[Ppnews] Shaker Aamer’s 3000 Days In Guantánamo

Mon May 3 13:40:45 EDT 2010

Shaker Aamer’s 3000 Days In Guantánamo: Moazzam Begg Speaks

By Andy Worthington

03 May, 2010
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk%20>Andyworthington.co.uk
http://countercurrents.org/worthington030510.htm

All week, the journalist Paul Cahalan has been 
writing articles 
about<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2009/03/11/forgotten-in-guantanamo-british-resident-shaker-aamer/> 
Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in 
Guantánamo Bay, for the Wandsworth Guardian (in 
Shaker’s home borough). Shaker, who has a British 
wife and four British children, continues to be 
held at Guantánamo, despite being cleared for release in 2007.

Shaker’s story features in the new documentary 
film, 
"<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo/>Outside 
the Law: Stories from Guantánamo" (directed by 
filmmaker Polly Nash and myself), which is 
currently on a UK tour, and I have also reported 
his story at length in a number of articles (see, 
for 
example,<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/01/18/murders-at-guantanamo-scott-horton-of-harpers-exposes-the-truth-about-the-2006-suicides/> 
here, 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/02/11/shaker-aamers-wife-speaks-since-he-has-been-away-there-is-no-colour-in-life/>here 
and<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/02/12/torture-in-afghanistan-and-guantanamo-shaker-aamers-lawyers-speak/> 
here). In these articles, I have cast doubts on 
the British government’s assertions that they 
have done all in their power to secure his 
return, for the simple reason that Shaker  as 
the foremost advocate of the prisoners’ rights in 
Guantánamo  knows so much about what has taken 
place at the prison (and in the prisons in 
Afghanistan where the men were held beforehand) 
that when he is finally released his accounts 
will prove profoundly embarrassing to both the 
British and the American governments.

To mark Shaker’s 3000th day in Guantánamo (which 
is today, according to his lawyers), and which 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/04/22/3000-days-in-guantanamo-shaker-aamer-protest-at-10-downing-street-saturday-april-24-2010/>was 
marked by a protest outside Downing Street last 
Saturday, Paul Cahalan asked former prisoner 
Moazzam Begg to write about his friend, and I’m 
cross-posting the article below. As I 
mentioned<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/04/26/tonight-london-international-documentary-festival-screens-outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo-plus-report-on-saturdays-shaker-aamer-protest/> 
in my review of last Saturday’s protest, the 
plight of Shaker Aamer has slipped off the radar 
completely since the General Election was 
announced (as 
have<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/02/19/will-parliament-rid-us-of-the-cruel-and-unjust-control-order-regime/> 
Britain’s unjust counter-terrorism policies in general). I added:

[W]hoever is in 10 Downing Street on May 7 needs 
to press the US not only for Shaker’s return, but 
also to offer new homes in the UK to other 
cleared prisoners who cannot be repatriated 
because they face the risk of torture; in 
particular, Ahmed Belbacha, an Algerian 
(represented by the legal action charity Reprieve 
and also cleared for release in 2007), who is 
terrified of returning to Algeria, and who lived 
in the UK for nearly three years until he was 
kidnapped in Pakistan and sent to Guantánamo, but 
also other cleared prisoners, who have no 
connection to the UK, but who will not be freed 
until third countries offer to help out, as has 
happened with Albania, Belgium, Bermuda, France, 
Georgia, Hungary, Ireland, Palau, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain and Switzerland.

Whoever is in 10 Downing Street on May 7 needs to 
understand that trying to take the moral high 
ground, as David Miliband has done by hectoring 
other countries to take cleared prisoners, while 
claiming that the UK has already played its part 
in helping to close Guantánamo, is both dishonest 
and disgraceful. Britain has only taken in its 
own citizens and residents, and should follow the 
example of the countries mentioned above, if only 
to show some willingness to atone for the 
government’s enthusiastic embrace of the Bush 
administration’s "War on Terror," which has 
recently been exposed in the British courts.

On Friday, I’ll be writing about how those of us 
concerned with this ongoing travesty of justice 
can put pressure on the new government (updating 
the letter to foreign secretary David Miliband 
that is available here), but for now, here are 
Moazzam’s comments about Shaker. For Paul 
Cahalan’s other articles this week, 
see<http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/8129006.Foreign_Secretary_defends_Government_stance_on_Shaker_Aamer/> 
this exclusive interview with David Miliband, and 
also 
see<http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/8128996.3_000_days_of_Guantanamo_Bay_imprisonment_for_Shaker_Aamer/> 
here,<http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/8129148.Bush_kept_prisoners_to_avoid_embarrassment__claims_former_official/> 
here,<http://www.wandsworthguardian.co.uk/news/8131385.Concerns_over_Guantanamo_Bay_interrogation_methods/> 
here and 
<http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/8131507.COMMENT__What_will_it_take_to_make_us_shout_/>here.

