SPEAKERS INCLUDE: Sarah Teather MP Zachary Katznelson (from Reprieve, Binyam’s legal counsel) Camilla Jelbart (Amnesty International) Bruce Kent (prisoner rights activist) Bisher El-Rawi (former detainee)
At: THE BEETHOVEN CENTRE, THIRD AVENUE, LONDON, W10 4JL (nearest tube: Queen’s Park/bus: 6, 187, 316, 18, 36)
Binyam Mohamed is a 29 year old Ethiopian national who lived in west London for over 7 years. He was kidnapped in Pakistan in 2002 while travelling through the region, and handed over to the CIA who illegally “rendered” him to Morocco. After 18 months of interrogation under torture, he was “rendered” again, to an underground prison in Kabul, before finally being taken to Guantánamo Bay in September 2004, where he has been held without trial ever since. In November 2005, on the basis of evidence extracted under torture in Morocco, he was charged with conspiring to plot attacks against the USA. In the autumn of 2007, the British Government requested Binyam’s return to Britain. The US refused his release, stating that they plan to try him by military commission. As a result of almost six years of torture and abuse, Binyam is in an extremely poor mental and physical state; a medial report has concluded that he is suffering from severe depression and post traumatic stress disorder.
Organised by the London Guantánamo Campaign
/ www.guantanamo.org.uk for more details, please call Christine on 07737 783 159
Organised by the London Guantánamo Campaign
/ for more details, please call Christine on 07737 783 159
London Guantanamo Campaign has contributed this article as part of their campaign against Extraordinary rendition..........
FEEL YOUR LIFE ISN’T GOING ANYWHERE IN A HURRY? WISH THE GROUND WOULD SWALLOW YOU WHOLE? DON’T WORRY…THE CIA CAN ARRANGE THIS FOR YOU!
ER…WHAT ARE YOU GOING ON ABOUT? Extraordinary Rendition (ER) is the CIA’s illegal practice of kidnapping and transferring individuals to countries where they are tortured, as they know that these countries use such practices regularly to extract confessions (lots of countries are happy to help out). The CIA believes that this – kidnap and torture - creates good intelligence to help in the fight against terrorism. It calls the people who “disappear” in this way “terror suspects” yet neither they nor we know what they are suspected of and no legal process ever ensues.
Taking its weekly Shut Down Guantánamo! demonstrations around London from April 2008, the London Guantánamo Campaign held a successful demonstration outside Starbucks Café in Oxford Street ( Soho side) on 4 April 2008.
Since February 2007, the London Guantánamo Campaign has been holding a weekly vigil outside the US Embassy in Mayfair . At 6-7pm at the start of every weekend, come rain or shine, we’ve been there, supported by many individuals and groups over the past 14 months, to call on the American government to shut down Guantánamo Bay and other illegal jails in the “war on terror” and to respect human rights and the rule of law. The message is simple: no torture, no detention without trial!
From April 2008, we will be taking our weekly protest all over London , visiting different sites each week. Many corporations and governments, including our own, are complicit in the spider web of abuse and torture in the name of the “war on terror” in Guantánamo and all over the world.
Join us at our weekly actions in April at:
Friday 4 April: 6-7pm: Starbucks Café, 55-59 Oxford Street , London , W1D 2EQ (nearest tube: Tottenham Court Rd.) – Soho side of Oxford Street : a frappuccino to go and a spot of “waterboarding” is all in a day’s work for interrogators at Guantánamo Bay . Detainees have allegedly been offered Starbucks coffee in return for confessions. Join us outside this outlet of a co-operator in torture.
Friday 11 April, 5-7pm: US Embassy, Grosvenor Square, London, W1A 2LQ (nearest tube: Bond Street): we will be joined on this day by Solidarity for an Independent and Unified Iraq in a longer, silent vigil to mark the fifth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad in the war in Iraq. Join us for this anti-war protest and against secret jails and detention without trial by the US in Iraq , Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere.
Saturday 19 April, 1-3pm: Ladbroke Grove tube station, Ladbroke Grove , W10 6HJ (nearest tube: Ladbroke Grove): a monthly stall to raise awareness about the plight of Binyam Mohamed, the last Londoner in Guantánamo, in his local area. For more details about this action, please call Sheraz on 07717 204 297.
