SAVE SHAKER AAMER CAMPAIGN

1. TORTURE INQUIRY

2. Washington Post article 'forcible transfer': model letter to use

3. More letters you can use: rendition and torture.

4. Nailed, Miliband and six lies on torture:

1. TORTURE INQUIRY

 The Save Shaker Aamer Campaign has serious concerns regarding the current remit of the inquiry into allegations of complicity in torture abroad as announced in Parliament on July 6th 2010. We had hoped that the inquiry would investigate all the known cases and that it would be open and public. Without transparency, there cannot be closure.

 After 9/11, UK Citizens and Residents were randomly abducted, abused, tortured and detained for years without trial in absolute denial of all their human rights. There is documentary evidence that the UK was actively involved in decisions which led to abuse of detainees and their rendition to torture. If the reputation of our country is to be restored, we need to know the truth of what happened and who authorised practices that have breached all international laws.                                                                                                                                

 SSAC’s main concerns are:                                                                                          

1) It is hard to believe that the inquiry will be independent, if it is to be led by Sir Peter Gibson who is currently the Statutory Commissioner for the Intelligence Services. He should be replaced.                                   

2) Most or all of the sessions are to be held in secret, with the final report made to the Prime Minister who will decide what can be made public. A secret inquiry will not restore public confidence. It should be open and transparent with most or all sessions held in public.

3) The inquiry will not deal with individual cases. This would deny a full investigation of the evidence from the former Guantanamo detainees and others and from their legal representatives. The inquiry should deal with all allegations of torture.

4) The inquiry should have powers to require Ministers to attend. All those who may be held responsible for authorising or taking part in any complicity in torture must be called to account.                                                                                                             

5) The suggestion that the former Guantanamo detainees should accept mediation and compensation before the inquiry takes place, casts doubt on the inquiry’s objectives. The inquiry may appear to be attempting to buy the silence of those who have been tortured.                                                                                                                  

6) The inquiry will be incomplete and of limited validity if British Resident Shaker Aamer remains in Guantanamo. He is a prime victim and witness to torture. His US lawyer has stated that Shaker continues to be tortured to this very day.  British Resident Shaker Aamer must be returned to the UK so that his allegations of torture in the presence of British Security agents can be investigated by the inquiry. 

 PLEASE RAISE THESE CONCERNS IN YOUR LETTERS AND AT YOUR MEETINGS REGARDING THE INQUIRY AS A MATTER OF URGENCY.

 Please support our campaign to obtain the release and the return of Shaker Aamer to his home and family in the UK. Shaker was cleared for release in 2007 by the Bush Administration and this was re-affirmed in January this year by the Obama Task Force Review. Please do what you can to end his eight year ordeal.

 2. FORCIBLE TRANSFER:

Please write to William Haque: Model letter you can use.

 Dear Foreign Secretary ,

 It is reported today in the Washington Post, that the Obama Administration has forced a Guantanamo detainee, cleared for release, back to Algeria, against his will, and that other Algerian detainees, including former British Resident Ahmed Belbacha, may also be forcibly returned to Algeria.

 This is the first time that a Guantanamo detainee, cleared for release, has been forced to return to a country where he had a well-founded fear of persecution and threat to his life. Saudi Arabia, like Algeria, is a country known to practise systematic torture and abuse of human rights.

 We urge you to demand the immediate release and return of British Resident Shaker Aamer to the UK. Shaker is in his ninth year of detention without charge. He is the last British Resident still unlawfully held in Guantanamo.

 We know that Shaker has resisted many US attempts to force him to agree to be handed over to Saudi Arabia, a country he fled from over 20 years ago. His only wish is to return to the UK, to his home and family living in Battersea,South London.

 Our Government has recognised his legal right of return to this country as a long-term resident of the UK. We appeal to you to act on his behalf to end his long ordeal in Guantanamo.

 Shaker was cleared for release in 2007 and the decision was re-affirmed by the Obama Task Force Review in January 2010. Shaker should be back with his family and friends in the UK.

 We should also immediately offer to accept Ahmed Belbacha back to the UK where he would be safe from further injustice.