Friend of Shaker Aamer reveals personal message of thanks
Wandsworth Guardian, May 2, 2010

Former Guantánamo detainee Moazzam Begg reveals a 
personal message of thanks from his friend Shaker 
Aamer as he talks about his capture and daily routine in Guantánamo.

I have known Shaker since 1997 when he came to 
the UK and got married. He was working a 
translator in a legal firm. I knew him on-and-off 
until the time we both went to Afghanistan to 
build a school. We had seen postcards of the 
school and both helped in the project, raising 
funds, speaking to teachers. We both lived in the 
same house in Kabul. At the time we were with our 
wives and children. When the attacks of September 
11 happened, Shaker was very upset and shocked. 
We evacuated the region outside Kabul. We heard 
the shells coming and we were separated. The next 
I heard of him is when I was in Kandahar as a prisoner.

It is clear US soldiers were impressed by him but 
I believe his personal character and charisma is 
what keeps him in Guantánamo as opposed to 
anything he has been accused of. At the same time 
everyone who has met him  interrogators, 
soldiers  have really liked him as an individual.

When I speak to former detainees they say I have 
a message from Shaker. I ask, 'How is he?’ He has 
gone through all sorts of trauma for standing up 
for the rights of prisoners. Recently some 
prisoners were released to Albania, and Shaker 
sent a message [often messages are shouted across 
the camp] saying he appreciates all the 
campaigning and he wants to come back home.

He is seeing all these people released and he is 
still being held. People have been released to 
Ireland, Portugal  detainees who have no 
connection to those countries, being accepted as 
refugees in Europe and elsewhere. For Shaker it is devastating.

His family hasn’t received a letter from him for 
a very long time. I think about him every day. I 
was there for three years  he has been there nearly three times that.

I’m not sure about his routine, it changes, but 
based upon what I know, his routine is: he would 
wake up in the morning, have morning prayer, have 
breakfast handed over to him through a beanhole 
in the door. I believe he is in the 
maximum-security camp, Camp 6, which has all 
isolated cells. Which would mean he spends most 
of the time in that cell with no communication 
with any human being and that they would take him 
out into the recreation yard at the end of the 
day where he would see a little bit of light.

There will be [electric] light in his cell 24 
hours a day. They may dim it a little bit at 
night. He will be sleeping on a metal bunk. His 
physical make-up would change. Shaker was a big 
man but from what I have been told he has lost a 
great deal of weight. His mental state is up and 
down but remains strong and that is one of the 
reasons he continues to get punished.

Despite what he has gone through he still stands 
up for people’s rights. The prisoners love him as 
an individual. He is communicable and funny and 
talks with the Americans on their own terms. He 
will speak out and that is why there is a fear he won’t return.

I know he knows enough that would embarrass 
British and Americans. He was involved with 
high-level discussions with the colonels about 
breaking hunger strikes and he has information 
about the intelligence services that people don’t want heard.

All basic human rights only get given to you as 
much as you co-operate. You get no doctor, no 
proper communication with your family  you give 
them to the worst convicted prisoners on the 
planet, but not those in Guantánamo.

Somebody has to recognise this is wrong and 
common sense has to prevail. Shaker has never 
been tried, let alone charged. It makes no logic 
or sense. There is no justice. The campaign to 
free Shaker needs to get that out.

Andy Worthington is the author of 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/the-guantanamo-files/>The 
Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 
Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published 
by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the 
US, and available from Amazon  click on the 
following for the US and the UK). To receive new 
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and <http://twitter.com/GuantanamoAndy>Twitter). 
Also see my 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/01/04/guantanamo-the-definitive-prisoner-list-updated-for-2010/>definitive 
Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in January 
2010, details about the new documentary film, 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo/>"Outside 
the Law: Stories from Guantánamo" (co-directed by 
Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and 
<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo-uk-tour-dates-2010/>currently 
on tour in the UK), and, if you appreciate my 
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<http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/03/01/fundraising-week-please-support-my-guantanamo-work/>make 
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