Friday 25 April, 6-7pm: US Embassy, Grosvenor Square , London , W1A 2LQ (nearest tube: Bond Street ): Shut Down Guantánamo! vigil.
For the last two weeks of March, 21 and 28 March, we will be continuing our regular vigils outside the US Embassy. We are currently meeting at the corner of North Audley Street and Upper Brook Street as the Embassy has completely shut off access to one side of Grosvenor Square . Come and join us there!
We will be updating details of vigils each month so please watch this space!
Guantánamo news: The most important news from Guantánamo this month, relating to the United Kingdom, concerns the practice of extraordinary rendition. Extraordinary rendition is the illegal CIA practice by which individuals are usually “kidnapped” (detained illegally) and transferred to third countries where they are tortured, as these countries are known to use such practices regularly to extract confessions (such as Morocco, Syria, Jordan, etc.). Many Guantánamo detainees have ended up there through this practice; often by having been “detained” in Pakistan, transferred to the hands of the US military and then taken to Bagram and other illegal jails in Afghanistan before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay. British nationals and residents who have been victims of extraordinary rendition from countries other than Pakistan include Martin Mubanga (kidnapped in Zambia), Bisher El-Rawi and Jamil El-Banna (both kidnapped in Gambia). Most of the British nationals and residents claim to have been visited by British intelligence officers before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay and hence the British government has long been aware of and complicit in this practice.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, King Charles St, London SW1A 2AH
Dear Mr Miliband,
I am writing to you concerning the case of Ahmed Belbacha, who has been held at Guantánamo Bay for almost the last six years.
Mr Belbacha is a 37 year old Algerian national who came to the UK in 2000 as an asylum seeker. He lived and worked in Bournemouth for over one and a half years. He then travelled to Pakistan where he was kidnapped in late 2001 and handed over to the US military. He was then taken to Guantánamo Bay where he has been held ever since. Your government has refused to make representations for him as he was a failed asylum seeker, even though he was unable to attend his asylum appeal hearing as he was in American military hands at the time.
In February 2007, Mr Belbacha was cleared for released and deemed to pose no threat by the Military Annual Review Board in Guantánamo Bay. Given that we are now in February 2008, Mr Belbacha has spent a whole year in Guantánamo for no other reason than that he has nowhere to go to. He cannot return to Algeria as his life would be at threat from the government and militias. Indeed, in an extremely unusual step, the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC has stayed Ahmed’s return to Algeria.
A viable option for Mr Belbacha would be to return to the UK. While your government alleges that it cannot help Mr Belbacha because he did not enjoy legal status in this country, I believe that the UK has a moral obligation to take the steps that are within your power to avoid him being subject to torture which would be the effect of his repatriation to Algeria. This was also a similar reason given in the past by the former government to refuse to make representations for the British residents, who have now returned to the UK following you informing the US authorities that you would allow them to re-enter the UK were they to be released. We ask you to make the same position clear to the US authorities with respect to Mr Belbacha. On his return to the UK you could reconsider Mr Belbacha’s asylum application.
The British government has voiced its concerns about the existence of Guantánamo Bay and that it should close down. You have also recently taken laudable and positive steps to bring three British residents back to the UK. You must continue with this good work and work to seek the release of detainees with links to the UK.
Urgent Action: Binyam Mohamed, 29 year old British resident in Guantánamo Bay Background:
Binyam Mohamed is a 29 year old Ethiopian who came to the UK in 1994 as an asylum seeker. He lived in Notting Hill, West London, for seven years.
In June 2001, he travelled to Afghanistan to see whether it was a “good Islamic country or not”. After 9/11, he left for Pakistan. In April 2002, he tried to return to the UK but was arrested at the airport. For the next three months, he was imprisoned by the Pakistani authorities.
In July 2002, he was transferred to American custody. The CIA flew him to Morocco where he was held for 18 months, during which time he was subject to torture and gross human rights violations. He eventually confessed to being involved in the “dirty bomb” plot targeted at the US with Jose Padilla.
In January 2004, he was rendered to Afghanistan where he was held in Kabul’s notorious “Dark Prison” for five months where he endured further torture. The Americans then took him to Bagram and then Guantánamo Bay in September 2004 where he has been held ever since.
In November 2005, he was charged with conspiring to plot terror attacks against the US; the evidence for this was procured through torture in Morocco. He had a preliminary hearing in June 2006 but his trial was halted when, later in 2006, the US Supreme Court ruled that the trials were illegal.
