Mansoor Adayfi who was ‘hostage’ in Guantánamo for 14 years in Derry for Bloody Sunday talk with Tommy McKearney

Mansoor Adayfi is a writer, artist, activist, and a former prisoner held by the US in Guantánamo for a decade-and-a-half without charge, spending 8 of those years in solitary confinement.

The Yemeni national was released to Serbia in 2016 and has written a memoir, 'Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantánamo' about his experience.

Mr. McKearney, a native of Moy, Co. Tyrone, is a former hunger striker, who undertook 53 days of Hunger Strike in 1980. He is the author of ‘The Provisional IRA: From Insurrection to Parliament’.

The men will take part in a discussion in the Central Library from 3pm-4.30pm on Friday entitled, ‘Hostages’.

Last year Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, issued a scathing report on the indefinite detention for 780 Muslim men and boys in the internment camp.

Prisoners held in the camp have included those from Arabia, North Africa, Europe, Central Asia (including Uyghur Chinese), Southern Asia, the Middle East and the Americas.

Ms. Ní Aoláin reported: “None of the former detainees have been compensated by the US Government for the systematic crimes of extraordinary rendition, torture, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment, and arbitrary detention.”

She also concluded that ‘the exceptionalism, discrimination, securitization, and anti-terror discourse perpetuated by the continuing existence of and justification for Guantánamo have pervaded well beyond its confines with enormous human rights consequences in multiple countries’.

This afternoon’s conversation is part of the Bloody Sunday March Committee’s 52nd anniversary commemorations.

A spokesperson for the BSMC said: “We know all about internment and the torture of citizens by imperialist armies in Ireland. Bloody Sunday was an anti-internment march.

"Oppressive regimes learn from each other.

"This month marked 22 years since Guantánamo Bay prison camp was opened. It has been a place of torture, abuse and arbitrary detention without charge or trial of 780 US hostages many of whom were taken there on extraordinary rendition.

"Questions remain in Ireland over the possible use of Shannon airport for these US military operations.

"Four US presidents have presided over Guantánamo. It remains open.

"Mansoor Adayfi was held hostage there for over 14 years without charge. He will be in Derry on Friday as part of our programme of events.

“Mansoor’s courage against adversity is awe inspiring. His lived experiences and his insight into US torture and crimes expose the myth of so called western values.

"He has recently exposed how the US blueprint set out in Guantánamo appears to have been adopted by Israel over the past 3 months in Palestine with the Euro-Med Human Rights monitor highlighting the mass detention and enforced disappearances of Palestinians in camps as ‘a new Guantánamo-like prison’.”

"Come along to the Central Library at 3pm on Friday, January 26 and listen to Mansoor in conversation with Tommy McKearney.

Bloody Sunday March in Derry to mark 51st anniversary