Welcome to "Close Guantánamo"

We are a group of lawyers, journalists, retired military personnel and concerned citizens seeking to close the "war on terror" prison at Guantánamo Bay, where 169 men are still held, even though 87 of them have been cleared for release.

As part of our mission, we have started a project to tell the stories of these prisoners, drawing largely on the accounts of their attorneys. We began with the story of Abdul Razak Qadir, one of five innocent Uighur prisoners (Muslims from China's Xinjiang province), and followed that with the story of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, long cleared for release, whose continued detention is thoroughly unacceptable, and the stories of Fawzi Al-Odah and Fayiz Al-Kandari, the last two Kuwaitis in Guantánamo.

We have now added the first three articles in a series of Afghan stories -- those of Shawali Khan, sold to U.S. forces ten years ago, Abdul Ghani, a pomegranate farmer and scrap metal merchant whose ongoing detention is equally inexplicable, and Obaidullah, whose lawyers recently sent an investigator to Afghanistan to disprove the government's false narrative about their client. We have also published a world exclusive article featuring testimony from Guantánamo by Shaker Aamer, provided by one of his lawyers, Ramzi Kassem, and his legal team at CUNY in New York.

One of our most recent articles told the story of Djamel Ameziane, one of the last Algerians in Guantánamo, whose release has just been demanded by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), and in another we celebrated the release of two prisoners from Guantánamo for the first time since January 2011 -- two Uighurs, including Abdul Razak Qadir, who was the first prisoner to be profiled here.

In an article two weeks ago, we applauded the Washington Post for calling for the last three Uighurs -- still homeless, three years and seven months after a judge ordered their release -- to be freed in the U.S., and last week we called for concerned U.S. citizens to follow the examples of Amherst and Leverett in Massachusetts, and Berkeley in California by asking their communities to pass resolutions calling for cleared prisoners who cannot be safely repatriated to be offered a new life in their towns.

Further stories will be forthcoming soon, but in the meantime we would like to encourage all British citizens and residents to sign a newly launched e-petition to the British government, calling for the return of Shaker Aamer to the UK. If 100,000 signatures are secured by May 14, the government is required to discuss Shaker's case in Parliament.

Supporters in the U.S. and around the world are encouraged to sign a petition on the influential Care 2 Petition Site calling for Shaker Aamer's release (which those in the U.K. can also sign). This petition is aiming to secure 10,000 signatures, and will be delivered to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the British foreign secretary William Hague.

We also remain concerned to remind visitors to this site that January 11, 2012 marked the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Bush administration's "war on terror" prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

On his second day in office in January 2009, President Obama pledged to close Guantánamo within a year. Yet it remains open, undermining America's values and national security.

Join us now to help end this injustice and restore the rule of law. We call on President Obama to honor the principled and pragmatic commitment he made to close Guantánamo. Your voice matters.

Thank you for your commitment and support. Please see our mission statement for a more detailed analysis of why Guantánamo must be closed, and to see the list of prominent individuals and organizations who have signed it.