In August 2007, the British government made representations with the American government to have five British residents, including Binyam Mohamed, returned to the UK. The British government does not believe he poses a threat.
In December 2007, three of the residents returned to the UK, with a fourth man likely to return to Saudi Arabia. Binyam was not allowed to return as the Americans consider him to still be highly dangerous and intend to prosecute him.
In recent months, Binyam Mohamed’s physical and mental health has deteriorated considerably, to the extent that he has taken to smearing the walls of his cell with his own faeces. He is suffering from severe depression.
Take action!! Binyam Mohamed has been held in Guantánamo Bay for three and a half years and has been subjected to nearly six years of abuse. No evidence of wrongdoing has been substantiated against him. Write to the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and the Foreign Secretary David Miliband: ¨ Tell them that Binyam Mohamed’s case is of the utmost urgency. He is close to a complete breakdown and his behaviour, including smearing his excrement on the walls of his cell, demonstrates severe depression. The British government must act on humanitarian grounds to get Binyam released immediately. ¨ Ask what they are doing for Binyam Mohamed to secure his return to the UK. At what stage are negotiations for his release and return? ¨ The British government must act on its verbal pledges to have Guantánamo Bay shut down by acting to bring men such as Binyam, who have close links to the UK, back to this country and pressuring the US government to close down this and other illegal prisons in the “war on terror”.
Sample letter: Dear Mr/Ms.
I am writing to you concerning the urgent case of a British resident held in Guantánamo Bay. Binyam Mohamed, a 29 year old British resident of Ethiopian nationality, has been held in Guantánamo Bay since September 2004 and had spent two years before that being “rendered” between illegal American jails in Morocco, Pakistan and Afghanistan where he was tortured into making false confessions. Due to the severe torture and abuse he has faced, Mr. Mohamed is in an extremely poor mental and physical state. A medical report commissioned by his legal representative, Clive Stafford-Smith, has shown that he is suffering from severe depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The American psychiatrist who prepared the report has stated that he is “reaching the end of his psychological tether”. While your government has acted successfully to return other British residents from Guantánamo Bay and has sought the return of Mr. Mohamed, I am urging you to take immediate and urgent action to intervene in Mr. Mohamed’s case to have him released from Guantánamo Bay and returned to the UK now. I am calling on you to take urgent humanitarian action to prevent Mr. Mohamed’s fragile state deteriorating further. I would like to know at stage negotiations are between the British and American governments to release Mr. Mohamed and exactly what actions the British government is currently taking on his behalf. The UK has a moral and ethical obligation to do whatever it can to have Mr. Mohamed released. Your government has called for the closure of Guantánamo Bay, which is laudable, however it must also act to help close down Guantánamo Bay by allowing men like Binyam Mohamed to be returned to the UK and seek the total closure of this extralegal detention camp by the US government. I look forward to your response. Yours sincerely, Gordon Brown (Prime Minister)
Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown, MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 1AA
David Miliband (Foreign Secretary)
Rt. Hon. David Miliband MP
Foreign Secretary,
Foreign and Commonwealth Office, King Charles St , London SW1A 2AH
Jacqui Smith (Home Secretary)
Rt. Hon. Jacqui Smith MP
Home Secretary Home Office, 3rd Floor, Peel Building 2 Marsham Street London, SW1P 4DF
Also write to your MP (contact details at www.theyworkforyou.com) and ask them to contact and bring pressure to bear on the Foreign Secretary concerning Binyam Mohamed on your behalf.
Friday 11 January 2008 marked the sixth year since the American Guantánamo Bay detention facility opened up to accommodate “enemy combatants” in the “war on terror”. Opened to detain and interrogate those deemed to be “dangerous men” involved in the 9/11 attacks and attacks on the US in Afghanistan, no one held there has ever been charged in connection with the attack on the twin towers and only one person has ever been convicted of a minor charge. Of the over 800 men who have passed through in the past six years, the vast majority have been released and returned home without charge or conviction. Five men, including three in their early twenties, have returned home in coffins – four having died in uninvestigated, suspicious circumstances and the fifth died recently of cancer.
