Videos: Shaker Aamer’s Children Call for His Return from Guantánamo to the UK, and Ask Supporters to Sign Petition to British Government
16.4.12
Please sign the e-petition calling for the release of Shaker Aamer from Guantánamo! And if you can collect signatures and email addresses, please print off copies of the paper petition available here. The deadline to secure 100,000 signatures is May 14. In addition, if you’re in London today (April 16), please join myself, members of the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign and other supporters in Parliament Square, where, from 1-3 pm, we will be greeting the MPs returning from their Easter recess with a demand for Shaker’s release.
As part of the ongoing campaign to secure 100,000 signatures on an e-petition asking the British government to demand the return from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, Sheikh Sulaiman Ghani, the Imam of Tooting Islamic Centre, close to Shaker’s home in Battersea, has produced two powerful promotional videos calling for individuals and families to sign the petition, which needs 100,000 signatures by May 14 to be eligible for a Parliamentary debate.
The front of the flyer to promote the e-petition is posted at the top of this article. Please click on the image to enlarge, and the text of the e-petition — entitled, “Return Shaker Aamer to the UK” — is as follows:
Shaker Aamer is a British resident with a British wife and children who has been imprisoned without trial by the US in Bagram Air Force Base and Guantánamo Bay for over ten years. The Foreign Secretary must undertake urgent new initiatives to achieve the immediate transfer of Shaker Aamer to the UK from continuing indefinite detention in Guantánamo Bay.
The videos, posted below, feature Shaker’s four children, Johina, Michael, Saif and the youngest, Faris, who has never even met his father, and was born on Valentine’s Day 2002 (February 14), the day that his father arrived in Guantánamo, having been seized by bounty hunters in Afghanistan three months earlier. The first video consists entirely of their reflections, and their encouragement for everyone to sign the e-petition, and the second also features commentary by Sheikh Sulaiman Ghani.
Please sign the e-petition if you haven’t already done so, and please ask everyone you know to do so as well. Unfortunately, only British citizens and residents can sign it, although there is no minimum age limit, so children can sign, as well as adults. However, another petition, for an international audience (including the UK) is also available on the influential Care 2 Petition Site.
The priority, however, is to get 100,000 people to sign the e-petition, and to bring to an end the unjust detention of Shaker, who was cleared for release by the Bush administration in 2007, and by President Obama in 2009, and whose return has also been requested by successive British governments since 2007. His release would also break a terrible deadlock at Guantanamo, where no living prisoner has been released for 15 months, since January 2011, even though 89 of the remaining 171 prisoners have been cleared for release.
As mentioned above, if you would like to collect signatures, please print off copies of the paper petition available here. These can then be sent to the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign for inputting (email for address or phone 07756 493877). Please be advised that, when collecting signatures, you should let signatories know that they will be required to respond when they receive an email asking them to validate their signatures.
For further information, including requesting flyers (which are currently out of print), please email info@saveshaker.org, and if you would like to make a donation to print more flyers, or to cover postage and packing for the 100,000 flyers already sent out, please donate to: the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, the Co-operative Bank, sort code 08-92-99, account number 65467002, swift CPBKGB22. Or send your donation to: SSAC Treasurer, 15 Reynolds Close, SW19 2QJ.
Andy Worthington is the author of 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) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed (and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg and YouTube). Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in June 2011, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.
Who's still at Guantánamo?
13 Responses
Andy Worthington says...
On Facebook, yesterday evening, I publicized the protest for Shaker Aamer in Parliament Square today, and my friend Waris Ali pointed out that there is a Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/events/206932302748591/
...on April 16th, 2012 at 10:33 am
Andy Worthington says...
As I also noted:
Please sign the e-petition here (UK citizens and residents only, but children can sign as well as adults): http://www.freeshaker.com
An international petition is here: http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/shaker-aamerguantanamo-bay/
...on April 16th, 2012 at 10:34 am
Andy Worthington says...
Monique D’hooghe wrote:
andy, can you explain why he has not been released yet if both the UK and the Us seem to have cleared him?
...on April 16th, 2012 at 10:34 am
Andy Worthington says...
Yes, Monique, it’s because it would cause embarrassment to both the American and the British governments, and because Shaker might also know about events that took place in Afghanistan and Guantanamo that are crimes. And so, because the majority of people in the US and the UK don’t care about Guantanamo, there is no reason for it to be a political priority, and no reason for either the US or the UK to hurry to release him.
