The appeal hearings of 10 detainees - held without trial at Belmarsh and Woodhill prisons and Broadmoor High Security Hospital, since 2001 - will start on Wednesday 7 July at the High Court, The Strand.
The appeal will challenge the fairness of the SIAC hearings last October, which upheld the Government’s decision to keep the men detained. In particular it will be argued that:
1. the ‘evidence’ presented relied on secret intelligence, much of which would have been obtained through the torture of detainees held abroad.
2 The ’evidence’ was heard in secret so the defence could not challenge its content or origin.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty, said: ‘This is Britain’s Guantanamo Bay. These men are being held on the say so of unknown intelligence operatives. If they have committed a crime they should be put on trial, otherwise they should be released. What is particularly distressing is that our Government appears happy to rely on intelligence obtained through torture.’
Gareth Peirce, solicitor for some of the detainees, believes that the ‘British government has knowingly put torture victims in conditions that could reactivate their experience of being tortured.’ She is concerned that indefinite detention is ‘driving the detainees mad.’
To oppose this injustice, the Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC) has organised two events:
PUBLIC MEETING AGAINST INTERNMENT: Tues 6 July, 6.30pm in the Moses Room, House of Lords, Parliament
The meeting will be hosted by Lord Rea and is supported by Liberty and Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers.
Speakers include: Tony Benn, Shami Chakrabarti (Director of Liberty), Liz Davies (barrister, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers), Liz Fekete (Deputy Director of Institute of Race Relations, author of the publication (Anti-terrorism and human rights), Victoria Brittain (journalist and co-author with Gillian Slovo of the successful play on Guantanamo (Honor Bound to Freedom… at the Trycicle Theatre), Hugo Charlton (barrister, chair of the Green Party), Dr Siddiqui (Leader of the Muslim Parliament UK), Azmat Begg (father of Guantanamo detainee, Moazzem Begg).
PUBLIC PROTEST OUTSIDE THE HIGH COURT:
Wed 7 July, 9-11am at Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand.
‘Freedom for the Detainees'
‘Belmarsh, Guantanamo & Abu Ghraib: Axis of Evil, Access to Torture'
Contact:
Barry Hugill, Liberty Press Officer, 020 7378 3656
Estella Schmid,
CAMPACC, 020 7586 5892 or 020 7250 1315,
ugo Charlton, Chair Green Party, 07990 580 600
NOTES on Britain's Guantanamo: unjust detention and complicity in torture 1. The Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (ATCSA) was rushed through Parliament in the wake of September 11th 2001 after the
government declared that the UK faced a ‘state of emergency that threatened the life of the nation. Part IV, applies to any foreign
national in the UK that the Home Secretary ‘reasonably suspects' of terrorism. If such a person could not be deported - e.g., because they would face torture in their home country _ then the person could be detained indefinitely. The law gave powers to the Special Immigration Appeals Committee (SIAC), instead of a court, to hear secret evidence against anyone who challenges their own detention under the Act.
2. The suspect or his lawyers are excluded from closed sessions and so cannot hear the full case against them. Government officials
acknowledged that such evidence could include ‘information' extracted under torture and obtained in the oppressive conditions in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Airbase, or any other of the Coalition's holding centres for prisoners in the ‘war on terror'. By allowing such evidence to be used against these men, the British government is complicit in torture.
