UK Indymedia

Gone Beyond Words: Nine Years of Guantánamo Bay

12-01-2011 21:10

The future's orange: nine years later, the regime of kangaroo courts and arbitrary detention without trial at Guantánamo Bay continues...Activists in London turned a small part of Trafalgar Square orange to mark a not very happy birthday at all!

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9 years of Guantánamo - Beyond Words: Silent Witness to Injustice

11-01-2011 23:17

Tuesday 11th January, 2011 - Silent lunchtime vigil outside the National Gallery in London's Trafalgar Square to mark the 9th anniversary of the opening of the US military torture camp at Guantánamo Bay. At least 50 people took part in the hour-long vigil. There was a strong media presence, with a lot of photographers and videographers, and some reporters (e.g. Al Jazeera).

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Open Letter to Prime Minister David Cameron on Ninth Anniversary of Guantánamo

11-01-2011 08:33

The London Guantánamo Campaign, along with PeaceStrike, will this morning deliver a letter to Downing Street asking the Prime Minister David Cameron to take immediate action to secure the release and return to the UK of Shaker Aamer, seek the release of other prisoners to the UK on humanitarian grounds and help the US close Guantánamo Bay. The letter has been signed by 75 individuals and on behalf of organisations. Signatories include MPs Caroline Lucas and John McDonnell, MEPs Jean Lambert and Baroness Sarah Ludford, London Assembly Member Darren Johnson, Bruce Kent, Victoria Brittain, Andy Worthington, Lindsey German, Kate Hudson and many others.

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Press Release: Beyond Words: Silent Witness to Injustice

08-01-2011 16:42

Press release for London Guantanamo Campaign action to mark ninth anniversary of Guantanamo opening in 2002 on Tuesday 11 January

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11 January:Beyond Words: Silent Witness To Injustice (London)

04-01-2011 17:20

Nine years since Guantánamo Bay opened, please join us in protest against this unspeakable injustice, and the deafening silence of the international community.

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WIKILEAKS: Israel has 100 bunkerbusters

03-01-2011 12:58

In the autumn of 2009, American and Israeli leaders agreed that they should keep secret the delivery of bombs that can destroy Iranian nuclear facilities. In November 2009, a high-level group of Americans and Israelis met in Tel Aviv. On the agenda was the political and military situation in the Middle East. Concern about Iran's nuclear program dominated both the American and Israeli delegation, according to a document that Aftenposten has accessed via Wikileaks. The document states that the Israeli government considers 2010 a critical year, provided that the Iranians continued to increase the defense of the nuclear facilities. -Both sides then discussed the upcoming delivery of GBU-28 "bunker-busters" to Israel. A point was made that deliveries should take place in secret so that allegations that the U.S. government was helping Israel to prepare for an attack on Iran, "could be avoided, according to the document.

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Christmas-2010: civilians killed in US-led attack

24-12-2010 22:02

2 Afghan civilians killed in US-led attack ...... US-led foreign troops in Afghanistan have killed two Afghan civilians during a raid in Kabul, further intensifying security risks to the civilian population in the country. The incident took place early Friday in Block 4 of the Afghan capital when NATO forces attacked a construction company. Two of the company's security personnel were killed and two others were injured. NATO has claimed that the attack was aimed at a suspicious militant base, but Afghan police say no militants were in the area. Thousands of civilians have lost their lives in attacks by US-led NATO forces occupying Afghanistan since 2001 in supposed effort to bring security to the war-ravaged nation.

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Guantanamo: Unreported Detainee Deaths

20-12-2010 00:47

Unreported Detainee Deaths at Guantanamo in Jan-Feb 2002? ... According to the transcript (PDF) of a February 19, 2002 meeting of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board (AFEB), “[a] number of the detainees have died of the wounds that they arrived with” at Guantanamo. This statement came from Captain Alan “Jeff” Yund, a preventive medicine doctor and the Navy’s liaison officer to the AFEB, as he discussed “mortuary affairs” at Guantanamo, part of a larger discussion on health issues at the new prison facility. During the meeting, Captain Yund identified himself as working directly with Admiral Steven Hart, the Director of Navy Medicine Research and Development, as well as “a number of other admirals.”

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Beyond Words: Silent Witness to Injustice, 11 January 2011

13-12-2010 15:41

On Tuesday 11 January 2011, the illegal detention and torture camp at Guantánamo Bay will have been open for NINE years. Barack Obama has broken his promise to close it by January this year and the situation for prisoners has recently worsened with Congress voting to prevent any more civilian trials for prisoners facing charges and attempting to block the release of any more prisoners. Join us to protest this unfortunate anniversary...

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A Day for Shaker Aamer, 11 December 2010, Battersea

12-12-2010 21:04

The Save Shaker Aamer Campaign (SSAC), along with numerous other human rights organisations, including the London Guantánamo Campaign, trade unions, political parties and social movements organised a day of action, involving a rally, march, public meeting and film showing to put pressure on the British government to press for the release and return of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident held at Guantánamo Bay, to this country.

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Screening of Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo in Sheffield

30-11-2010 12:45

Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo

Is new documentary telling the story of Guantánamo: torture, extraordinary rendition and secret prisons. Examining how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international law, rounding up prisoners in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening and often for large bounty payments. Focusing on the stories of three prisoners, Shaker Aamer, Binyam Mohamed and Omar Deghayes, 'Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo' is powerful rebuke to the myth that Guantánamo holds “the worst of the worst”.

(Spectacle Productions, 2009; 75 mins., directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington)

Omar Deghayes (Guantanamo 'Detainee') and Poly Nash (Director) will be present to introduce the film.

