 And thank you so much for coming and welcome to New America. And our session today is Guantanamo in 2020. What is the future of the prison camp after 18 years? My name is Melissa Sallick-Virk and I'm a senior policy analyst with New America's International Security Program. And for those of you new to New America, we're a think and action tank, a civic platform that connects a research institute, technology lab, solutions network, media hub and public forum. The International Security Program aims to provide evidence-based analysis of some of the toughest security challenges facing American policymakers and the public. So with me today are Thomas Wilner and Andy Worthington, co-founders of Close Guantanamo. Thomas is of counsel at Sherman and Sterling, LLP and counsel of record to the Guantanamo detainees in the two US Supreme Court cases, confirming their right to seek review of their detentions in the US courts through the writ of habeas corpus. And Andy is author of the Guantanamo files, the stories of the 774 detainees in America's illegal prison and co-director of the documentary, Outside the Law Stories from Guantanamo. So during our session, we'll hear more about any progress made over the last 12 months, as well as updates on cases and proposed changes to the prison. And after hearing opening remarks from Tom and Andy, we'll move into moderated Q and A before saving time for audience questions. And please also remember to join the conversation online using hashtag GTMO2020 and following at New America ISP. So with that said, thank you both for being here. And would you like to begin with opening remarks before we jump into questions? Yeah, okay. So hello, maybe I've seen some of you before here. Tom and I have been coming here for years. On and around the anniversary of the opening of the prison. If you don't know me, you'll be thinking the guy's got a funny accent. I am a British citizen. You may be thinking, what does a British citizen care about Guantanamo? Is he having a go at us? Well, I'm not. Guantanamo is a huge human rights abuse issue. And human rights is exactly what it means, rights of all humans. So that crosses kind of national borders really. So as a human being, I'm concerned about what's happening at Guantanamo. But I can tell you that if I was a US citizen, I would be as angry and indignant about the situation at Guantanamo as I am. And 18 years in, obviously, Tom and I have been working on this story for many, many, many years. And we've had ups and downs. We've had moments of hope. January 2009 would be a high point of hope when President Obama became the president and promised to close the prison and it didn't happen. We've had low points. We've had very low points over the years. And the President Obama, in fact, one year, Tom and I were so despondent that we didn't even have an event in the January. And that was at a point when President Obama was sitting on his hands and not doing anything. Congress had raised restrictions to the release of prisoners and he did nothing about it. But we've obviously had low points over the last few years. In fact, the whole of the last three years has been a permanent low point. So where are we now in 2020 with Guantanamo, 18 years old? We have a prison at Guantanamo that holds 40 men now. 779 men have been held in total by the military over the 18 years that the prison has been open. So just 5% left, that surely that's a good thing. Surely all those people still held there must be bad guys. Well, no, and even if they were, they shouldn't be treated like they are at Guantanamo because Guantanamo doesn't work in any way that aligns with how the United States sees itself as a country founded on the rule of law and the claims to respect the rule of law. The law was sent to Guantanamo to die. It was chosen initially as a place for a prison because it was presumed to be beyond the reach of the US courts. And people like Tom fought long and hard for many, many years to get the law into Guantanamo and secured habeas corpus rights for the prisoners. And there was a short golden period when district court judges were reviewing the prisoner's cases and in case after case was saying to the government, you have not established even at the lowest kind of evidentiary threshold that these people you're holding had anything meaningful to do with Al Qaeda or the Taliban and ordered them to be released. And then appeals court judges cynically changed the rules to make sure that no prisoner could be released from Guantanamo and that's that remained the case from about 2010, 2011 onwards. Every attempt to get the Supreme Court take back control of the rules governing detention have failed, they're not interested. So the prisoners now, the 40 men still held are held at the whim of fundamentally at the whim of the president and of Congress. Congress is in positions on what the president can do which they imposed under Obama to stop him from closing the prison and to try and stop him from releasing prisoners are still in place. I don't think that many people pay much attention to all the detail in every year's National Defense Authorization Act. But if you look at it, what happens every year is that there are prohibitions on the release of prisoners to certain countries. There are prohibitions on bringing prisoners to the US mainland for any reason whether that because they're very ill or to put them on trial or for there to be a facility here so that Guantanamo can be closed. There are restrictions specifically about refusing to allow the president money to set up a new facility here or to enter any dealings with Cuba to close the facility. Now, most of those things I'm sure if you reflect on them were things that opposed what President Obama may have tried to do or in some cases did try to do. Under Trump, none of that really matters because he doesn't want to release anyone from Guantanamo under any circumstances. And although Congress is backing him up in certain ways the power really is in his hands and it's his private prison. The prisoners there are his personal playthings. What is there to suggest that that isn't true? I don't think that there is anything. There is no mechanism on earth to oblige the president of the United States to release anyone from Guantanamo under any circumstances. This is not how the rule of law is