Deemed “enemy combatants” and thus not held under recognised international law, the detainees have sustained years of arbitrary detention with no real sign of an end in sight and have been subjected to a regime of torture, sensory deprivation, abuse of their human rights and have been deprived of adequate medical and legal assistance and access to their families…without any evidence of culpability or wrongdoing.
To mark this sad anniversary, on a damp Friday across the UK, demonstrations and actions were held in many towns, including Edinburgh, Bradford, Leeds, Sheffield, Birmingham and London. A variety of actions took place in London.
Campaigners in London from the London Guantánamo Campaign and Cageprisoners focused their actions on the British government, calling on it to act to bring the two remaining British residents in Guantánamo – Binyam Mohammed and Ahmed Belbacha – back to the UK, to urge the American government to close down Guantánamo Bay and to urge action by safe, third countries to accept innocent detainees who have nowhere to go upon release. In 2007, the British government took positive actions, resulting in four British residents being returned to the UK. The government must continue this course of action and back up its verbal declarations that Guantánamo must close down with concrete action.
At 11.30am, former Guantánamo Bay detainees Moazzam Begg (now a spokesman for Cageprisoners), Bisher El-Rawi, and Taher Deghayes, brother of recently released Brighton resident Omar Deghayes, headed a contingent of well-known activists to present a letter signed by prominent individuals and organisations calling for the British government to work to close down Guantánamo Bay (see the letter here). The letter also urged the government to take action to seek the release and return to the UK of British residents Ahmed Belbacha and Binyam Mohammed, the latter for whom the government has made representations but whose return was blocked by the US authorities. Having been cleared for release in February 2007 and deemed to pose no threat at all, the former has languished in Guantánamo Bay for almost a year for want of a safe country to be released to. Outside Downing Street on a rainy morning, Messrs. Begg, El-Rawi and Deghayes were joined by Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Jean Lambert MEP, actors Joanna Lumley, Corin Redgrave and Kika Markham, Zachary Katznelson, senior counsel at Reprieve, the legal charity representing several dozen Guantánamo detainees and journalists Yvonne Ridley, Victoria Brittain and Andy Worthington, author of The Guantánamo Files. After handing in the letter, those present held interviews with the press including ITV, Al-Jazeera, Al Arabiya, Press TV, Reuters TV and the Islam Channel.
Simultaneously, the London Guantánamo Campaign organised a “statues” event at various sites all over London throughout the day. Starting off at 8am in the cold and wet at Liverpool Street Station in East London and Paddington Station in West London, groups went around various parts of east, west, north, south and central London with 1-2 people dressed in the orange jumpsuits now symbolic of Guantánamo Bay and sometimes with their heads covered in black hoods posing as human statues as other members of the group handed out leaflets and spoke to the public. Overall the public response from Londoners was positive with many people expressing surprise that Guantánamo Bay had been open for so long and showed sympathy with the plight of the detainees. Some hostility was shown by City-working folk at the ever-busy Liverpool Street Station who showed little sympathy for victims of torture.
Politicians took part in the day’s events too with Martin Linton MP (Battersea) joining the South London group as they raised awareness about local man Shaker Aamer, who is still held in Guantánamo Bay, and other detainees outside the Asda supermarket in Clapham Junction.
In East London, after attending the handing in of the letter to Downing Street, Green MEP Jean Lambert joined the East London group outside the East London Mosque in Whitechapel where the public were very receptive to the campaigners and the message they were putting across. Ms. Lambert stated, in a press release issued for this event, “The British government must aid the closure of the Guantánamo Bay facility and other illegal prisons and help repatriate detainees. It is outrageous that so many have been imprisoned for so long without charge. That America has allowed this situation to continue for six years represents a complete disregard for human rights”.
The Central London group visited various sites of historic and touristic interest, taking in Downing Street, Parliament, St. Paul’s Cathedral, the City of London, the Millennium Bridge and the Tate Modern, mingling among both Londoners and visitors to the capital.
Campaigners on the West London route met Karen Buck MP outside her constituency office in North Kensington where she called Guantánamo Bay “an abomination and [it] should be closed down”. Karen Buck, MP for Binyam Mohammed who lived and worked in the West London area for over 7 years has agreed to meet campaigners from the London Guantánamo Campaign to work towards his release. In West London, campaigners also met individuals at the Muslim Cultural Heritage Centre in Westbourne Park who knew Mr. Mohammed.