 Yours sincerely,

3. MORE LETTERS YOU CAN USE

PREVENTION OF DISCLOSURE: RENDITION, TORTURE, SHAKER: REMAINS A VICTIM

 Dear Editor,

It is shocking to learn that the UK Government played a major role in the extraordinary rendition of detainees to Guantanamo, as reported in the Guardian (14.7.2010).

It is no wonder that the previous Government tried so hard to prevent disclosure of the evidence of its duplicity.

Now we understand why Tony Blair merely stated that Guantanamo was an "anomaly." Clearly, he would not condemn unlawful practices that he so readily endorsed.

All the facts of the UK's role in complicity in torture and rendition must now be told if we are to restore our faith in justice and start to rebuild our reputation in the eyes of the world.

The Coalition Government must show that it has no part in this terrible chapter by demanding the return of British Resident Shaker Aamer who is still incarcerated in Guantanamo. 

Despite having been cleared for release in 2007, Shaker is still not home.

Shaker Aamer remains a victim of the UK's foreign policy after 9/11, which has now been proved to have supported abduction and rendition to torture, in violation of all international laws.

Bring him home now, end his eight-year ordeal.

Yours sincerely,

Dear Editor,

At last the truth of the shameful role of the UK Government in the torture and rendition of British citizens and Residents to Guantanamo and other torture sites is coming into the public domain.

All those responsible for unlawful decisions must be called to account.(Guardian 16.7.2010 "Come clean over torture")

Powerful media pressure and the determination of the courts are forcing out the evidence, page by page.

British Resident Shaker Aamer is still held in Guantanamo. He is also a victim of the duplicity of the previous Government.

He must be released from his eight-year ordeal so that his allegations of torture in the presence of UK agents can be part of any inquiry.

Like all the others, he has been greatly wronged by a Government whose responsability should have been to protect him from harm.

Yours sincerely,

4. Nailed, Miliband and six lies on torture:

"For almost every day we are learning new facts about how, under Blair, Britain turned her back on human decency when it came to torture and human rights."

Daily Mail (16th July 2010) – click here for full article

Grilled: Former Foreign Secretary David Miliband lied six times during an interview with the BBC's Andrew Neil

Article "All five candidates for the Labour Party leadership have been scuttling to distance themselves from the record of Gordon Brown in power.

But the odds-on favourite to win the leadership contest, former Foreign Secretary David Miliband, is finding it very hard indeed to disentangle himself from the most sordid and shameful aspect of New Labour rule - British involvement in the torture of numerous terror suspects overseas.

Today, a special Mail investigation can reveal the depths of Miliband's embroilment in the torture scandal - and shows that Labour's latest golden boy is in complete denial about New Labour's record in sanctioning and then covering up British involvement in torture over the past decade.

Indeed, I can reveal that David Miliband uttered no fewer than six massive lies when grilled in an interview with BBC inquisitor Andrew Neil on the subject of torture for the first time since stepping down from office.

The six lies came in the course of a nine-minute interview - that's a phenomenal strike rate of one lie every 90 seconds.

Though outwardly confident and relaxed, Miliband told a series of falsehoods that cast a giant shadow over his personal integrity, and even his fitness to succeed Gordon Brown as Labour leader.

Lie number 1: The first lie was quickly produced when Neil asked whether Miliband believed there was 'any evidence' that British intelligence officials had been complicit in the use of torture on terror suspects when New Labour was in power.

Back came the insouciant reply: an emphatic 'no'. Read more.

 Read more: Yet Miliband's response is bewildering. It suggests that he is completely unaware of the mountain of very troubling testimony which has emerged in recent years suggesting that Britain was 'complicit' in torture (i.e. that we received information from foreign intelligence services, even though we had grounds for suspecting it was supplied under duress: nobody suggests that British agents themselves took part in torture).

The grim truth is that there have been at least 15 cases of British nationals or residents who have claimed over the past two years to have been tortured with the complicity, knowledge and sometimes even in the presence of British intelligence officers.

The combined circumstantial evidence of our complicity with torture is nothing short of overwhelming. It is also a matter of national shame.

