Amnesty International UK | Andy Worthington (original) (raw)

Andy Worthington, standing next to former Guantánamo prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, holds up the poster showing the 16 men approved for release from Guantánamo but still held at the launch of the first UK exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork in the UK, at Rich Mix in London on December 5, 2024.

Last Thursday, a powerful and historically significant event took place in London, when an exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork was launched at Rich Mix, a cultural and community space at 35-47 Bethnal Green Road in Shoreditch, London E1 6LA. The exhibition was supported by the UK Guantánamo Network (an umbrella group of organizations calling for Guantánamo’s closure), in collaboration with Amnesty International UK, and was curated by Lise Rossi and Dominique O’Neil, core team members of the UK Guantánamo Network, and Amnesty International members.

The exhibition, “Don’t Forget Us Here”, named after the compelling 2021 memoir of former prisoner Mansoor Adayfi, runs until January 5, and the launch was, genuinely, historically significant because it is the first exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork in the UK, and because Mansoor himself attended, and gave a profoundly moving speech about the significance of art for the men held at Guantánamo.

Mansoor Adayfi addressing the crowd at the launch of the first UK exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork in the UK, at Rich Mix in London on December 5, 2024.

Mansoor Adayfi explaining a painting of his from Guantánamo, and how it expresses hope, at the launch of the first UK exhibition of Guantánamo prisoners’ artwork in the UK, at Rich Mix in London on December 5, 2024.

If we lived in a world that cared about the continued existence of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, and the power of artwork to break through the sweeping isolation and dehumanization to which the men held there were subjected throughout the seven years that they were held under George W. Bush, until an easing of conditions under President Biden allowed “compliant” prisoners to take classes, including art classes, on a communal basis, Mansoor would have been featured on mainstream news channels, but, shamefully the world doesn’t care.

Since the prison at Guantánamo Bay opened nearly 23 years ago, holding Muslim men (and boys) for the most part indefinitely without charge or trial, most of the western mainstream media — and particular the US media — turned a blind eye to the dehumanization and brutalization of Muslims held there, and also held elsewhere in the US’s global network of “war on terror” prisons.

They also stayed largely silent as the west’s ruinous warmongering policies in Muslim countries created a global wave of refugees in 2015, which, in turn, exacerbated anti-refugee and anti-immigrant sentiment to such an extent that the UK left the EU via Brexit, Donald Trump was elected in the US, and racism and Islamophobia are now so deeply entrenched that western governments, and most of the western media, have failed to recognize Israel’s relentless 14-month long assault on Palestinians in the Gaza Strip as genocide, even though, if it involved anyone but Muslims, they would have fallen over themselves to condemn it.

In this fundamentally racist media landscape, the only news channel that was present at the launch was the Turkish news channel TRT World. They interviewed Mansoor and produced the short feature below, which included footage from the launch. I hope that you have time to watch it, but I also hope that further footage eventually surfaces — perhaps of my introductory speech, providing a summary of the situation at Guantánamo now, of the urgent need for 16 men approved for release (including two artists) to be freed before President Biden leaves office, but especially of Mansoor’s charming, eloquent and heartfelt discussion of the meaning of the art.

For anyone wanting to know more, I urge you, if you haven’t done so already, to read Mansoor’s memoir, which contains a truly inspiring chapter on the liberating effects of creativity on the men deprived of free expression for so long.

One of these men is Moath al-Alwi, the only one of the six artists whose work is featured in the exhibition who is still held, even though he was unanimously approved for release by a high-level US government review process nearly three years ago. Moath’s speciality is making three-dimensional sculptures of sailing ships, which he creates, with extraordinary inventiveness, using recycled materials. As Mansoor explains in his memoir, “Moath could make anything once he set his mind to it.”

On display as part of the exhibition is a beautiful video of Moath’s ship-building techniques, made many years ago for the New York Times, and now available on the video creators’ YouTube channel, and posted below. It features an actor speaking Moath’s own words, and vividly brings to life his inventiveness.

This period in Guantánamo’s long history, when creativity was tolerated, or even encouraged, is referred to by Mansoor, in his memoir, as “the golden age”, and the following passage demonstrates wonderfully how Moath was able to liberate not only himself, but also his fellow prisoners, and even some of the guards, through his three-dimensional creations.

We were at the peak of the golden age when Moath made his own windows. One opened east to Makkah and the sun rising over a vast blue sea dotted with ships and palm trees swaying gently in the morning light. The other window opened west to the most beautiful sunset, palm trees so close you could touch them, birds flying freely, and the sea a deep and mysterious blue. People came from all over to enjoy those windows and his other work. No one was jealous, except maybe some of the guards. The camp admin didn’t know how to feel about them.

While the other five artists — Sabri Al-Qurashi, Muhammad Ansi, Ahmed Rabbani, Abdualmalik Abud (aka Abd Almalik) and Mansoor himself — have been released from Guantánamo, it would be unwise to conclude that their release has, necessarily, meant freedom. This is because many prisoners released from Guantánamo, and, in particular, many of those resettled in third countries because it was regarded as unsafe for them to be sent home, continue to suffer from the stigma of having been held at Guantánamo — regarded with suspicion, denied travel documents, unable to work, and prevented from being reunited with their families, to name just a few examples of the ways in which they remain marginalized and without fundamental rights — even though they were never charged with a crime.