supposed to work. And yet it's true. And let's just break it down for the 40 men still held. So nine of them are going through or been through what purports to be a legal process at Guantanamo, the military commission trial system. And I believe we have a few people from the military commission here today from the defense teams. And the best analogy for the military commissions I think would be Groundhog Day. It goes round and round without conclusion because on the one hand, the defense teams need to expose what happened to their clients. These are people who were held in the black sites run by the CIA, so they were tortured. And the government on the other hand wants to make sure that the only thing that isn't talked about is the torture to which these men were subjected in the CIA black sites. So you can see a conflict there that's unresolvable. But those men at least are getting something resembling a judicial system. The other men are not. Five of them were approved for release by unanimously approved for release by high-level review processes established under Barack Obama. And they weren't released before he left office. And there is no mechanism to force Donald Trump to release them, so he's not interested. So they're going nowhere. And the 26 others were absolutely described in the mainstream media many years ago as forever prisoners. These were men who, when President Obama reviewed the status of the men he was holding, were described as being too dangerous to release, but insufficient evidence existed to put them on trial. Some of them were men who were put forward for military commission trials until various stages in the collapse of the military commission trials because there were a number of rulings which nullified the few convictions that were achieved in the military commissions. So these men were then put forward for a parole-type process under President Obama. And in the last few years of his presidency, this process led to the release of three dozen prisoners and was one of the big reasons why we ended up when he left office with just 41 men held, which is now 40 because Trump has only had to release one man in the whole of his presidency so far, a man who had reached a plea deal in his military commission trial and therefore had to be released. I imagine that when those discussions were taking place, Trump was failing to understand why this man had to be released, but he's the only one who's got out. He's in continued imprisonment in Saudi Arabia. That was part of his plea deal. The rest of the men are trapped, as I say, under Donald Trump with nothing that anyone can do to oblige him to release them. And these 26 men on the face of it still subject to the review process set up by Obama, the parole-type process, the periodic review boards. The problem is, and I don't think this is gonna surprise any of you with the way that this thing has been going for the last few years, is that although they still exist, they haven't approved a single prisoner for release since Donald Trump took office. The commander in chief made clear, even before he became president, when he tweeted on, I think, January the 3rd, 2017, there must be no more releases from Gitmo. That's the official US position on Guantanamo now under Donald Trump. And so what's happened, and you have to look quite hard to find any of these stories anywhere in the media, is that the men subject to these periodic review boards for parole-type process at Guantanamo have started boycotting you. None of them are even bothering to turn up to their hearings anymore. Why would that be? It's because they have correctly concluded that it's a sham. So I hope that summarizes the situation that we're in at Guantanamo. I hope that if you hadn't realized, it helps you to understand that if you think there is something wrong with the continued existence of Guantanamo, and I really hope you do, because the United States is not supposed to be holding anyone indefinitely without charge or trial. That's what dictatorships do. If you believe it is wrong, then we have to have a change of leadership in this country. That, first of all, would absolutely have to require the removal of Donald Trump. But I would also say that given their current behavior, it means the removal of the Republicans from all the offices of power, because they're controlling this as well. I don't mean to suggest that any Democratic contender is gonna ride in on a white horse and everything will be fine, because we had a man in the White House for eight years who said on his first day he was gonna close it and didn't manage to do it. But we will not see movement on Guantanamo until Trump is removed and until the Republicans don't have control of the Senate. So where we take that this year, I don't know. If you're concerned about the issue, I hope you can find ways to talk about it, because what's for sure is that most of the contenders for the presidency won't and most of the mainstream media won't either. And I think that that's a disgrace because I think that what is still happening at Guantanamo, every single day ought to be a source of shame and disgrace for all decent American people. Thank you very much. Well, I don't know quite what to say in all this. It looks like there's some new faces here that we haven't had before. It might be useful for me to just, as you can see, I'm a lawyer, I look like a lawyer, I dress like a lawyer, that's how I identify. But to give you some of the legal background of Guantanamo and where the legal process stands. And as an observation, I think one of the real shames of Guantanamo and the great shame is it is a lawless prison that was set up to avoid the law. But worse than that, I think in a way is that the U.S. courts have been ineffective to deal with that. That it's unbelievable to me. It's 18 years since it's opened. I brought a case in May 1, 2002. And let me give a background. And we won every case, and yet these people are still there and there's no effective review. Let me just give a little bit of background. In our Anglo-American system and around the world, you're really allowed to incarcerate people. Normally, only after they've been charged and tried in a fair trial. You can't incarcerate people based on suspicion or say, oh, he might be dangerous or something. You've got to charge him and try them and