In North London, campaigners were joined outside Brent Town Hall by several Liberal Democrat councillors. Brent, home to three former detainees – Martin Mubanga, Jamil El-Banna and Abdel Nour Sameur – has been particularly supportive of the Guantánamo detainees with local MPs taking positive action, including a sustained campaign by MP Sarah Teather to have her constituent Jamil El-Banna released and the local council passing several motions in support of the detainees and the closure of Guantánamo Bay.
The North London and West London groups joined forces outside Paddington Green Police Station, where many of the British nationals and residents have been detained upon their return to the UK, although none have been charged in Britain, before joining a demonstration outside the American Embassy organised by London Catholic Worker at 4-6pm. Around 20 people attended this vigil, including a candlelit vigil for the five men who have died at Guantánamo Bay. At 5pm, the names of all the men at Guantánamo Bay were read out, including their ages and their nationalities. This was a particularly poignant and effective moment and many passers by stopped to watch for a while at least; reading the names of those the US has effectively sought to gag and make vanish was all the more relevant outside its own embassy, showing that the injustice and repression suffered at Guantánamo Bay has not gone unnoticed elsewhere.
Over 150 people braved the weather and joined the London Guantánamo Campaign at 6-8pm in Parliament Square for a demonstration opposite the Houses of Parliament calling on the British government to act to close down Guantánamo Bay. Demonstrators were addressed by Victoria Brittain, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Andy Worthington, Gareth Peirce, Moazzam Begg, Jean Lambert MEP, Bruce Kent, Yvonne Ridley, Hugo Charlton from CAMPACC, Stewart Halforty from the Stop The War Coalition, Jackie Chase from the Save Omar Campaign in Brighton and Chris Chang, an investigator from Reprieve.
All the speakers raised important points about the continuing regime of arbitrary detention at Guantánamo Bay. Baroness Sarah Ludford stated that the detainees must be released or tried and that there could be no third way out for the US. Speakers also emphasised the point that over the last six years, it is not just the lives of the detainees that have been destroyed, but also those of their families and all those who knew them. Several speakers drew parallels with the current situation in the UK and Britain’s own Guantánamo-style regime of arbitrary detention in Belmarsh and Long Lartin as well as through control orders. Gareth Peirce and several others addressed the hypocrisy of this country in its acquiescence to what is happening in Guantánamo Bay. Prisoners at other secret prisons in the “war on terror” were also remembered as well as those Guantánamo detainees who are now effectively refugees – innocent men who cannot be released because their safety cannot be guaranteed in their countries of origin and need to find a safe third country to be sent to.
The demonstration was sung out by Chris Chang performing his rap version of Guantanamera and chanting led by Daniel Viesnik from the London Guantánamo Campaign.
The message from this day of action in the UK and other protests in other parts of the world clearly got through to the American government as on 13 January, during a visit to Guantánamo Bay, the American Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen said that he favoured the closure of Guantánamo due to the damage it had done to the US’s reputation.
While continuing to call for the closure of Guantánamo Bay and the return of Binyam Mohammed and Ahmed Belbacha to the UK, campaigners hope that there will be no anniversary to mark on 11 January 2009 and that by then, Guantánamo and other American secret prisons will be confined to the waste bin of history.
Special thanks to the Green Party, Wandsworth Stop the War, We Are Change, Barnet, Enfield and Palmers Green Amnesty, Peace and Justice in East London and all the volunteers on the day.
In January 2008, there will still be over 250 detainees held in the American military detention camp in Guantánamo Bay. A legal no-man’s land, the detention camp opened its door on 11 January 2002. Initially touted as a detention camp for “enemy combatants” caught fighting the Americans in Afghanistan, it has since emerged that many of the detainees were nowhere near Afghanistan or combatants and were sold by the Pakistani military for a mere $5000. Over 800 men, of various nationalities, including 9 British nationals, have passed through its gates in the past six years. Only one detainee has ever been convicted of a minor charge, less than a handful face charges and the rest have been held arbitrarily without access to the legal process, at the whim of the US military, for almost six years. Enough is enough. Will 2008 be the year to see Guantánamo close?
