Home | Friday 4th July 2008 | Issue 638

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DOCK OF THE BAY

Binyam Mohamed is the last London resident still in Guantanamo. Ethiopian born, he gained asylum to the UK in 1994 and lived here until being arrested in Pakistan in April 2002, after a trip to Afghanistan. He was handed to US authorities after which he was ‘extraordinary renditioned’, and then spent 18 months being tortured in Morocco, where, after sustained torture, he confessed to a ‘dirty bomb’ plot against the US. Like many of those who ended up at Guantanamo, the only ‘evidence’ that US authorities have is a confession extracted under torture – at the point where you’ll say anything to stop the pain.

After being moved to the ‘Dark Prison’ in Kabul, where the torture continued, to Bagram and then ended up in Gitmo in September 2004. This innocent man has suffered unspeakable acts, and in May this year charges were brought against him, and he now faces a military tribunal – without the chance of a fair trial - with a possible death sentence. After the past six years of torture and incarceration Binyam is suffering from severe depression, and has held an ongoing hunger strike.

In August 2007 the British government requested his release, refused by the US, and now Binyam’s lawyers have started a lawsuit against the UK govt, demanding that they release evidence to the US which could see him freed.

* July 24th is Binyam’s 30th birthday – and to mark the day the London Guantanamo Campaign (LGC) invites you to demonstrate opposite Downing St, Westminster, 6-8pm.

* Send Binyam a birthday card to: Binyam Mohamed (1458), Camp Delta, US Naval Base, Guantanamo Bay, Washington DC 20355, USA

* July 4th (today) sees an Independence Day Picnic outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square, 6pm-8pm, where the rights of freedom enshrined in the Declaration of Independence are compared to the illegal detention of thousands in secret CIA jails. This is just one of London Guantanamo Campaign’s weekly vigils outside the US Embassy, every Friday, 6-7pm, Grosvenor Square, Mayfair, WC1 (meet corner of North Audley Street and Upper Brook Street) – tube: Bond Street/Marble Arch

* LGC also hold monthly stalls for Binyam opposite Ladbroke Grove tube station, in the neighbourhood where he lived – next one is July 19th.

* There will be a screening of Rendition on July 17th with talk by Andy Worthington from Reprieve, 7pm, Space 2, Upstairs at the Willesden Green Library Centre, 95 High Road, NW10 2SF. Free event. (nearest tube: Willesden Green), organised with Brent Stop the War.

* Read Andy Worthington’s book ‘The Guantanamo Files’ – an in depth account of all the Guantanamo inmates’ stories, and how they were mostly all arrested in Pakistan by corrupt officials taking bounties from the US, and the shocking treatment they suffered after. www.andyworthington.co.uk

* For more info on LGC email london.gtmo@googlemail.com, tel 07985 382188 web www.guantanamo.org.uk.

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