convict them. There's one exception to that. In the case of a war, you can detain enemies who are fighting against you until the end of the conflict. Now, as Andy said of the 40 people, one of the great things to know about Guantanamo is very few of the people who have really been ever charged as terrorists or aiding and abetting terrorism or conspiring or providing material support for terrorism. The great bulk of them have been held on the second idea that back in 2001, that they were somehow associated with hostile forces, either al-Qaeda or the Taliban in Afghanistan. Not never that they committed a war crime or anything, but they were just associated with it. It's important to know that if these people had been charged with material support for terrorism and convicted, they probably have been released already. But under this legal fiction, because they may have 18 years ago or 19 years ago, supported the Taliban, they can be held until the end of this never-ending conflict in Afghanistan. That's the theory. And aside from challenging the theory, the worst thing about it is, we knew from the beginning that a lot of the people picked up in Afghanistan and Pakistan around that area at the time, were in the wrong place at the wrong time and weren't involved at all. We now know that. I think people knew it at the time. And this is a different sort of war from when people go around in uniforms. It was very easy in World War II to know who was fighting against you. They were wearing a uniform. But when people are not wearing uniforms, you really don't know. And in fact, the Bush administration had this strange convolution with their bad guys because they're not dressed in uniforms. Well, they were dressed in uniforms because a lot of them were simply innocent civilians in the wrong place. And we now know that, that at least a half of these people had nothing to do with it. Very few were ever picked up on a battlefield. Most were turned in for bounties by local tribes people. You get a five to $25,000 bounty for turning in an Arab terrorist that made every Arab in the area a very valuable commodity. They were turned in for this and there was no review process. The odd thing is that US military regulations say that if, based on the Geneva Convention, Article V of the Geneva Conventions, if you pick up somebody in a war zone and you're not sure of it, you should have a hearing immediately to say, why have I picked this guy up? Is it right and all the, the Bush administration nixed all those hearings. You can have no hearings. In the first Gulf War, they had those hearings and what 89% of the hearings that people were found to be wrongly detained. They said no such hearings. Every Arab sold into captivity and picked up in that area was sent to Guantanamo. Every one of them. Now that's an amazing thing. So what we tried to do from, okay, why were they sent to Guantanamo? There's a paper and this is really the horrible thing of it. The Bush administration and ultimately the Obama administration and certainly the Trump administration considers the law an impediment that gets in their way of fighting terrorism. I mean, this is the essence of what's happened to us since 9-11. A torture was allowed because who wants to abide by the law gets in the way of doing our job. You know, it's the fundamental misconception and their theory based on some old cases which we have had rejected now was that if you hold a foreigner outside the technical, sovereign territory of the United States, the law can't touch them. They don't have access to US courts and they don't have the protection of US laws. So because Guantanamo, it says in our lease agreement we basically acquired Guantanamo after the Spanish-American War when we established the Republic of Cuba and we kept this base and we entered into a perpetual lease that says you retain ultimate sovereignty but during the term of this lease we have total jurisdiction and control and can do everything. So we have total control of Guantanamo. It's like US territory but there's a fiction it's outside US sovereign territory and based on that the Bush administration and the government said and they still say that these people have no constitutional rights or US legal rights. So that's what we were fighting against and in the first case, in the Rousseau case before the Supreme Court in 2004, the Supreme Court said, well, that's wrong. They have the statutory right to habeas corpus under the first statute passed by the first Congress of the United States in 1789. Habeas corpus, in case you don't know is basically, I'll give all these lessons like this. I think an argument can be made that the Magna Carta establishes the most basic protections of human rights and freedom. In the Magna Carta, Prince John and running me in 1215 said to the nobles, agreed with the nobles that no free man, who were then all the nobles and I don't think they cared about women then but there's a no free man may be imprisoned or deprived of his liberty or property except in accordance with the law. The writ of habeas corpus was really developed to protect that right. So somebody could go into court and say, so he was depriving it, what is the basis that you were depriving this person of his liberty? What is the legal basis? What law, as he said to a violator allows them to be detained? And what's the factual basis? You need to make a showing. So what we did, first in the Rousseau case, the court said, they have the right to habeas corpus. Then, you may know the history, Congress revoked the right of habeas corpus for any foreigner at Guantanamo. It's an extraordinary thing that this ancient writ was reformed by the Congress at that time. We then went back to court and in 2008, in the Bomedian opinion, the Supreme Court, again, this time five to four, the Rousseau case was six to three, said, you can't do that. Their right to habeas corpus is guaranteed in the Constitution. And the Constitution is not limited just to areas of technical sovereignty of the United States. If you did that, you'd really allow the executive branch to manipulate the site of its detentions to avoid constitutional restraints on its actions. And Justice Kennedy, in that case, something said, they may have the right to determine where sovereignty exists, but they don't have the right executive branch to determine