As I explained when I posted an article about the art exhibition a few weeks ago, “For the men released from Guantánamo, life has not necessarily improved. While Mansoor, released in Serbia in 2016, has, in recent years, finally been allowed to travel freely, and Abd Almalik lives in Montenegro, and has a website making his artwork available to interested parties, Sabri Al-Qurashi, released in Kazakhstan in 2014, lives fundamentally without any basic rights, and Muhammad Ansi, resettled in Oman in 2017, was, recently, forcibly repatriated to his home country of Yemen, where his status in unknown. Ahmed Rabbani, meanwhile, who was returned to his home country of Pakistan in February 2023, has found no support on his return, and recently suffered the loss of his brother, Abdul Rahim, also held with him in Guantánamo, and, previously, in CIA ‘black sites’, because of this lack of care.”

One other artist, not featured in the exhibition, also deserves mention, as he is also still held at Guantánamo, despite having been unanimously approved for release in July 2022. Khaled Qassim (aka Khalid Qassim, or Khalid Qasim), celebrated by Mansoor as a kind and caring person, a cellblock leader, a singer, a poet and a footballer, made sculptural paintings using the fabric of Guantánamo itself — the gravel on the ground — mixed with glue and then painted, as well as heavily lacquered allegorical paintings, and, along with Moath, the quality of his work is worthy of international attention.

Artwork by Sabri Al-Qurashi. (Photo: Andy Worthington).

“Landscape with trees and palms” by Muhammad Ansi. (Photo: Andy Worthington).

“Crying Eye” by Muhammad Ansi. (Photo: Andy Worthington).

Artwork by Ahmed Rabbani. (Photo: Andy Worthington).

A hallucinatory work by Ahmed Rabbani. (Photo: Andy Worthington).

“Walled City” by Abdualmalik Abud. (Photo: Andy Worthington).

A photo of one of Moath Al-Alwi’s ships. (Photo: Andy Worthington).

Artwork by Mansoor Adayfi. (Photo: Andy Worthington).

As for the exhibition itself, its opening in the UK is in itself something of minor miracle. As Mansoor explains in his memoir, “the golden age” at Guantánamo didn’t last forever. Within just a few years, as the military leadership rotated and changed, another violent clampdown occurred, and by early 2013 the prisoners had embarked on a prison-wide hunger strike, which, after years of global media indifference, suddenly reawakened them to the prison’s ongoing existence, and finally prompted Obama to resume the release of prisoners, which had largely ground to a halt after Republicans had raised repeated obstacles to delay or prevent the ability of the administration to free anyone.

Despite this renewed clampdown, during the period when a certain openness held sway, the prisoners had been allowed to give their art to their lawyers, and, via them, to their families, and, as a result, in October 2017, the very first exhibition of prisoners’ artwork — including some of Moath’s sailing ships — opened at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York City. Versions of it have since taken place in other locations in the US, as well as in Berlin and the European Parliament, and, most recently, with Mansoor’s involvement, in Belgrade, although that first exhibition prompted a horrible backlash from the Pentagon that had a profound impact on the artists still held.

As I explained in my recent article, “the existing arrangements — in which prisoners were allowed to give their art to their lawyers, and, via them, to their families — were abruptly cancelled, and the Pentagon claimed ownership of all the men’s art, the right to destroy it, if they wished, and the right to prevent any prisoner from leaving the prison with any of the work they had created. Prisoners were also — at least in some cases — prevented or restricted from making any new artwork.”

As I proceeded to explain, “These various threats and bans stayed in place until February 2023, when, finally, in response to a submission by two UN Special Mandates holders — the Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, and the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism — they were lifted.”

The lifting of the ban allowed Ahmed Rabbani to return with his artwork to Pakistan, where he subsequently held an exhibition. However, although it must also have improved the mental health of Moath and Khaled, for both of whom art has become a part of themselves, it means nothing when they can still see no end to their imprisonment, because, as has been commonplace throughout Guantánamo’s history, despite them having been approved for release, they are still held by a captor — the US government — that has little or no interest in prioritizing the release of men it should never have held in the first place.

The crowd at the launch.

A selfie of the speakers, and some of the main organizers and supporters. Top row, L to R: Andy, Mansoor, Scott and David. Bottom row: Sara, Khandan and Dominique.

Andy’s brief history of Guantánamo.

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Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer (of an ongoing photo-journalism project, ‘The State of London’), film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose music is available via Bandcamp). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign (see the ongoing photo campaign here) and the successful We Stand With Shaker campaign of 2014-15, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here, or you can watch it online here, via the production company Spectacle, for £2.50).

In 2017, Andy became very involved in housing issues. He is the narrator of the documentary film, ‘Concrete Soldiers UK’, about the destruction of council estates, and the inspiring resistance of residents, he wrote a song ‘Grenfell’, in the aftermath of the entirely preventable fire in June 2017 that killed over 70 people, and, in 2018, he was part of the occupation of the Old Tidemill Wildlife Garden in Deptford, to try to prevent its destruction — and that of 16 structurally sound council flats next door — by Lewisham Council and Peabody.

Since 2019, Andy has become increasingly involved in environmental activism, recognizing that climate change poses an unprecedented threat to life on earth, and that the window for change — requiring a severe reduction in the emission of all greenhouse gases, and the dismantling of our suicidal global capitalist system — is rapidly shrinking, as tipping points are reached that are occurring much quicker than even pessimistic climate scientists expected. You can read his articles about the climate crisis here.

To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to Andy’s new Substack account, set up in November 2024, where he’ll be sending out a weekly newsletter, or his RSS feed — and he can also be found on Facebook (and here), Twitter, Flickr and YouTube. Also see the six-part definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, The Complete Guantánamo Files, the definitive Guantánamo habeas list, the full military commissions list, and the chronological list of all Andy’s articles.

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