Shaker Aamer Released from Guantanamo Bay Prison

Image by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

Democracy Now! on Oct 30, 2015

Democracynow.org – British resident Shaker Aamer has been freed from Guantánamo after more than 13 years behind bars. Aamer had been cleared for release since 2007, but the Pentagon kept him locked up without charge. During his time in captivity, Aamer claims he was subjected to abuses including torture, beatings and sleep deprivation. At one point, he lost half his body weight while on a hunger strike. Aamer is en route to London where he’ll rejoin his wife and four children. “If you think about how much our world has changed, it is like they’re dropping them into a completely different place with very little support, and there’s no right to a remedy for the allegations of torture—which are absolutely credible—for the prolonged arbitrary detention and for any other violations that happened,” says our guest Widney Brown, director of programs at Physicians for Human Rights.

Close Guantánamo: We Still Have Three Urgent Demands for President Obama by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Writer, Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
June 19, 2013

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

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.

On Monday, President Obama fulfilled the first of three promises he made a month ago to resume releasing prisoners from Guantánamo, by appointing an envoy at the State Department to deal with prisoner transfers.

A Warning from Guantánamo – Four Prisoners Are Close to Death, and the Authorities Don’t Care by Andy Worthington

Image by 917press via Flickr

by Andy Worthington
Writer, Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
April 26, 2013

I have just received a brief message from a credible source inside Guantánamo, about the situation in the prison today, which I wanted to make available because it exposes how four prisoners are close to death, as a result of the prison-wide hunger strike that is on its 80th day, and yet the guard force are behaving with brutality and indifference.

Andy Worthington: Gitmo Guards Brutally Hurt Prisoners

with Andy Worthington
Writer, Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
April 5, 2013

Image by World Can’t Wait via Flickr

PressTVGlobalNews·Apr 5, 2013

A political analyst tells Press TV that there is a kind of very brutal attempt to clamp down on the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay to try and stop them from being on hunger strike.

Now more than 100 detainees at the United States’ infamous Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba are staging a hunger strike to protest disrespect of the Qur’an and confiscation of personal items. The International Committee of the Red Cross has increased its visits to Guantanamo, raising concerns about the health of the hunger strikers.

Press TV has conducted an interview with Andy Worthington, from Close Guantanamo Campaign, to further discuss the issue.

Franklin Lamb: US Must End Gitmo Prison Horrors + A Huge Hunger Strike at Guantánamo

Image by World Can’t Wait via Flickr

with Franklin Lamb
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Beirut, Lebanon
Mar. 16, 2013

PressTVGlobalNews·Mar 16, 2013

An analyst says US citizens need to force US President Barack Obama to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp by joining in solidarity with the prisoners’ hunger strike.

Over 100 inmates at the notorious US Guantanamo military prison and torture camp have joined a hunger strike, protesting their indefinite detention and worsening conditions there.

America’s Disappeared by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
February 23, 2013

Image by Shrieking Tree via Flickr

Injustices do not become any less unjust the longer they are not addressed, and when it comes to the “war on terror” launched by President Bush following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, those injustices continue to fester, and to poison America’s soul.

One of those injustices is Guantánamo, where 166 men are still imprisoned, even though 86 of them were cleared for release by a task force established by the President four years ago, and another is Bagram in Afghanistan (renamed and rebranded the Parwan Detention Facility),

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.

Andy Worthington: Gitmo detainees stay imprisoned years after being cleared + SCOTUS Kills Habeas Corpus for Gitmo Detainees

with Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
11 June 2012

Image by World Can’t Wait via Flickr

Jun 11, 2012 by RTAmerica

Then Senator Obama touted if he became president of the United States, he would make shutting down Guantanamo Bay a top priority. But for many, the failure of restoring the right to Habeas Corpus to those prisoners is unacceptable. On Monday, the Supreme Court gave a preview of the cases it would be willing to hear in its next term from detainees being held in the Cuban facility. Several people in Gitmo have been officially cleared for release, but still remain behind bars. Andy Worthington, author of The Guantanamo Files, joins us to explain why that is.

“Pragmatism Over Ideology”: Obama’s Failure to Close Guantánamo, and His Love of Drones by Andy Worthington

Image by World Can’t Wait via Flickr

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
10 June 2012

Last week, a major article in the New York Times painted a grim portrait of how President Obama has taken over from George W. Bush as the “commander in chief” of a “war on terror” that seems to have no end, and that not only appears to be counter-productive, but also, at heart, illegal.

Canada’s Shameful Scapegoating of Omar Khadr by Andy Worthington

Photo of Omar Khadr. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
April 28, 2012

Last week, the Canadian government received a formal request for the return of Omar Khadr from Guantánamo Bay. Julie Carmichael, an aide to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, told the Globe and Mail, “The government of Canada has just received a completed application for the transfer of prisoner Omar Ahmed Khadr. A decision will be made on this file in accordance with Canadian law.”

Tarek Mehanna’s Powerful Statement As He Received a 17-Year Sentence Despite Having Harmed No One by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
April 14, 2012

What a disgrace. On Thursday, Tarek Mehanna, a 29-year old pharmacist from Sudbury, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 17 and half years in prison, after being found guilty in December on seven charges, including “providing material support to terrorists,” conspiracy to kill in a foreign country and lying to law enforcement officers. Perhaps that sounds appropriate, but as Nancy Murray of the ACLU explained in an article for the Boston Globe, the extent of his involvement in “terrorism” was that he had “emailed friends, downloaded videos, translated and posted documents on the web, and traveled to and from Yemen in 2004.”

Ten Years of Torture: On Anniversary of Abu Zubaydah’s Capture, Poland Charges Former Spy Chief Over “Black Site” by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
March 30, 2012

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

Ten years ago, on the evening of March 28, 2002, the Bush administration officially embarked on its “high-value detainee” program in the “war on terror” that had been declared in the wake of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, when Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn (more commonly identified as Abu Zubaydah), was captured in a house raid in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

Andy Worthington and GITMO Protesters Speak outside U.S. Supreme Court + Guantánamo Forever?

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

with Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
January 14, 2012

BasilOwens on Jan 14, 2012

On the tenth anniversary of the Guantanamo Bay Prison Camp, Andy Worthington, along with several attorneys and a former navy prison guard – Speak outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C. on January 11, 2012.

A Tired Obsession with Military Detention Plagues American Politics by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
January 7, 2012

Image by Shrieking Tree via Flickr

Before the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, there were only two ways of holding prisoners — either they were prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, or they were criminal suspects, to be charged and subjected to federal court trials.

That all changed when the Bush administration threw out the Geneva Conventions, equated the Taliban with al-Qaeda, and decided to hold both soldiers and terror suspects as “illegal enemy combatants,” who could be imprisoned indefinitely without charge or trial, and with no rights whatsoever.

Deranged Senate Votes for Military Detention of All Terror Suspects and a Permanent Guantánamo by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
2 December 2011

Yesterday the shameful dinosaurs of the Senate — hopelessly out of touch with reality, for the most part, and haunted by specters of their own making — approved, by 93 votes to 7, the passage of the National Defense Authorization Act (PDF), which contains a number of astonishingly alarming provisions — Sections 1031 and 1032, designed to make mandatory the indefinite military detention of terror suspects until the end of hostilities in a “war on terror” that seems to have no end (if they are identified as a member of al-Qaeda or an alleged affiliate, or have planned or carried out an attack on the United States), ending a long and entirely appropriate tradition of trying terror suspects in federal court for their alleged crimes,