In addition, it’s also worth noting that Shaker is not the only cleared prisoner still held. The Obama administration is holding 88 other men in Guantanamo (out of 171 in total) who have been cleared for release, but are still held. See here for more on that: http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2012/02/13/new-close-guantanamo-campaign-begins-prisoner-profiles-features-abdul-razak-qadir-one-of-five-innocent-uighurs-still-held/
...on April 16th, 2012 at 10:34 am
Andy Worthington says...
Faridah Harant wrote:
thanks, shared
...on April 16th, 2012 at 10:35 am
Andy Worthington says...
Monique D’hooghe wrote:
thank you andy…. we all owe you one huge debt for your in depth research ….
cuddles from brussels
...on April 16th, 2012 at 10:35 am
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks again, Monique, and thanks, Faridah. I hope to see some of you in Parliament Square. I’ll be there around 2 pm.
...on April 16th, 2012 at 10:37 am
Andy Worthington says...
Jack Cajones Jacksie wrote:
will do. Shared and signed.
...on April 16th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, Jack. Much appreciated.
...on April 16th, 2012 at 4:23 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Tangerine Bolen wrote:
Will share this widely today Andy. Will put in the RevTruth community (can I add you there? you will get more signatures) and tweet it too. Thank you for all you are doing Andy – truly. Have you talked to our lawyers yet? If not, please email me your number so I can call you. We have a few things to discuss.
...on April 16th, 2012 at 8:09 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Tangerine Bolen wrote:
ok, signed, shared, tweeted. best of luck
...on April 16th, 2012 at 8:10 pm
Andy Worthington says...
Thanks, Tangerine. Please do add me to the RevTruth community, and I’ll be in touch regarding the lawyers.
...on April 16th, 2012 at 8:14 pm
Andy Worthington says...
My friend Zilma Nunes has translated the international petition on the Care 2 Petition Site into Portuguese. The translation is posted below in the hope of helping Portuguese speakers to support Shaker Aamer’s cause:
Esta e apeticao de Andy Worthington que requer assinatura (peticao 2).
Por favor assinem a peticao de Andy Worthington em favor da liberacao de”Shaker Aamer”.
Alvo: governo dos EUA (Secretário de Estado, Hillary Clinton), Reino Unido do governo (secretário de Relações Exteriores William Hague)
Patrocinado por: Em Fechar Guantánamo, campanha do Londres- Guantánamo, “salvem Shaker Aamer.”
O dia 14 de fevereiro marcou o 10 º aniversário da chegada a Guantanamo de Shaker Aamer, o último residente britânico na prisão. Naquele dia, sua família e seus advogados em Londres lançou uma petição e-no site do governo britânico (http://www.freeshaker.com/), intitulado, “O Retorno Shaker Aamer para o Reino Unido”, no qual eles chamaram o governo a “empreender urgentes e novas iniciativas para alcançar a transferência imediata de Shaker Aamer para o Reino Unido de continuar a detenção indefinida em Guantanamo Bay”.
A petição e só pode ser assinado por cidadãos britânicos e residentes (incluindo crianças e adultos), mas há claramente interesse internacional em assegurar a libertação de Shaker Aamer, e pondo fim a sua prisão longa e injusta em Guantánamo. Como resultado, este Cuidados , a 2 petição foi criada para fornecer em qualquer lugar do mundo uma oportunidade para pedir ao governo dos EUA para lançar a campanha ” Shaker Aamer”, e pedir ao governo britânico para continuar a sustentar esta campanha para garantir a sua liberdade.
Detenção em curso Shaker Aamer é ao mesmo tempo inexplicável e injustificável, porque a administração Bush liberou-o para a liberação de Guantánamo em 2007, a administração Obama teria liberado-o para a sua liberação de Guantánamo em 2010, e o governo britânico vem pedindo a sua libertação para os últimos cinco ano.
Por favor, assinem esta petição, simultaneamente, para exercer pressão sobre ambos: os EUA e os governos do Reino Unido para garantir a libertação de Guantánamo de Shaker Aamer, e seu retorno seguro para sua esposa britânica e seus quatro filhos britânicos no Reino Unido.
...on April 16th, 2012 at 8:27 pm