where the Constitution exists. So the Constitution, they had constitutional protections. Then, as Andy said, and we thought at that time, then there were a spate of habeas cases and in what, 85% of them, the detainees won. The court looked at the evidence and said, you don't have anything to hold this guy. Then the very conservative DC Circuit said, well, they may have the right to habeas corpus hearing, but they have no right to due process of law because they're foreigners outside the sovereign territory of the United States. It's extraordinary. So for 10 years, what that would do process basically means more than anything, is that you have the right to see the evidence against you so you could try to rebut it. You know, the basic right to a fair trial, to know why you're being charged or why you're being held, they were denied that right as a result. Nobody was able to win a habeas case. I will tell you that for the last six years, I've been trying to get a case, not so much up the Supreme Court, but as the DC Circuit has changed a little bit to get a case there, which would try to reverse that decision that they have no due process of law. And at last, let's say June, we actually got a decision by the court taking us halfway there. So there's some hope that they had said that that DC Circuit decision really dealt with a different issue. So the issue was still open whether they have the right to due process of law. And we're now back before the district court. Unfortunately, the district court is a wonderful guy. He's an 80-year-old judge though, and he's not moving on it. So these guys are stuck there without any legal rights until we are able to pursue that. I mean, but it's an extraordinary thing that you think that we have won twice before the Supreme Court. And yet the law has been manipulated. So these guys are still stuck there without a fair trial. Well, let me just, and I'll stop after this sort of legal course on it. What does this mean? Well, I hope people have watched the movie, The Report, The Torture Report. If you haven't, it's really worth watching. It's about the investigation into the torture, the physical torture that was authorized under the Bush administration, the enhanced interrogation techniques to try to torture people to protect the country. And what always strikes me, and when I talked to the people at Guantanamo, my clients, all of whom, by the way, had been tortured. I was shocked when I learned that, 15 years before Diane Feinstein put out a report, but they were all tortured. And all of them felt that the worst torture was being imprisoned without the right to contest your imprisonment. I mean, I remember one guy said, the physical torture hurts for a little while, but it goes away. Being stuck here without any ability to show that I'm an innocent person held by mistake is the worst torture. And Guantanamo is much worse than another prison. Not only are they there without being convicted, but there are no rules to the prison. Each time they change the military service and command, the rules change. As my current client, we're doing this due process. I said, you know, it took me six months to get a pencil under the last people. I got the pencil, then they changed the military commander and they took away the pencil again. There are no rules. Let me, I'll stop two other things. I agree with Andy that, you know, in the Trump world, everything goes so quickly and it's so outrageous that we don't concentrate anymore on an outrage like Guantanamo. Who knows about it? It's a horrible thing. You can't get any attention to it. You can't get any attention to Ukraine when you kill an Iranian leader. It's very important that we not give up on these things. These things are so important to what we stand for. Depriving people of liberty without a fair process is just so anathema to everything the United States and the Anglo-American tradition. So we got to keep going. Yes, I hope we can get rid of Donald Trump and more than that, this way that something's happened in our country. When I grew up, we were a country which prided itself on being fair, on being the good guys. We might have happened in Vietnam or other places that torturing took place or that we put it out to other people. But that's the things we said, oh, the North Koreans or the Russians or the bad guys do, not who we are or what we portray ourselves around the world. So it's not only Donald Trump, it's the acceptance now that you should do bad things for good purposes, that the ends justify the means that you could torture to protect the country or deprive people of their liberty or put them away. We've got to keep fighting against those things for who we are. Now, oddly, I think there might be some chance in the Trump administration, even if he's reelected to close Guantanamo because it's so goddamn expensive now. I mean, I think we should push that with it. What sort of manager are you that you pay $20 million a person for God's sakes? And I do think even if we transferred them to the United States, which I would like because then they did clearly have due process rights and I think we can get them out. But so I don't have any ringing conclusion but that's basically where we are, I think. Thank you both for your statements. So last year at New America, you discussed the hope of a new House of Representatives and what that could mean for releasing people or even closing the prison. And so now that a year has passed and we know that one person has been released under the Trump administration, you mentioned his plea deal as a reason for why he was released despite his circumstances. So what is his story and what makes that different from the others who are awaiting trial or those who have been approved for release but are still there? Either one of you can answer that one. Well, you know, and Andy might know more his particular situation now, but he's not on a different, the reason has taken us along in this due process. And we had another client where we'd raised the issues. Meningozov, who was a Russian Tarkar who was there was clearly not involved in any of the 9-11 stuff. And we're just trying to get a due process here in form just before Obama left, they transferred him to the Emirates where he's been in prison. Horrible. You know, he can't get out of prison. This guy has been transferred