The London Guantánamo Campaign, in conjunction with Cageprisoners, invites you to join us in a day of action on Friday 11 January 2008 to call on the British government to take action to help close Guantánamo Bay and bring the remaining British residents back to the UK. Recently, the British government has taken positive steps, bringing back four of the British residents to the UK in 2007 (Bisher El-Rawi, Jamil El-Banna, Omar Deghayes and Abdel Nour Sameur). Like the British nationals before them, none have been charged with any offence under British law. We are calling on the British government to bring Binyam Mohammed and Ahmed Belbacha back to the UK, to take positive action to help close down Guantánamo Bay and other illegal American jails in the “war on terror” for good and to assist in the repatriation of detainees who have nowhere to go on release.
The day of action will involve: A letter being handed in to Downing Street at 11am by former British detainees led by Moazzam Begg, now a Cageprisoners spokesperson, to call on the British government to take action.
In Birmingham, protesters in orange suits would meet outside the Birmingham Council on the 11th January 2008, between 12.30 pm and 2.30 pm(Vistoria Square) distributing leaflets highlighting the desperate circumstances the Guantanamo detainees have been facing for six years without a properly constituted legal process that can deliver justice.
Those unable to attend the rally on friday will be able to join a vigil by the Bull Ring, in Birmingham City Centre from 1.00 pm on the 12th January 2008.
Orange Friday - Close Guantanamo 1:00 pm US Consulate, 3 Regent Terrace, Edinburgh In Birmingham, outside the Birmingham Council protesters will be marking the Six years of Guantanamo and collecting petitions demanding the closure of Guantanamo and return of the two known British residents still at Guantanamo to their homes in England.
Fri Jan 11 - Public Meeting: Defend Civil Liberties: six years of Guantanamo and the "War on Terror" 7:30 pm Augustine Church, George 4th Bridge For further information click here
Speakers include Aamer Anwar (human rights lawyer), Tom Leonard (poet), Shirley-Anne Somerville (MSP), Paddy Hill (one of the Birmingham 6), Noman Tahir (editor of IWitness, Scotland's Muslim newspaper)
The meeting will include readings from the recently-published book "Poems from Guantanamo - The detainees speak"
Meeting organised by Edinburgh Stop The War Coalition and Scotland Against Criminalising Communities (www.sacc.org. uk) More information 07936432519
Sheffield Guantanamo Campaign will be having a vigil on Friday 11th 4.30-6pm outside the Town Hall, Pinstone Street, 4.30-6pm. The Sheffield campaigners will be getting people to sign the letter that Cage Prisoners are co-ordinating
A day-long “statues” action involving groups of people dressed in the orange jumpsuits symbolic of Guantánamo Bay visiting several sites in London on the day where one or two people will pose as human statues while others hand out leaflets about what is happening at Guantánamo Bay. There are five groups following set routes. Please contact us for more details if you would like to join a group, even if it is only for a few hours. The groups will be working through the following areas: Northwest London (Harrow, Wembley, Regent’s Park, Edgware Road), West London (focusing on Binyam Mohammed – Paddington, Kensington, Knightsbridge, Westbourne Grove), South London (focusing on Shaker Aamer, who must be allowed to return to his native Saudi Arabia – Wandsworth, Battersea, Balham), Central London (several key sites in central London) and East London (The City, Whitechapel) from 8am to 4pm. A briefing for volunteers will be held on Monday 7 January at 7pm in The Gallery, First Floor (to the right), ULU, Malet Street, WC1 (nearest tube: Euston/Euston Square). Please get in touch if you are interested in getting involved in this action.
A demonstration between 6-8pm (speeches between 6-7.30pm) in Parliament Square (nearest tube: Westminster) to call on the British government to close down Guantánamo Bay. Speakers include former detainees, politicians and celebrities. Please join us in the evening and call on the British government to take action. This is an authorised event.
Six years on, enough is enough. For more details and to get in touch, please contact the London Guantánamo Campaign on 07809 757 176 or by email
11 January 2008 marks the sixth anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay on 11 January 2002. The London Guantánamo Campaign is holding a day-long action on that day to mark this sad anniversary. Your help would be appreciated!
11 January 2008 marks the sixth anniversary of the opening of the American prison camp in Guantánamo Bay on 11 January 2002. Over the past six years, over 800 detainees have passed through its gates – all hooded, shackled and transferred from other illegal American detention and torture camps elsewhere in the world. While originally touted as a detention and interrogation centre for “enemy combatants”, it was subsequently established that the majority of detainees were kidnapped and sold to the American military for a ransom of $5000; many were kidnapped in Pakistan and had never entered Afghanistan, let alone engage against the Americans. Denying international legal protection to detainees and through the practice of torture and arbitrary detention, the American military regime at Guantánamo Bay and other secret jails around the world has consistently made a mockery of human rights and humanity. Of the over 800 detainees held there, only one has ever been convicted and less than a dozen charged (including two minors).
