America's Indefinitely Detained + Close GITMO Protest

with Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
January 11, 2013

Image by Shrieking Tree via Flickr

NewAmericaFoundation·Jan 11, 2013

America’s Indefinitely Detained
January 11, 2013 will mark 11 years since the United States opened the Guantánamo Bay Detention Center. Almost 800 suspected militants have been held at the prison in that time. Despite the White House’s refrain that the administration “remains committed to closing the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay,” 166 individuals still remain incarcerated. Has the Obama administration de facto embraced a policy of indefinite detention without trial?

Participants

Andy Worthington
Author, The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in
America’s Illegal Prison
Co-Director, Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo

Col. (ret) Morris Davis
Executive Director, Crimes of War Education Project
Former Chief Prosecutor, U.S. Military Commissions at Guantánamo

Thomas Wilner
Partner, Shearman & Sterling LLP
Represented Guantánamo detainees in the Rasul v. Bush and Boumediene v. Bush cases

Peter Bergen
Director, National Security Studies Program, New America Foundation

http://newamerica.net/events/2013/americas_indefinitely_detained

***

Andy Worthington Rips President Obama for Not Closing Guantanamo

liamh2·Jan 11, 2013

On Friday afternoon, January 11, 2013, a rally/protest demanding the closure of Guantanamo prison was held at the Ellipse, just south of the White House. One of the speaker at the event was the investigative journalist, filmmaker and author, Andy Worthington. He is the author of “The Guantanamo Files.” See: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/the-guantanamo-files/ Mr. Worthington underscored that President Barack Obama has failed to keep his promise to close the notorious facility. He said that 86 of the inmates currently held at the prison were “cleared for release,” but are still “indefinitely detained.” Mr. Worthington labeled the situation a “horrible injustice” and urged the American people to put pressure on the President to do his duty and to uphold the rule of law. To learn more about Guantanamo, go to: http://www.amnestyusa.org/our-work/issues/security-and-human-rights/guantanam…

---

Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.

***

Close GITMO Protest

Jon Gold·Jan 11, 2013

Supreme Court Building in Washington D.C.

***

Angry Protesters ask Obama to keep his promise to close Guantanamo Bay

RTAmerica·Jan 11, 2013

On the 11-year-anniversary, hundreds of people marched from the Supreme Court to the White House to protest Guantanamo Bay still being open. Most said the issue is a larger human rights issue that needs to be fixed.

***

Updated

Eleven Years of Guantánamo: End This Scandal Now!

by Andy Worthington
12 January 2013

[...] Everyone involved in this profoundly shameful story, in the executive branch and Congress, needs to stop treating Guantánamo as though it is some sort of challenging law enforcement matter. It is a legal, moral and ethical abomination, its rationale built on arrogance and vengeance, and sustained through torture and lies. Those who allegedly constitute a threat should be tried, and everyone else should be released, unless the US government can find the courage to declare that some of them are prisoners of war, as defined by the Geneva Conventions, who can legitimately be held unmolested until the end of hostilities. [...]

via http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2013/01/12/eleven-years-of-guantanamo-end-this-scandal-now/

see

Michael Ratner: Obama Orders Assassinations with No Oversight

Statement by the President on H.R. 4310 + Obama Signs NDAA 2013 + Kucinich: Indefinite Detention Part of Push to Shred Constitution

Reining in Obama and His Drones by Ralph Nader

NDAA–The Final Battle by Chris Hedges

Andy Worthington and David Remes: GITMO – The Rule of Law and the NDAA

NDAA