to prison in Saudi Arabia. I mean, it's nothing, you know, his situation is terrible. I really think this, just getting people out of Guantanamo isn't the solution and putting them in some Middle Eastern prison where they can suffer as badly without a trial. I mean, that's my only comment. And, you know, the House of Representatives when people were saying, oh, it's just great we can get the House to represent it. You know, they don't have the power to release people. Trump has the power to release people. He's not signing New York. Even under Obama, there were times when the only way out of the prison really was through a plea deal and the military commissions. It's always been the case that the ordinary population of Guantanamo has had all kinds of obstacles put in their way, which haven't existed through the military commissions as, you know, some kind of formal legal system. I mean, you know, don't get me wrong. It's a kind of invented legal system that has more holes in it than a Swiss cheese, which is part of the reason it doesn't work. But it is a legal system. So those things have to be obeyed. But prisoners regularly complained at Guantanamo that, you know, that really insignificant prisoners that they kept coming around and saying, like, tell us something and then we'll put you on trial and you can get a plea deal. And they were, I know nothing. There were people there who knew nothing. You know, there was nothing that they could give them to say that, oh, we'll put us on trial. So, yeah, but it's just another sign of how topsy-turvy that ought to be. Can I say something about that? Because Andy said that the Obama administration, you know, categorized people and it said, oh, here are these people. They're still there. They're too dangerous to release, but there's insufficient evidence to charge them. I think about that for a while. You know what the, I mean, I've seen these guys and I can't disclose classified information, but I could tell you what that information is generally. They would pressure everyone in Guantanamo. And you, someone, has anyone read Sahi's book? My, Sahi's book, it's a wonderful book about Mohammed Sahi, who now they're gonna make a movie about it, but it's a wonderful book because he says he was tortured and pressured. And what do you do when you don't know anything? When you don't know anything, you tell people things to make them stop. He said he did it, you know, he told him what it was. Well, what you tell people is you give them information on other detainees. So they say, well, you know, I saw him with al-Qaeda or him with al-Qaeda, he names names. So that's the basic, that's the information they have to say these people are too dangerous to release, but insufficient evidence to do it. Well, that's the whole system. If you have insufficient evidence to charge people, you don't charge them and incarcerate them. I mean, that's the basic thing of our law. If you say, well, we can't charge them because the evidence was obtained through torture, evidence obtained through torture is inherently unreliable. People have known that for 500 years. I mean, that's how Anne Boleyn was convicted based on Henry VIII torturing eight people, seven of whom admitted to sleeping with her. All lies, that's how they stopped the torture. You know, I mean, that's what it is. It's absurd. Our system has rejected this for 500 years and yet they justify it. You know, in Obama constitutional lawyer. Thank you. So according to reporting from the New York Times last Friday, 2020 will have 215 days of military commission hearings in the war crimes cases at the expeditionary legal complex. So is that a significant change from years past in terms of numbers of days? Better to ask the military commission lawyers what they think of that. I mean, I really like here. Does that sound like to hear as well? Can you answer anything about that guys? If you're able to, just please press this button so that the light turns green but if you prefer not to respond here, of course. Welcome to. How many, did you mention the numbers? The reporting said 215 days. Does that seem like a number that's beyond what has been done in the past? And that question, I wouldn't know. There's definitely many different hearings throughout the year. So my colleague and I belong to one of the particular teams. We try as much as we can to track other hearings but I can't speak of how many days. For the most part our case currently on a stay and it can come back anytime. So kind of limbo at the moment for our case. Thank you. I would say from what I know as well that although those are the days that are planned if you actually look at what takes place things get derailed on a regular basis for all kinds of reasons. And for the forever prisoners as you refer to them how are they being treated now? Are there any updates on their? Yeah, their treatment is much better than it was 10 years ago. You know, 10 years ago many, many were in isolation. There was a purposeful way of treating them to sort of make life difficult for them, give them little rewards if they would give information and punish them and take away their blankets if they didn't and put them in isolation. I mean, you know, that's why to get a blanket, you know, you name your colleague is someone you saw. There's most of them living really together, they can do that. So it's better in that way. As I said, it's still horrible and it's been worse than a prison a because they haven't been convicted. And you know, at least if you've been convicted there's some justification for it and also because the rules are variable. There are no set rules to live by. I think there's very much a sense of hopelessness amongst the prisoners. As you would expect under Donald Trump when the door has clearly been shut and their position on that front is surely worse than it's ever been throughout the prison's history. And also we don't know really much about how the prisoners who are held in camp seven so the high value detainees who make up nearly half of the men still held. We don't know really that much about the circumstances in which they're held. And certainly if we were to ask anyone from the major commissions, we would find that the presumptive classification which is the bane of the whole of Guantanamo is almost total when it comes to the major commissions