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Cageprisoners
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09 December 2009
ACTION ALERT: UK – Bring home Shaker Aamer, the last British Resident in Guantanamo.
Contents
1. Summary
2. Background
3. Action required
4. Sample letters
1. Summary
Shaker Aamer has been held illegally without charge or trial at Guantanamo bay for eight years. He is a British resident and his wife and four children are citizens of the UK and reside here. He has faced horrendous and humiliating treatment and is in very ill health. He has technically been cleared for release since 2007 but is the last British Resident still in Guantanamo. Act now to force the British Government to demand the release of Shaker Aamer.
2. Background
Shaker Aamer has been held in Guantánamo Bay since 2002. He is a legal permanent resident of the UK, married to a British national, with four British children living in London.
Shaker has long been cleared for release by the United States. He has never been charged by the United States with a crime and has never received a trial. However, he has been repeatedly abused and subjected to extended isolation in Guantánamo Bay.
Shaker grew up in Saudi Arabia with his four siblings. His parents divorced when he was a child and his father remarried. Shaker's step-mother was unkind to her new family and at the age of seventeen, he ran away to America to join a family he had known from home.
He spent the next few years travelling in Europe and the Middle East, before moving to London where he met his wife and married. Their first child, Johina, was born in 1997.
Shaker was a hands-on dad. He changed nappies without complaint, and as time passed, the Aamer family grew and grew. Michael was born in 1999, Saif a year later and little Faris in 2002- after his father had been imprisoned. Shaker has never set eyes on his youngest son.
Shaker is a natural leader who is known for his concern for others. While in London, he worked as an Arabic translator for the solicitor who advised him on his immigration case. Helping refugees put Shaker where he loved to be – as counsel, listening and advising. But in the end, it was his dedication to the welfare of others that led to his detention in Guantánamo Bay.
In June 2001, Shaker went to Afghanistan to do voluntary work for an Islamic charity. He stayed in Kabul, which was at peace at the time. But after September 11th, the bombing of Kabul began. Fearing he would be taken prisoner by the Northern Alliance, who were suspicious of all Arabs in Afghanistan he went into hiding with an Afghan family. But his freedom didn't last long.
Soldiers arrived at the house, stripped Shaker of his belongings and took him away at gunpoint. For the next two weeks Shaker was sold to various groups of soldiers, who accused him of killing their leader and beat him mercilessly. The abuse continued, and when Shaker and four other Arab prisoners were driven out of Kabul one night, he thought the end had come and they were to be executed.
Instead, the sound of a helicopter and American accents filled him with relief. "Americans!" he thought. "We are saved!" In fact, his transfer to US forces marked the beginning of a new nightmare. Shaker arrived at Bagram Air Force Base at the end of December 2001 where he suffered terrible abuse.
Forced to stay awake for nine days straight and denied food, he dropped 60 pounds in weight. US personnel would dump freezing water him. This treatment, combined with the bitter Afghan winter, caused Shaker's feet to become frostbitten. He was chained for hours in positions that made movement unbearable, and his swollen, blackened feet were beaten. He was refused the painkillers he begged for.
Shaker began to say whatever the US wanted, whether it was true or not. Satisfied with confessions made by a man desperate to end his torture, the US military transferred Shaker to Guantánamo Bay in February 2002. Despite the hardships he has endured, Shaker remains the kind and supportive man he was when he was captured, with a reputation for looking out for his fellow prisoners.
When the military police beat up a prisoner while he was praying, Shaker initiated the first hunger strike at Guantánamo. More than three hundred prisoners began refusing meals. The Americans negotiated with Shaker, promising changes in the camp conditions. But the promises were broken. When the hunger strike began again in September 2005, Shaker was placed in solitary confinement as punishment. He has remained alone in a six foot by eight foot windowless cell ever since.
After his case was taken up by British activists, Shaker was cleared for release. The British government have requested he is returned to the United Kingdom, but negotiations with the US ceased in December 2007 and have not been renewed. Meanwhile Shaker waits alone in his cell, officially cleared of wrongdoing, but still paying the cruellest of costs for his kindness to others.
We are nearing the date which President Obama first gave for the closure of Guantanamo and yet now it looks as not only will this deadline not be met but that Guantanamo Bay may stay open. However Shaker has been cleared for release and it is our duty to ensure that the British government does everything in its power to Bring Shaker home to his family.
