Guantanamo Bay Protest, Whitehall 2003

Guantanamo Bay Protest: The protest opposite Downing Street on Saturday 13th December 2003 was I think the first protest against the illegal detention camp that I attended, though there were many more later. Co-incidentally it took place on the day in Operation Red Dawn that US forces captured the deposed Iraqi president Saddam Hussein near Tikrit in Iraq.

Saddam was held in prison in Baghdad in comfortable conditions, allowed to keep a diary, write poems, smoke cigars and even have his own private garden where he planted seeds for some months before being handed over for trial to the interim Iraqi government. Eventually he was found guilty of crimes against humanity and hanged at the end of 2006.

Those who were taken to Guantanamo – mostly innocent of any crimes – as we know were treated very differently. Subjected to humiliation, frequent torture and caged in terrible conditions. Few were ever brought to any trial and most were eventually released after many years of confinement.

The camp was set up in January 2002 and a total of roughly 780 men from 47 countries were brought to Guantanamo. At the start of 2025, there were still 15 held there. 9 had died while being held. Of the 780, only 8 men have ever been convicted, and 4 of these convictions have since been reversed.

Many were captured and sent there for the flimsiest of suspicions – including one man from Belgium arrested in Kuwait for wearing a Casio digital watch. Another was a taxi driver and the only journalist held there was an Al Jazeera cameraman. Most were just unlucky, often foreigners captured by bandits and sold to the US army as a handy source of income.

I wrote a short opinion on My London Diary in 2003, and captions to a few of the pictures that I posted which I’ve re-used here.

“Justice is simply not happening for those imprisoned at Guatanamo Bay. What is happening is in breach of the conventions on human rights. It makes nonsense of the claims of the USA to be fighting against terrorism when they are acting in this way. Most of the Muslim world seems convinced the USA is a terrorist state because of actions like this.

It wasn’t a huge demonstration, at times there seemed to be more speakers than demonstrators. I turned down an invitation to speak, though I think it was just a case of mistaken identity … but at least this didn’t lead me to be incarcerated without trial.”