Amnesty organised a vigil at the London US embassy to mark 6 years of illegal detention of prisoners at Guantánamo last Friday.
(C) Peter Marshall, 2008
By the end of last Friday, I never wanted to see an Orange jump-suit again. Of course, like almost everyone else in the civilised world, I believe that the US prison camp at Guantánamo Bay should never have been set up, and that it should certainly be closed down without further delay.
I don’t support suicide bombers or those who carry out acts of terror that kill the innocent. But it makes no sense to try and combat these by the denial of human rights and the detention, torture and humiliation of hundreds of largely innocent men. And most of those detained were innocent, people who were desperately unlucky to be at the wrong time in the wrong place, some expendable so far as those who denounced them to the US under torture or for cash rewards, others almost randomly selected.
If there was proper evidence against them, they would by now largely have been tried and convicted by proper courts. The British citizens – as others – who have been released have not been brought to trial – because there was no evidence to do so. It’s good news that some of the British residents there have also been returned (though the Spanish government is trying to extradite two to stand trial in Spain) but very bad news that two are still there along with around 250 other prisoners.
Jackie Chase holds a picture of Binyam Mohamed, still imprisoned, at the Parliament Square rally, part of a day of action by the London Guantánamo Campaign and Cageprisoners.
(C) Peter Marshall, 2008
One of these is Binyam Mohamed, whose is currently in a very poor state of heath and unlikely to survive any further prolonged confinement.