Shami Chakrabarti, Director of Liberty:

"The Home Secretary must now release or charge the fourteen detainees, who have been imprisoned only on the grounds of his suspicion. If there is real evidence against any of them, it should be heard in a proper court of law. Two years have now passed since the government introduced internment. Belmarsh prison, where many of the individuals have been held, is Britain's very own version of Guantanamo Bay. If the campaign against terrorism means anything, it is surely to uphold the principles of fairness, justice and equal treatment. Allowing people to be detained because of a politician's suspicions, without knowing or being able to properly respond to the allegations against them, is an outrageous and unacceptable breach of these principles. Internment must end without delay. Fair trials are given to murderers, rapists and paedophiles. Rightly, there is an insistence that a full and fair trial should be afforded to Saddam Hussein. Why then are these fourteen men denied such a basic and fundamental right?"