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Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side

Seeking Justice in Guantanamo Bay

Clive Stafford Smith
September 2007     ISBN: 1568583745


As a press conference in the summer of 2003, George W. Bush described the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay. "The only thing I know for certain is that these are bad people." Presumably the worst of the world's terrorists, U.K. based human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith has represented more than fifty of these prisoners and spent many weeks in their company. Through their stories, he explores the steep human costs of jettisoning the rule of law to combat terrorism, tracing the proffered justifications for torture of suspects, cataloging the array of deceits that shield the actions of the U.S. prison authorities, and recounting what happens when a military commission goes off-script.

Told by one of the few individuals who has had independent access to the prisons at Guantanamo Bay, this is a raw, first-hand account of the notorious U.S. detention facility and the experiences of the men being held there under the banner of the War on Terror.

What readers are saying

"A measured and uniquely informed account of systemic brutality and blind folly on an epic scale, of the tragic perversion of America's judicial system, and of the licensing of torture throughout the world by those who imagine themselves opposed to it."

--John le Carre

About the Authors

Clive Stafford Smith is the Legal Director of the UK charity Reprieve, whose clients include prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and death row prisoners in the American South.

Read more about Clive Stafford Smith here.

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Clive Stafford Smith on PBS Documentary

October 16 - November 20 | PBS Affiliates
Watch Nation Books author Clive Stafford Smith in a new PBS documentary, Torturing Democracy. Stafford Smith is the author of Eight o' Clock Ferry to the Windward Side and founder of the legal charity, Reprieve, whose clients include prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

November 20 - 21
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November 23 | 10 am
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December 7 | 4 pm
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December 8
The Nation Institute Annual Dinner Gala
(Metropolitan Pavilion, NYC)
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January 15 | 8:30 am
Deepa Fernandes Wins North Star News Prize
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