and the men held in the most secure camp regarding the high value detainees. And I think it's absolutely shameful that these men who've mostly been there since September 2006 when they were brought from the black sites on the day that George W. Bush said to the world, you know I've been denying for years that we had torture sites. Well, I'm here to tell you now that yes we did but we've shut them down and we brought the men to Guantanamo and the way those people have been hidden and the way almost everything that has been said between those men and their clients. Everything in Guantanamo that's uttered between prisoners and their lawyers is presumptively classified. But then goes through a Pentagon review process where throughout the years often very interesting information has been unclassified. But for most of the time since 2006 absolutely everything has remained classified. Nothing has been allowed to come to the outside world to explain exactly what the United States is doing with these people. And as far as I can see that's pretty much the situation today. Whenever I have met military defense attorneys for any of those prisoners most of the topics of conversation are off limits. Because of some issues. May I ask Andy a question? Of course. Andy do you know how many of the people there were there before September 2006? How many of the 40? Do we have stats on that? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean I think it's about, it's something like two dozen of the 40 were there before. Two dozen of the 40, and the two dozen of the 40 I mean it's an important fact to know that before people were transferred to Guantanamo from Black Sites they were people picked up in the Afghan-Pakistan area right after 9-11. And there had been a review before they saying none of these guys are big people or important people. None of them are. Then the people coming from the blacks I sort of said, well now we got bad people. But so two dozen of the people there now have been there since basically the beginning. And they were recognized years ago to be nothing. So it's just, that's some of them were brought in 2004 and they're kind of regarded as a kind of- In between. In between. But as with all of these cases I mean I don't know how much people know but don't presume that even the high value detainees that you hear about that even all of those are really, really significant bad guys. We, you know, the people allegedly behind 9-11 are included in these high value detainees. But some of the other high value detainees there are serious doubts about whether they are at all who the United States government claims them to be. Of the, you know, these middling value detainees who are all held in black sites. And there are, I mean, something less than 10 of those who make up the rest of the prisoners. Some of those there are also again serious doubts about the status of them compared to what the United States says about them. And then there are still some of these complete nobody prisoners who are genuinely only held because they have had a bad attitude while they have been detained under such horrible circumstances in Guantanamo for 17, 18 years. Can I tell an anecdote on that? Please do. And this, you know, some of these detainees even after the time, they're very wise. And this is the one guy who I particularly liked at the time, the detainees. I said, what are the people asking you? He said, no, I don't know. They say, they asked me, do you hate Asama bin Laden? He said, now at that time, you know, he got in 2002, he didn't know much about Asama bin Laden other than that he had fought the Russians. He said, well, but then he heard, you know, he had done these other things. He said, well, I disagree with him. He said, I think killing innocent women and children people is a violation of Islam and it's just wrong. He said, but though I hate him, I say, you know, he's never done anything to me. Unlike, he still told us, unlike George Bush, him, I hate, look what he's done to me. I said, you know, it's not a wise thing to say. He said, you're probably right, but I had to tell them, well, in his reports, keeping them there, said has very dangerous, has expressed hatred for George Bush, you know, now he's also the guy. I mean, so, but that's, you know, these are the things, why are you holding people? Of course, I think they could hold me for that reason too. But, you know, he was also the guy who looked at me at one time after about 10 years there and he said, you know, Tom, you're a lawyer, I really respect you. You're really a good lawyer, but the law simply doesn't matter. We're not going to get out of here until the US president wants this out. And the great shame is he was right. Didn't matter how many times we won, what happened, the law didn't matter. Anyway, those are anecdotes, I'm ruining your question. That was helpful context. So before we turn it over to audience Q and A, I'm just wondering, for people who want to get involved, what are the options? What are next steps for members of the public? Well, you know, obviously I would like people to take an interest in Close Guantanamo, the website and campaign that Tom and I set up. And I have a website, andywerthington.co.uk, where I've been writing about Guantanamo for 13 years now. I also would encourage people to have a look at what's happening with the Democrats in the House of Representatives, because you mentioned that at the beginning. And there have been meetings with some of the committee members and some other groups within the House. It was interesting that quite a radical Guantanamo related aspect of the NDAA was put forward by Adam Smith in the House Armed Services Committee. But of course, the Senate has the power and none of those proposals made it through to the final version. But if you look for things, and I've written about them, I mean, you won't find much else in the mainstream media about them. But if you're interested, go and look at one of the sites that I mentioned. Because there is definitely some hope. He was definitely putting back on the table issues relating to accountability for who is being held and plans for how to move forward with the closure of the facility that we simply don't hear under Trump and the Republicans. Well, yeah, I think the odd thing is when we first started out in this, even