Posts Tagged ‘London Catholic Worker’

Guantanamo Day – 11th January

Thursday, January 11th, 2024

Guantanamo Day – 11th January. It was on January 11, 2002 that George W Bush set up the detention camp on the disputed US Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, after he had been advised by lawyers that the US courts would be unable to offer detainees held there the normal legal protection that detention in the US would have enabled.

Guantanamo Day - 11th January

Camp X-Ray, a temporary facility, began with 22 detainees on that day, and others were soon filling this and the other camps which make up Guantanamo the largest of which was Camp Delta. At first the details of those sent there were kept secret, but eventually the US Department of Defense was forced to respond to a Freedom of Information from the Associated Press and to say that 779 prisoners were being held there.

Guantanamo Day - 11th January

The world got to know considerably more about what had been going on inside the torture camp in 2011 with the publication of documents by Wikileaks including 779 secret files on the prisoners. Among other revelations was “that more than 150 innocent Afghans and Pakistanis, including farmers, chefs, and drivers, were held for years without charges.”

Guantanamo Day - 11th January

The US government asserted that those held there were not entitled to any of the protections of the Geneva Conventions, though later they lost the case in the US courts which found that they were entitled to protection under Common Article 3 which applies to armed conflicts “not of an international character”.

Guantanamo Day - 11th January

From the start the US had claimed to be treating “all detainees consistently with the principles of the Geneva Convention.” This was of course a complete lie. Guantanamo was set up as a torture camp and detainees were routinely abused and tortured, humiliated and kept under inhumane conditions in what an Amnesty International report ‘called the “Gulag of our times.“‘ As various reports by them and others including the Red Cross state it was a human rights scandal. There is much more about this in the Wikipedia article.

When President Obama came to power he had promised to close the camp, but his efforts to do so in 2009 were opposed by the military at Guantanamo and funds to transfer or release the prisoners were blocked by the US Senate. Further opposition from the US Congress against moving prisoners to the US for detention or trial prevented Obama from clearing the camp, but by the end of his administration only 41 men remained detained there.

By the end of 2023, 30 men were still being held at Guantanamo, with over half having been cleared for release. 11 of them have been charged with war crimes and are awaiting a military trial and 1 has been convicted. Some are still there because if sent to their home country they are likely to be subject to further imprisonment or death despite their innocence.

British interest in Gunatanamo decreased sharply after the release in October 2015 of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident there. A Saudi national who had permission to stay in the UK he was able at last to return to his wife and children in Battersea after having been held and tortured since 2002. He had never been charged or faced trial.

The Guardian reported following the publication of the book ‘The Secret History of the Five Eyes‘ by Richard Kerbaj in 2022, that in 2004 “Tony Blair’s government was given special access to US intelligence files on Guantánamo Bay which revealed there was no credible evidence against the British detainees“. Yet Aamer was held for another 11 years.

Since Aamer’s release protests on the anniversary of the setting up of Guantanamo have continued, but on a rather smaller scale as you can see from Vigil marks 17 years of Guantanamo torture in 2019. The pictures on this post are from 2008 when I photographed four different events in London on January 11th.

Six years of Guantanamo: Amnesty
London Guantanamo Campaign / Cageprisoners
Guantanamo – London Catholic Worker
Guantanamo – Parliament Square Rally

US Shame – Jan 11th

Monday, January 11th, 2021

Many commentators after the recent Trump-induced invasion of the US Capitol said that the 6th January 2021 (1/6/21) is a date that will go down in history as a day of shame for the US, comparing it to December 7, 1941, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour. The latter was perhaps a little over the top, as that attack killed 2,403 US personnel, while the death toll after police let Trump supporters in to protest currently stands at five, three of these from health-related issues. But certainly it was a shameful day for US democracy – and a date that might well have been better compared to 1/11/02, 11th January 2002, the date when the first prisoners were held in illegal detention at Guantánamo Bay.

It was five years later than I first photographed a protest against this illegal detention, outside the US Embassy in London, still then in Grosvenor Square, where Amnesty International had brought over a hundred people dressed in orange jump suits to represent the detaines, forming them up into a large block in front of the embassy.

The following year on the sixth anniversary I photographed rather more demonstrations around London. Amnesty were back again outside the US Embassy, though the area in front of the embassy had been sealed off, presumably to prevent the protest taking place there. Instead it was on the street just to one side.

My next stop was the Regents Park Mosque, where I met a group of campaigners, some dressed in the now familiar orange jump suits, from the London Guantánamo Campaign and Cageprisoners who were handing out fliers calling for the closure of the Guantánamo prison camp at various sites around London all day. After giving them to people leaving the Mosque after Friday prayers I went with them to Paddington Green Police Station, where terrorist suspects were normally detained and questioned.

From there I returned to the US Embassy, where the pavement in front was now open again, and a small group from London Catholic Worker had come to hold a vigil. A man from the US Embassy came out and tried to get them to move away, but they stood their ground, lighting a circle of candles as it grew dark.

The final event of the day was a rally in Parliament Square, with speakers including former Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg (above) and leading campaigners for the closure of this illegal prison which has cast huge shame on the claims of the USA to be a freedom-loving democracy which upholds international law. Of course those claims have long been known to be largely sham, with the USA backing many of the world’s most repressive regimes, taking part in shady affairs such as the Bay of Pigs attempted invasion, and sponsoring coups such as the 1973 Chilean coup d’état that deposed the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende on ‘9/11’ 1973.

Although many detainees have been released – there was no evidence against the great majority who were simply foreigners who far various reasons in the wrong place at the wrong time, many held by militias and sold to the US who were offering considerable bounties – the camp remains open. President Trump in 2018 signed an executive order to keep the detention camp open indefinitely, and currently 40 prisoners remain there, still subject to torture and degrading conditions. Guantánamo remains a shameful blot on the United States.

2007
Close guantanamo 5th anniversary demonstration

2008
Six years of Guantanamo: Amnesty
London Guantanamo Campaign / Cageprisoners
Guantanamo – London Catholic Worker
Guantanamo – Parliament Square Rally

There are reports on many later protests calling for the closure of Guantánamo on My London Diary.