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Binyam's Story: From Ladbroke Grove to Guantánamo Bay |
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Kicking off a weekend of actions around London to mark the seventh anniversary of the opening of the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay on 11 January 2002, the London Guantánamo Campaign held an evening of words and film in solidarity with the last Londoner in Guantánamo Bay, Ladbroke Grove resident Binyam Mohamed on Friday 9 December.
Held at the Westbourne Grove Church, the meeting brought together various sections of the local community, Christians, Muslims and others to learn of and reflect on the life and horrific ordeal of a local man held and tortured for the past six and a half years by the American authorities without trial or conviction. The meeting was also attended by local councillor Pat Mason and a message of support was sent by local MP Karen Buck.
Binyam Mohamed, a 30 year Ethiopian national, came to the UK in 1994 as a teenage asylum seeker after his father, a political activist, was detained for opposing the government and his brother was kidnapped. He was given leave to remain in the country and studied at a local college. Binyam became involved in the local drugs and club scene and turned to religion to kick his habit. He became a Muslim and went to Afghanistan in 2001 to break with his social life in the UK and to experience life in a Muslim country. After 9/11 and the imminent outbreak of the current war in Afghanistan, Binyam fled over the border to Pakistan. He sought to return to the UK in April 2002 but was picked up at Karachi Airport by the Pakistani authorities who imprisoned him and abused him for three months. In July 2002, he was handed over to American custody. The CIA had Binyam flown to Morocco where he was held and tortured for 18 months at their behest. The torture he was subjected to there included having razor blades used repeatedly to cut his body, including his genitals; subsequently, Binyam confessed to the allegations put to him, of planning terrorist attacks against the US. In 2004, he was flown back to Afghanistan where he was held and tortured at the “Dark Prison” in Kabul for 5 months before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay in May 2004 where he has been held ever since. The US has tried to bring charges against Binyam several times but each time they have been dropped without trial or deemed illegal by the US courts. In August 2007, the British government, acknowledging no wrongdoing on his part, sought the return of Binyam to the UK. After almost 7 years of abuse, torture and arbitrary detention, Binyam is in a very fragile mental and physical state. He has often been on hunger strike in protest at his treatment and is suicidal, stating in a letter to Prime Minister Gordon Brown in May 2008, that "would be one way of ending it".
The evening told Binyam's story through performance and included statements from his lawyers and former detainees about the man Binyam is: courteous, brave, spirited and a man who stands up for what he believes in. The evening included a showing of the documentary film Extraordinary Rendition
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=TEbquHRbySU and clips from The Road to Guantánamo. The reaction in the UK to what was happening in Guantánamo Bay, particularly the condoning of torture and acquiescence of the British government, was also discussed.
The evening also included a reading of psalms about freedom and justice and poems on freedom by some of the Guantánamo detainees as well a moving account of how the detainees would pass the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in Guantánamo by a former British detainee.
David Harrold and Christine MacLeod from the London Guantánamo Campaign, accompanied by professional actor Simon Childs, performed a short piece David Harrold has written adapted from lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith's book, Bad Men, about Binyam's appearance before the military commission at Guantánamo, Con-mission. The evening finished with a reading of a short passage from Terry Waite’s experience as a hostage in Beirut; receiving a letter of solidarity after years of isolation from the outside world was a simple but momentous gesture from a woman he had never met before. The London Guantánamo Campaign invites you to write to Binyam and to your MP, the Foreign Secretary and the Prime Minister to remind them that Binyam is still very much alive but no closer to freedom.
The London Guantánamo Campaign would like to thank Minister Phil Hicks from the Westbourne Grove Church for facilitating this event. |
London Campaign