3. Action required
Please write to your local MP and to the Foreign Secretary directly. Ask David Miliband to press the US administration for the release and return of Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo Bay. Ask your local MP to press David Miliband to fulfil his duties as the Foreign Secretary and to make this representation on the behalf of Shaker Aamer.
Two sample letters are provided below. Model letters can be sent as they are provided or adjusted as is felt appropriate to include further information. If you receive a reply we request you to send a copy of the letter you sent and the reply you received to Cageprisoners. This is very important as it helps Cageprisoners to monitor the situation with regards to our campaigns and to improve upon the current model letters and our wider strategy. It is preferable that letters be sent via post, or otherwise by fax and/or email. All details for our offices are available at the bottom of this alert.
4. Sample letters
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Sample letter 1 to be sent to the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, at:
The Foreign Secretary
King Charles Street
London
SW1A 2AH
Or email him at: milibandd@parliament.uk
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[INSERT YOU NAME]
[INSERT YOUR ADDRESS]
[INSERT DATE]
RE: The return of British Resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo
Dear Mr Miliband,
I am writing to urge you to press the US Administration for the return of British Resident Shaker Aamer to the UK. Shaker has been held in Guantanamo for nearly eight years without charge or trial. Your Government has already recognised Shaker Aamer's right of residence in the UK. In August 2007, Shaker was on the list of British Residents held in Guantanamo whose release was requested by the UK.
A recent letter from your Office, stated that the US has not agreed to the release and return to the UK of Shaker Aamer, "in light of security concerns in relation to his case", but that the UK request "still stands should the US change their position."
In July this year, Shaker was attacked by guards in riot gear, his clothes were cut off and he was left in his cell in the freezing cold. There are reports that he refused to board a flight to Saudi Arabia, a country he fled from many years ago. Clearly, any "security concerns" have been dropped and there is no reason why Shaker should not be allowed to return to his wife and family in the UK. It is totally unacceptable that there is any further delay in ending the gross injustice to Shaker Aamer and his British family. His wife and four young children wait every day for news of him. He should be with them at his home in London.
Shaker Aamer is the victim of gross injustice. His treatment is a crime against his humanity and in violation of all international laws. He has been unlawfully arrested, cruelly rendered to torture and held in prolonged solitary confinement. He is on hunger strike and in very poor health. Shaker has lost half his body weight and he has developed many illnesses as a result of the harsh conditions in detention.
I call upon you to act to end his ordeal in the name of the British People.
Regards,
[SIGN AFTER PRINTING]
[INSERT NAME]
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Sample letter 2 to be sent to your local MP, at:
[The Name of your MP]
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Or email them at [lastname][initial]@parliment.uk
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[INSERT YOU NAME]
[INSERT YOUR ADDRESS]
[INSERT DATE]
RE: The return of British Resident Shaker Aamer from Guantanamo
Dear [INSERT THE NAME OF YOUR MP],
I am writing to urge you to press the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, to in turn press the US Administration for the return of British Resident Shaker Aamer to the UK. Shaker has been held in Guantanamo for nearly eight years without charge or trial. Our Government has already recognised Shaker Aamer's right of residence in the UK. In August 2007, Shaker was on the list of British Residents held in Guantanamo whose release was requested by the UK.
A recent letter from the FCO, stated that the US has not agreed to the release and return to the UK of Shaker Aamer,"in light of security concerns in relation to his case", but that the UK request "still stands should the US change their position."
In July this year, Shaker was attacked by guards in riot gear, his clothes were cut off and he was left in his cell in the freezing cold. There are reports that he refused to board a flight to Saudi Arabia, a country he fled from many years ago. Clearly, any "security concerns" have been dropped and there is no reason why Shaker should not be allowed to return to his wife and family in the UK. It is totally unacceptable that there is any further delay in ending the gross injustice to Shaker Aamer and his British family. His wife and four young children wait every day for news of him. He should be with them at his home in London.
Shaker Aamer is the victim of gross injustice. His treatment is a crime against his humanity and in violation of all international laws. He has been unlawfully arrested, cruelly rendered to torture and held in prolonged solitary confinement. He is on hunger strike and in very poor health. Shaker has lost half his body weight and he has developed many illnesses as a result of the harsh conditions in detention.
I call upon you to act to end his ordeal in the name of the British People.
Regards,
[SIGN AFTER PRINTING]
[INSERT NAME]
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For more information, please contact the office on the numbers or email below
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Cageprisoners is a human rights NGO that exists to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held and abused as part of the War on Terror. We aim to give a voice to the voiceless.
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