Banned Books of Guantánamo

This January marks 13 years since Guántanamo Bay prison was established. Opened under the Bush Administration and vowed to be closed by President Obama, the prison remains open and operating with a total of 122 prisoners still incarcerated, many without charge or access to a fair trial.

In this timely event our guest speakers, including Andy Worthington Ian Cobain and Cori Crider, will discuss the list of books banned in Guantánamo, as well as the wider issues pertaining to this-censorship, the politics and perceived threat of literature, and the use of indefinite detention.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter. He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison and of two other books about the British counter-culture. He is also the co-director of the documentary film, Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo. Andy has written for theNew York Times and the Guardian, and has worked with the United Nations, WikiLeaks and Reprieve. His website is: www.andyworthington.co.uk

Ian Cobain has been a journalist for more than 30 years and is currently an investigative reporter with The Guardian. His work has included an examination of the UK’s involvement in the unlawful detention and mistreatment of detainees since September 2001 and in Iraq following the 2003 invasion. He has won the Martha Gellhorn Prize, the Paul Foot Award and a number of Amnesty International media awards, as well as a human rights award from Liberty and a Political Book Award. His book ‘Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture‘ is banned in Guántanamo.

Cori Crider is a US lawyer who currently heads Reprieve’s Abuses in Counter-Terrorism team. At Reprieve she has served as Guantánamo attorney, Legal Director, and now as Strategic Director. Crider graduated from the University of Texas in 2003 and Harvard Law School in 2006. In 2009, she was awarded the law school’s Gary Bellow award for distinguished public service.