though there was a tremendous opposition and death threats against us for doing this, there was interest. There was interest in the media. There was, I mean, now, I think Obama killed that a lot because, oh, I'm foreclosing it, but didn't do anything. So there wasn't nothing to impose. Now, people don't even know about it. So what can you do? Whenever you can emphasize it to your congressman or others, this is an outrage that violates our fundamental principles to throw people in prison without fair hearing is just not acceptable. So Andy's website, other things, it struck me too. Over the holidays, I was with my grandchildren. I now have six grandchildren all born after this started. The oldest is 15 years old. I went away and I realized she has never been alive without a Guantanamo, without a prison outside the law run by the United States. Somehow we need to say to people, this is not tolerable. This is not who we are. So I mean, please don't give up on it. Whenever you can, write it. Subscribe to Andy's thing. I mean, if you want to know more about the discussions that are taking place, then contact me. I'm Andy at Andy Worthington.co.uk. Or if you go to my website, there is an email contact there. There are people who have been having meetings with House Democrats in just the last few days. And so if you're interested on any kind of basis, but one thing that would be good would be to follow up on what they have discussed and then you can contact your own representatives and start joining the dots. Start letting them know that these things are happening. But just speak out to wherever it is. And this will be important, even if Trump is thrown out. We thought we had in the Obama administration, I worked closely with the Obama administration at the beginning to close Guantanamo. And I thought they'd do it, but then he didn't have the strength to compromise. There was something in the report, you probably saw, which is true, Greg Craig, who was his counsel at that time, was our great ally. Sorry, that Greg's reputation had been besmirched a bit, but he was a great ally. And it was in the report right after the Obama administration came in. They had a cabinet meeting about what they should do about the past. This is a true story, and it's in the report. And the first recommendation was, we should have a commission which examines what happened and says what was right, what was wrong, and holds accountability for it. Anonymous recommendation of the cabinet. And Obama said, no, I was elected as a postpartisan person. I don't want to be seen as accusing the Bush administration. And then all the cabinet fell in line, except for Greg Craig, he said, no, it's a great mistake. We've got to face up to what we did wrong and hold people accountable so it doesn't happen again. And we need to keep pressing for that. I mean, this is the sort of thing of there are many things which are the next step to it, dictatorship or things. But this is one of them. I mean, the most basic fundamental thing is you can't deprive people of liberty without a fair hearing. And I would just add that I'm sure that you can all reflect on how there are certain lawmakers within Congress who would understand that Guantanamo is wrong and that it should be closed. But the heart of it is a kind of inertia towards its closure. It requires active, a great deal of activity from within Congress for it to happen. But also don't forget that there are dark forces in American political life that absolutely want to keep open a prison where people who are not very nice people and have power and authority revel in holding people without any kind of due process. Think of the thrill of that for deeply unpleasant people. I say this is a bad guy. And instead of me having to be messed around with by liars and by the law, I can just hold them absolutely without any rights indefinitely and for the rest of their lives. And that is, of course, what the position was when George W. Bush set up the prison. And it is exactly the position that Donald Trump is in now. And that's what we must fight to stop. They don't need to be nasty people. I mean, I think that was Obama's position. He said, I want to be able to make these decisions. I don't want courts or lawyers interfering with it. I want to say who's releasing it. I'm protecting America. And you can be well motivated and do wrong things. I want to give a little time also for our audience. So if you all have questions, make sure you have a microphone in front of you. And so the microphones are actually for the people on the phone. So you'll have to project. And then you'll just have to push the button to make sure that the light turns green. And then just please give us your name and your affiliation. Yes. What about the complicity of Cuba and other countries where you think their sovereignty has been offended by having these things, extra legal activities by the US government on their soil? Has there been any prospect of anything happening with respect to pressuring the other countries to get us to stop it? And can you identify yourself, too? Identify yourself, please. What is your name? What? Identify. Richard Coleman, I'm retired from CBP. Thank you. Well, realistically, Castro had a great comment in one time. He said, the only place in Cuba where there is no due process is Guantanamo Bay. I mean, it was a practical matter. What is Cuba going to do? Guantanamo is in the total control of the United States and the United States military. Castro or Cuba hasn't cashed the rental check from it for 50 years. There's nothing they can do. But speaking beyond that, in America, politics are cowed by Trump, by fear. I think it's very important what Andy does and what people outside the United States do is a reflection on what's happening in the United States. The fact is, Guantanamo has hurt all the democratic nations in dealing with the Middle East. It has been a recruiting tool for terrorism. It's out there. And people, so we talk about that. I think people speaking out in the UK in particular, but other allied countries, is very important as a measure of us. In the courts, there is a great issue. Should we pay attention to international law? Well, Alexander Hamilton pointed out that the reflection of international law should be a control on our laws. It's always an objective measure of when