Torture & rendition
News about torture and rendition
It has now been more than 2,889 days that Babar Ahmad has been detained without charge in UK prisons. This makes him the longest serving British citizen imprisoned withouth charge or trial in modern history.
The illegal prison camp at Guantánamo Bay opened its doors for business in its present incarnation on 11 January 2002. Alleged to be the “worst of the worst”, many prisoners have been held beyond the confines of the law for 10 years now. Over that time, Guantánamo has successfully managed to avoid ever falling within the bounds of the norms and practices of international law.
Friday 24 June
The London Guantánamo Campaign and Kingston Peace Council/CND will lead a rally in Trafalgar Square on Sunday 26 June, 2-4pm, to mark International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
Allegations of British complicity in the torture and abuse of detainees in Afghanistan will be scrutinised at a Judicial Review in the High Court from19 April, 1.30pm at the High Court of Justice, challenging the policy of transferring persons captured by UK forces in Afghanistan into Afghan custody.
In an extraordinary and disturbing development in Reprieve client Binyam Mohamed’s case, it emerged on 12 February that the British Government’s barrister wrote a note to one of the Court of Appeal judges in an attempt to manipulate the draft judgment. This note was not copied to Binyam’s lawyers, which prevented them objecting. Yesterday the court ordered that the other parties to the case now be allowed to respond, after which there will be a hearing as to whether the judgment will be altered.
The latest evidence that British government officials have been complicit in the torture of British citizens during the so-called "war on terror" has come from the most compelling of sources: the torturers themselves. Ian Cobain, The Guardian
Gareth Peirce writes about Torture, Secrecy and the British State in the London Review of Books
Read the report of a public meeting and film showing. Read the speech from Sarah Ludford, MEP.
Also see the work of: