Obama about to be replaced in the White House but no sign of Guantanamo being closed (Image Amnesty International)

8^th November 2016

The London Guantánamo Campaign [1] will hold a demonstration, “Unfinished Business” [2] outside the US Embassy in London at 6-8pm on Tuesday 8^th November to coincide with the US presidential elections. Speakers from various organisations and campaigns will raise human rights concerns of common interest to the US and the UK.
Aisha Maniar, an organiser for the London Guantánamo Campaign, says, “Unlike in previous campaigns, the illegal detention camp at Guantánamo Bay has not been an election issue this year; its closure has only been raised by Green candidate Dr Jill Stein. Outgoing President Barack Obama’s many promises to close the detention facility are almost certainly broken with 60 prisoners remaining, many of whom were subject to some of the worst forms of torture meted out by the CIA, the US military and its allies. Rather than closing Guantánamo, Barack Obama is more interested in covering the tracks of his own human rights abuses as president.

“The responsibility for the ongoing operation of the Guantánamo Bay camp does not lie squarely on the shoulders of the USA. Its allies,including the United Kingdom, must investigate and address the role they have played in the injustices related to Guantánamo. They must also work with the new president to bring about the closure, and not merely the transfer, of the Guantánamo Bay detention facility, a prominent symbol and potent reminder of the destructiveness of the ongoing so-called war on terror.”

ENDS

Links

1. The London Guantánamo Campaign campaigns for justice for all prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, for the closure of this and other secret prisons, and an end to the practice of extraordinary rendition. http://londonguantanamocampaign.blogspot.com
2. http://londonguantanamocampaign.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/8-november-unfinished-business.html

Carol Anne Grayson is an independent writer/researcher on global health/human rights and is Executive Producer of the Oscar nominated, Incident in New Baghdad . She is a Registered Mental Nurse with a Masters in Gender Culture and Development. Carol was awarded the ESRC, Michael Young Prize for Research 2009, and the COTT ‘Action = Life’ Human Rights Award’ for “upholding truth and justice”. She is also a survivor of US “collateral damage”.