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Guantánamo: NOW is the time to take action

26-11-2010 11:29

As the illegal detention camp at Guantanamo Bay rapidly approaches its 9th birthday and President Obama approaches the first anniversary of his broken promise to close it, the war crimes conviction of child soldier Omar Khadr, the British government’s cover up of its collusion in torture through an out-of-court settlement and other recent events show that justice is not only elusive but non-existent at Guantánamo Bay.

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Guantánamo detainee, acquitted on 284 of 285 charges, faces 20 years

19-11-2010 17:24

In a blow to the Obama administration’s effort to manipulate the civilian justice system to achieve guilty verdicts for alleged terrorists, a New York City jury on Wednesday unexpectedly acquitted a Guantánamo detainee, Ahmed Khaifan Ghailani, on 284 of 285 charges. The case was related to the 1998 terrorist attacks on US Embassy in Dar es Salam, Tanzania, which killed at least 11 people and injured another 85.

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How to create your very own terrorist state

16-11-2010 12:22

Tim Coles takes us through 11 steps necessary to create a “terrorist state”. Using Yemen as a case study, he argues that these steps precisely match US and British policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran as well as Yemen to grow “very poisonous seeds”, some which have ripened while others are ripening. So, you want to create your own terrorist state, do you? Follow these simple instructions and you will be able to grow “very poisonous seeds. These seeds are growing now. Some have ripened and others are ripening,” as Eqbal Ahmad explained. In 2002, the Bush administration’s National Security Strategy (NSS) made it clear that America, with Britain’s help, intends to increase terrorism by chasing terrorists around the world instead of capturing them, or, better still, addressing their grievances – this is the real world, after all, which is dominated by financial interests, so there’s no time for rational solutions here.

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Day of Action for Shaker Aamer, Brit left to rot in Guantanamo - Sat 11 Dec

10-11-2010 14:16

SAVE SHAKER AAMER, SHUT GUANTANAMO AND BAGRAM

British Resident Shaker Aamer has been held without charge or trial for over eight years in Guantanamo in the harshest of conditions. All the other UK Guantanamo detainees have now returned home. They have all suffered years of cruel and inhuman treatment as victims of the US policy of abduction, rendition to torture and indefinite detention in the so-called “war on terror.” Despite President Obama’s executive order to close Guantanamo by January 2010, many detainees, including Shaker, are still being held there without hope of an end to their ordeal. Meanwhile, the CIA prison at Bagram , Afghanistan , is the new Guantanamo . Hundreds of detainees are locked away, tortured and abused in absolute denial of all their human rights. They have been silenced but it is up to us to demand an end to their detention and torture.

On Saturday 11 December 2010 there will be a day of action for Shaker Aamer, and calling for the closure of Guantanamo, Bagram and other secret US prisons and an end to the US practices of "extraordinary rendition" and indefinite detention without charge or trial in the name of the so-called "war on terror". A demo, public meeting and film showing are already planned in Battersea, south London, home to Shaker's British wife and children, the youngest of whom he has never met.

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'US humiliated by wanted Bush'

06-11-2010 10:44

Global prosecution of the former US President George W. Bush for his sanctioning of torture in the aftermaths of 9/11 humiliates the US, a former CIA analyst says. Bush has admitted to torture he is "unable to travel abroad … because of the principle of universal jurisdiction," Ray McGovern said in an interview with Press TV on Friday. In his memoir titled Decision Points Bush says that he ordered waterboarding, which is universally recognized as torture.

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US troops and Iraqi torture

23-10-2010 16:01

US troops ordered not to investigate Iraqi torture ........ United States troops were told not to investigate allegations of torture by Iraqi security forces, according to documents found in the war logs. A comprehensive trawl of the secret military files show that US soldiers witnessed, or were told of, more than 1,300 cases of detainee abuse by Iraqi authorities. But following the Abu Ghraib scandal of 2004, they were given explicit orders not to investigate unless coalition personnel were involved.
The logs reveal that more than 180,000 people were detained in Iraq between 2004 and 2009. This is equivalent to one in 50 of the male population. In comparison, the number of people detained in Afghanistan, which has a similar population, was 7,500. Most of those detained in Iraq detentions were in state-run centres. .....

http://www.iraqwarlogs.com/ .....

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Guantánamo Bay: Military Tribunal for Child Soldier Starts Today

10-08-2010 12:34

The first trial of a minor for war crimes in over 60 years starts today setting a dangerous international precedent. Accused of war crimes in Afghanistan aged 15, a young Canadian victim of the Afghanistan war and the war on terror today stands trial in a kangaroo court + demonstration in support + petition + Amnesty Canada trial blog

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Take action for Omar Khadr

05-08-2010 07:56

Next week, on Tuesday 10 August, 23-year old Canadian Omar Khadr, who has spent over a quarter of his life illegally detained at Guantánamo Bay, will become the first person to be tried at Guantánamo under the Obama administration and the first person to be tried for offences allegedly committed as a child (when aged 15) anywhere in the world in over 60 years. International law considers child soldiers like Omar Khadr to be victims and not criminals and in practice is against any form of trial for them.

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No war crimes trials for child soldiers: demonstration: 6 August, US Embassy

30-07-2010 18:02

The London Guantánamo Campaign’s monthly demonstration outside the US Embassy in Mayfair will be extended on Friday, 6 August to a two-hour action from 5-7pm to mark the first military tribunal at Guantánamo Bay since President Obama took power and the first time since World War II that a child soldier is being tried for war crimes.