Some of the evidence has been provided by groups such as the humanitarian organisation Human Rights watch. Some has emerged in court testimony.

Two parliamentary watchdogs, the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights, regard it as troubling and serious.

But not, apparently, our former Foreign Secretary.

Lie number 2: This came when Andrew Neil asked whether Britain has, at any stage, provided questions to be put by foreign intelligence agents to those who were being tortured. Miliband replied: 'we don't have evidence of that.'

Unfortunately for Miliband, there is once again abundant evidence.

Indeed, he himself as Foreign Secretary was obliged to submit documents to court which showed beyond doubt that British intelligence was involved in questioning terror suspects.

This was during the hearing concerning the terror suspect Binyam Mohamed, since cleared on all charges. Miliband was obliged to confess that we were submitting questions for Binyam to answer even when he was being held (and cruelly abused) by the U.S. in a Pakistani prison.

Lie number 3: Miliband's third lie also concerns the Binyam Mohamed case. He told Andrew Neil that not one of the allegations of torture which have so far been taken to court in Britain involved torture carried out by the Americans.

In fact, the courts have indeed found that the U.S. authorities subjected Binyam to 'cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment'.

By this stage of the TV interview, the lies and mis-statements were coming thick and fast.

Lie number 4: The fourth lie came when David Miliband absurdly told Neil that he had not tried to prevent public disclosure of court evidence in the Binyam Mohamed case.

In fact, as Binyam's lawyer Clive Stafford Smith told me last night, Miliband 'fought us tooth and nail' to prevent vital documents being brought into the public domain.

Miliband used every legal ruse - and spent some £213,000 in legal fees - in a battle to keep vital evidence secret from the public.

Lie number 5: This concerns David Miliband's troubled dealings with one of Britain's most senior judges, Master of the Rolls Lord Neuberger.

Last year, in an utterly devastating judgment, Lord Neuberger stated that there were grounds for 'distrusting' legal statements made by Miliband based on advice from MI5 personnel about British involvement in torture.

And yet when this was put to him by Andrew Neil, Miliband offered a bland and unruffled denial that such a thing had ever occurred. It is inconceivable that Miliband could have forgotten such a shattering verdict.

Lie number 6: Miliband's final lie came when Neil asked him why, as Foreign Secretary, he did not institute an inquiry to get to the bottom of the mass of evidence that Britain has been complicit in torture.

In response, Miliband claimed that he took 'extensive measures inside the system' to get at the truth.

Yet he once again denied that he had 'fought against an inquiry' - notwithstanding the fact that he faced down a barrage of pressure from newspapers like the Mail, human rights organisations and political parties (such as the Conservatives) for one to be held.

There can be only two explanations for Miliband's set of wildly inaccurate, partial and misleading answers. One is that he is exceptionally stupid and genuinely does not know what he is talking about.

But this does not stand up. David Miliband is a well- trained and competent man who has held high office and aspires to be Prime Minister.

As Foreign Secretary, he was obliged to deal almost daily with allegations about British complicity with torture. He knew the subject matter backwards.

So the only realistic conclusion is that Miliband was knowingly deceiving TV viewers. In other words, he was lying.

How he expected to get away with such a monumental deceit, however, is another matter. The best guess is that Miliband is in denial.

He simply cannot accept that a New Labour government was responsible for what looks like a retreat into barbarism.

To be fair to Miliband, the worst of the abuses would appear to have ended by the time he became Foreign Secretary in the summer of 2007. He was not personally responsible for the abuses - only the subsequent lying and cover-up.

So why didn't Miliband do the decent and sensible thing and order his officials to come clean?

One answer may be a well-meaning, though morally damnable, desire to stick up for the intelligence agencies who mistakenly believed they were serving their country while tolerating the physical abuse of terror suspects.

Another possible answer is that Miliband was simply being loyal to Tony Blair, his political mentor and friend.

For almost every day we are learning new facts about how, under Blair, Britain turned her back on human decency when it came to torture and human rights.

Is Miliband about to throw away his reputation and perhaps his entire career in defence of Tony Blair? "

Ray for Save Shaker Aamer Campaign