United Kingdom: Abandoning one of ours to Gitmo

last updated 8 January 2015

Kate Allen

The Independent

The U.S. has perpetrated a “staggering” injustice against a British resident, said Kate Allen. For 10 long years, Saudi-born Shaker Aamer has lived every day of his life in a cell in Guantánamo, “without answering a single charge or having had one day in court.” He says he has been tortured there, subjected to days of sleep deprivation and beatings. Over the course of this decade, he has been transformed “from a young father in his mid-30s to a gray-haired man in his mid-40s,” while his British wife and children, back home in London, struggle to get along without him. He has not even met his youngest child, born after his 2001 arrest in Afghanistan. All the other British residents and citizens detained—17 all told—have been released. The British government has repeatedly asked for Aamer to be returned to his family, but to no avail. How long can this continue? If he has committed a crime, let him stand trial. It’s time for Foreign Secretary William Hague to “exert all possible pressure” on the U.S. to charge or release this British resident. At this point, his confinement degrades not just the moral authority of the U.S.—but that of Britain, too.