Close Guantanamo
Ten Years of Shame
January 2012 sees the tenth anniversary of the Guantánamo Bayprison camp. President Obama said he would close the camp buthe has not. Kidnapping and imprisoning people indefinitely without charge ortrial, denying them their freedom and human rights, gratuitouslydenigrating and abusing them physically and mentally: ALL OFTHIS MUST END.
Ten Years of Shame
Guantánamo - Three Steps to Justice
When Barack Obama was inaugurated as President in January 2009 he ordered Guantánamo Bay to be closed within a year. But Guantánamo Bay is still open; prisoner are still trapped there, in dreadful conditions, without charge or trial.
Everyone is entitled to a fair trial. No Guantanamo prisoner has received one . A fair and open court would throw out any case against anyone who had suffered the hell of Guantánamo. This didn't happen in the case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, the only person so far to have come before a US federal court following detention at Guantánamo. It's time to release all the Guantanamo prisoners.
There are three simple steps to justice:
- Release all the Guantánamo prisoners to a place where they are safe from further ill-treatment, and end all forms of detention without trial.
- Permanently abandon the kangaroo courts called "Military Commissions."
- Hold accountable those who authorised the use of ill-treatment and torture in Guantánamo and elsewhere.
War violates human rights. Obama needs to reverse his escalation of the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistanand end US support for Israeli aggression.
More about Obama's order to close Guantanamo
- Closure of Guantanamo - text of Obama's Executive order, issued in January 2009
- Obama could do better - SACC response to Obama's Executive order to close Guantanamo
Britons in Guantánamo
Nine British citizens have been held without charge or trial in in Guantánamo. The last of them were released in January 2005. Several British residents (people with links to Britain but without British passports) were subsequently released.
Two British residents are still being held in Guantánamo. They are Shaker Aamer and Ahmed Belbacha. Shaker Aamer has particularly strong links with Britain. A third man with links to Britain - Farhi Saeed bin Mohammed - was released from Guantánamo to Algeria in January 2011, despite fears that he would be tortured there.
The British Government must press the US forcefully for the immediate return to Britain of all the British residents held in Guantanamo. It has so far done nothing of the kind.
Shaker Aamer
Shaker Aamer has been a British Resident since 1996, with legal right to remain. His wife and four young children are British Citizens and live in London. They have been denied the right to a family life for nearly seven years. Shaker went to Afghanistan, before 9/11, to work on charitable and educational projects for poor communities. Captured by bounty hunters in Pakistan as he was returning to the UK, he was brutally tortured at Kandahar and at Bagram, Afghanistan. Shaker Aamer has been held in Guantanamo since February 2002, without charge or trial, in solitary confinement, in the harshest of conditions.
Ahmed Belbacha
Ahmed travelled to Pakistan and Afghanistan in June 2001 for a six-month visit. He had a return ticket to the UK where he had lived and worked for over 2 years and where he had applied for asylum from persecution in Algeria. Ahmed was illegally captured by bounty hunters, sold to the US, tortured at Kandahar and subjected to extra-ordinary rendition to Guantanamo in March 2002. The US Authorities cleared him for release in February 2007.
The Guantánamo Justice Centre
The Guantánamo Justice Centre is a foundation that aims to support and protect the human rights of Guantánamo victims. Former Guantánamo prisoners are the founder members of the Centre.
Guantánamo Justice Centre