Nine British nationals were held at Guantánamo Bay but had all been released by January 2005. Nine British residents (non-nationals with close links to the UK ) have also been held there; two have since been returned to their countries of origin and one to the UK . The return of five further men to the UK is currently being negotiated between the UK and US governments. One further detainee, an Algerian national, has been excluded from these negotiations and faces the possibility of an uncertain and dangerous future in Algeria if returned there.
Despite statements to the effect that Guantánamo Bay will close down over the last few years, this is no closer to becoming a reality. Several dozen detainees have been on hunger strike for almost a year and are being force fed by having tubes forced by their noses daily. Over the past three years, 4 detainees have died in dubious circumstances that have never been investigated.
The London Guantánamo Campaign is planning a day of action on the sixth anniversary to mark this date: Friday 11 January 2008.
The current proposed action will consist of a number of people, wearing the orange jumpsuits symbolic of the Guantánamo detainees and its regime of injustice and torture and black hoods over their faces, posing as “human statues” at various times of the day at various landmarks and places all over London; each “sighting” is to represent one of the prisoners currently being held at Guantánamo Bay, of which there are likely to be around 250- 280 in January 2008. Each “human statue” will be accompanied by several other people handing out leaflets about the regime of torture, arbitrary detention, rendition, “disappearances” and other human rights abuses in the war on terror over the past six years at Guantánamo and beyond. The day’s events will culminate in a larger action in the evening. Proposed places to hold the action include mainline railway stations, tourist attractions, areas where the British residents in Guantánamo live, etc.
Your assistance as an individual/organisation either in the planning or execution of this action is most welcome – can you help publicise this event? Raise local awareness about the sixth anniversary? Pose as a statue on the day? Are you available for a part of that day (especially if you are still on university/college holidays) to join us?
If you do not live in London and wish to hold a similar local event, please let us know.
For further information, please contact 07809 757 176 or email
London Campaign
through in the past six years, the vast majority have been released and returned home without charge or conviction. Five men, including three in their early twenties, have returned home in coffins – four having died in uninvestigated, suspicious circumstances and the fifth died recently of cancer. 
safe, third countries to accept innocent detainees who have nowhere to go upon release. In 2007, the British government took positive actions, resulting in four British residents being returned to the UK. The government must continue this course of action and back up its verbal declarations that Guantánamo must close down with concrete action.
signed by prominent individuals and organisations calling for the British government to work to close down Guantánamo Bay (
various parts of east, west, north, south and central London with 1-2 people dressed in the orange jumpsuits now symbolic of Guantánamo Bay and sometimes with their heads covered in black hoods posing as human statues as other members of the group handed out leaflets and spoke to the public. Overall the public response from Londoners was positive with many people expressing surprise that Guantánamo Bay had been open for so long and showed sympathy with the plight of the detainees. Some hostility was shown by City-working folk at the ever-busy Liverpool Street Station who showed little sympathy for victims of torture.
8pm in Parliament Square for a demonstration opposite the Houses of Parliament calling on the British government to act to close down Guantánamo Bay. Demonstrators were addressed by Victoria Brittain, Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, Andy Worthington, Gareth Peirce, Moazzam Begg, Jean Lambert MEP, Bruce Kent, Yvonne Ridley, Hugo Charlton from CAMPACC, Stewart Halforty from the Stop The War Coalition, Jackie Chase from the Save Omar Campaign in Brighton and Chris Chang, an investigator from Reprieve. 
destroyed, but also those of their families and all those who knew them. Several speakers drew parallels with the current situation in the UK and Britain’s own Guantánamo-style regime of arbitrary detention in Belmarsh and Long Lartin as well as through control orders. Gareth Peirce and several others addressed the hypocrisy of this country in its acquiescence to what is happening in Guantánamo Bay. Prisoners at other secret prisons in the “war on terror” were also remembered as well as those Guantánamo detainees who are now effectively refugees – innocent men who cannot be released because their safety cannot be guaranteed in their countries of origin and need to find a safe third country to be sent to.