The 24th anniversary of 9/11 and this month’s Close Guantánamo vigils
Photos from the monthly global vigils, and my assessment of how Israel has adopted the worst of the US’s “war on terror” for its genocide in Gaza and its persistent attacks on other countries.
Photos from the monthly global vigils for the closure of Guantánamo on September 3, 2025. Clockwise from top left: Washington, D.C., Brussels, London and an Amnesty International USA Death Penalty Abolition event in Kansas.
My new article on my website, Photos and Report: September’s Close Guantánamo Global Vigils and the 24th Anniversary of the 9/11 Attacks, features photos from, and my report about the 32nd consecutive coordinated monthly global vigils for the closure of the “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, which took place across the US — in Washington, D.C., New York, Portland, Los Angeles and Detroit — and in London, Brussels and Belgrade on September 3, 2025, and in Cobleskill, NY on September 6.
I also discuss the particular significance of today being the 24th anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, which not only led to the extraordinarily ill-advised establishment of the prison at Guantánamo (and of CIA “black sites” around the world), but also perilously sought to redefine the rules regarding warfare and detention.
This has had baleful and far-reaching effects that, 24 years on, seem particularly to have provided inspiration for Israel’s behaviour over the last 23 months of its genocide in Gaza, and its unjustifiable attacks on numerous neighbouring countries, including, in recent days, on Qatar and Yemen.
As I state in the conclusion to my article, “Hopefully, by next year, when we mark the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the genocide in Gaza will somehow have been brought to an end, but, even if it is, the monstrous crimes of both the US in its ‘war on terror’ and Israel in its opportunistic reimagining of it (fully backed, of course, by the US and other western countries) need to be so robustly condemned that the blood-stained tide of 21st century history — in which powerful but fundamentally deranged nations have conceived of mass genocidal slaughter as ‘counter-terrorism’ — are fundamentally held accountable so that ‘never again’ might mean what it was meant to mean in the wake of the Nazis’ atrocities in the Second World War.”
Back from Italy
My apologies for the radio silence over the last two weeks. I’ve been away in Italy, taking a much-needed holiday with my family, and also a much-needed digital detox, which I recommend for anyone who struggles not to be overwhelmed by the relentlessness of the 24/7 live-streamed horrors of the world in 2025.
We spent five days in Napoli (Naples) before heading out to the Amalfi coast, and Napoli remains as defiantly and boisterously anarchic and unruly as ever, although helpfully it also seems overall to be thriving rather more than it was on our first visit 15 years ago.
Reassuringly, while the entire city was still adorned with countless portraits of Maradona, and the city was celebrating its recent, fourth football championship victory, it was also clear that Neapolitans, understandably, can distinguish between the oppressor from the oppressed, and right from wrong, and there was massive support for Palestine via banners in the streets, graffiti and restaurants supporting the Palestinians’ cause, as can be seen in one of my photos below.
Support for Palestine in the “centro storico” of Napoli. (Photo: Andy Worthington).
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