Andy Worthington
The Definitive List of the Remaining Prisoners in Guantánamo
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Who Are the Remaining Prisoners in Guantánamo? Part Three: Captured Crossing from Afghanistan into Pakistan
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This is the third part of an eight-part series telling the stories of all the prisoners currently held in Guantánamo (174 at the time of writing). See the introduction here, and Part One and Part Two.
This third article tells the stories of 22 prisoners seized in Pakistan after crossing from Afghanistan in December 2001, shortly after the prisoners described in Part One, and during a week-long period when around a quarter of the total number of prisoners held at Guantánamo (779 in total) were seized. Although these 185 or so men were routinely regarded as al-Qaeda members who had fled from the showdown between al-Qaeda and the US (via its Afghan allies) in the Tora Bora mountains, the truth is that almost every significant al-Qaeda member escaped from Tora Bora, that many of these men were nothing more than insignificant foot soldiers, and that many others were missionaries, humanitarian aid workers or economic migrants, caught fleeing the death and destruction in Afghanistan. Nevertheless, all were presented as al-Qaeda operatives by their Pakistani captors, who then handed them over — or sold them — to their US allies.
Andy Worthington Attends “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week, October 10-16
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By Andy Worthington
Remember, John Yoo, the smug, shameless apologist for unfettered executive power who once claimed that, if he so desired, the President of the United States could crush a child’s testicles and there was nothing that anyone could do about it?
The Remaining Prisoners in Guantánamo - Part Six: Captured in Pakistan
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Liveblogging “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week: Day One
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By Andy Worthington
The weather in the Bay Area is radiant — hot, sunny, and astonishing for mid-October — and, although a ten-hour flight from London and my usual paranoia about Homeland Security could hardly be described as constituting the best recipe for a relaxing welcome to the United States, I got off the plane at Los Angeles International Airport at 2.30 pm on Saturday (while my body was telling me it was 10.30 pm) with something of a spring in my step.
I’m here for a week to take part in “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week, an extraordinary series of events to raise awareness of the United States’ use of torture in the “War on Terror” — and, specifically, to highlight how its use is illegal, morally corrosive, unnecessary and counter-productive.
Andy Worthington and Justine Sharrock at “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week
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As part of “Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week (the largest gathering of anti-torture experts and activists since the Bush administration began its “War on Terror” over nine years ago), I was delighted to join Justine Sharrock, journalist and author of Tortured: When Good Soldiers Do Bad Things, at Revolution Books on Sunday evening for the opening event.
“Berkeley Says No to Torture” Week: Day Six – Education, Human Experimentation and a Grand Finale
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No Justice for Omar Khadr at Guantánamo
- Category: Andy Worthington
Exactly two years ago, when I began writing a weekly column for the Future of Freedom Foundation on Guantánamo, torture and other crimes and abuses committed as part of the Bush administration’s “War on Terror,” I focused on the story of Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who was just 15 years old when he was seized after a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002, and the news today that he has accepted a plea deal, and has agreed to an array of charges relating to terrorism and murder in exchange for a reported eight-year sentence, does nothing to diminish the profound sense of unease — and of warped justice — that has plagued Khadr’s case for the last eight years.