Last week marked the eighth anniversary of the WikiLeaks release of ‘The Guantánamo Files‘. A lot has changed since their original airing, and a lot hasn’t.
Obama has come and gone, the immediate closure of “Gitmo” now just another of his hoped for but unkept promises, while both the publisher of the files revealing the horrors of the camp, and the person Obama pardoned for leaking them are themselves now imprisoned; Julian Assange held in solitary at London’s infamous Belmarsh Prison, and Chelsea Manning, after a month of solitary confinement, facing “indefinite detention” for refusing a Virginia Grand Jury’s subpoena to testify in its investigation of Assange and WikiLeaks.
Andy Worthington is an investigative journalist, author, campaigner, commentator and public speaker. A recognized authority on Guantánamo and the “war on terror”, Andy is co-founder of the Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker campaigns, both dedicated to bringing justice for inmates of that place past and present.
The London-based Worthington is also a singer, songwriter, founding member of the band, The Four Fathers, (currently searching for a new bass player) and urban photographer whose State of London series is a seven years-long daily chronicle of that great city.
Andy Worthington in the first half.
And; despite the rightward trend in European politics, Spain’s Socialist Party, the PSOE, held power in Sunday’s elections there, though again with a minority. While the government’s renewal, and seat increase gives Pedro Sánchez’ party a strong mandate to govern, the admission to Parliament of 24 members of the ultra-right VOX party is grabbing the headlines. It’s the first far-right party to gain seats since democracy replaced the dictatorship of Generalissimo Francisco Franco more than 40 years ago.
Dr. Pablo Ouziel is Postdoctoral fellow at the University of Victoria’s Political Science Department and Centre for Global Studies. He’s a native of Barcelona, and his Post-Doctoral Fellowship project at UVic is, ‘Democracy Here and Now: The Exemplary Case of Spain’.
Pablo Ouziel and political breathing space for Spain’s left in the second half.
And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Andy Worthington and eight years later, the Guantánamo Files then and now.
Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/","author_name":"Pacific Free Press"}