we're doing something right or wrong. And that's what it should be used for. We should encourage people around the world. Yes, in the back. If could someone just pass one, please? Thank you. I don't think that's on. It's not on there, but you have one coming to your left. That's not connected to the phone. Thank you. My name is Amy McEwen. I'm a financial analyst. I'm curious, since you were from a British background, I've heard what the solution would be in the Middle East prisons if they were to be removed and possibly moved there. What would the British solution be in the prison system under this scenario? Sorry, in what? In relation to Guantanamo? Well, yes. I mean, this is. I know some of this. I actually know the laws. Yeah, OK. Tom? Well, it's an interesting thing and it's sort of a perversion of our laws that people say, well, if you hold these people outside the United States, they don't have constitutional rights. The British system recognizes that under the common law, people have the right to a fair hearing and to know the evidence against them and to have the right to rebut it. So the British have actually gone through this. They have a number of people who they detain on allegations of terrorism and they are given due process rights to to rebut them. And they've gone through a whole thing to, well, some of this evidence is classified. What evidence must they be given so they can? You can't just say something's classified so you can't see it so you can't rebut it, so I hold you. So they balance that. And they have said that you need to give the person enough evidence to know the nature of the charges. And if you can't do it through things, then you need to show them the other evidence. Otherwise, you need to let them go. So the common law system of Britain has accommodated this. They would not allow what is happening now in Guantanamo. From practical terms regarding politics now, I mean, I think countries around the world, including the UK, have at various times over the last 18 years quite clearly told the United States that they don't approve of what's happening in Guantanamo. And again, I think things have gone a bit quiet under for the last three years. And I can only sadly, frankly, that a lot of people around the world are thinking, what's the point in even talking to Donald Trump? But the legal system around the world, what I say, what I said Habeas Corpus does, although Britain started it, we adopted it, the legal system around the world, which we push for, requires this as a basis for detention. No person may be detained under international law, except for a review before a judge with the facts disclosed. So that doesn't happen here. So we're going to do that again. I don't understand the question. I don't understand the question. For example, when? It's very quickly. In Israel, too. In Israel, they have a thing you can hold somebody in suspected terrorism charges for up to 10 days before they need to have review before a judge. And the facts need to be disclosed to them, so they have an opportunity to rebut it. Due process is not some magical incantation. What it means is, what process was required to make it fair? Have you given the person a fair opportunity to say you got the wrong guy? I shouldn't be here. That's all it is. So what do you need to do? And for that, he needs to know what the charges are against him or her. We also need to remember that when Bush set up Guantanamo, still alleged terrorists were being successfully tried in federal court. That's never stopped. In fact, the only successful prosecutions of the terrorism that have taken place over the last 18 years with just a handful of exceptions of cases at Guantanamo have been in the federal courts. The federal courts are set up to conduct these kinds of cases. And that's just something that people need to remember if they didn't know Guantanamo was unnecessary, completely unnecessary. Well, we're coming up to the end of our time. So do we have any other closing statements you'd like to make or goals for the next 12 months? I'm just happy to see so many people here today at this particular panel discussion. I feared that with so many other things going on, people may not have even wanted to remember what was happening. I'm very glad you're all here. On January the 11th, I generally glance at the United States mainstream media to see whether anybody mentioned it. I think it's all. The next time that I suspect that it will really be noticed by the American mainstream media is in, on January the 11th, 2022. That's when the prison will have been open for 20 years. And we all like those round figure anniversaries. They will. They will report on it then. And it will still, I think, sadly be open. But if we keep pushing, we may be in the most optimistic scenario, be looking at it closing within a framework of several years, I would say. But we have to keep pushing. This is not going to happen easily. Yeah, I'd say also, and what I saw originally in Guantanamo is the problems with it sort of infected our whole country now. And a lot of it is getting the truth out is so difficult. From the beginning with Guantanamo, everyone assumed, oh, these must be all bad guys. I assume that. Why else would the United States take these people and put them in orange jumpsuits and change them up? They must have done it. And then I started finding the facts. Well, they had no facts. And a lot of this was wrong. I got calls from inside the CIA and other people reporting to me. We got the wrong guys and everything. We didn't have a process. But the narrative was still out in the public. Oh, they're all bad guys. They say that today. Oh, these are the guys remaining. They must be bad. Nobody looks at the facts. And that's what's happened in our country. There's always an alternative narrative out there, some Fox News or somewhere else saying, oh. So people don't look at the facts. So I encourage you to be concerned about Guantanamo and put it out. But I also encourage you to not and encourage others and your kids and other students not to just take allegations in the press or in the government at face value and to dig under them. That's what we have an obligation to do. Anyway, thank you. Well, thank you very much for your remarks and all of your knowledge and a big thank you to you all for joining us this afternoon.