since President Obama took office last January, and the result, to put it mildly, has been confusing.
Under President Bush, prisoners were cleared for release by military review boards, established to review the supposed evidence against them, and to determine whether they constituted an ongoing threat to the US. This appeared to be a maddeningly arbitrary system, but it led to the release of hundreds of the prisoners.
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