EXCLUSIVE: A Demand for “Freedom and Justice” from Shaker Aamer in Guantánamo
This article, published simultaneously here and on the “Close Guantánamo” website, contains information from a visit to Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, by Ramzi Kassem, one of his lawyers, and was made available exclusively to Andy Worthington at Shaker’s request.
Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the US “war on terror” prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has a message to the world, which has been made available exclusively to me, at his request. He wants people to know that the treatment of the prisoners is “completely arbitrary,” and there are “no laws, rules or SOPs [Standard Operating Procedures] in Cuba.” Subjected to violence every day, he continues to demand “freedom and justice.”
In information from a visit on May 14 this year by Ramzi Kassem, one of his lawyers, Shaker, who has spent much of his time in Guantánamo in isolation, explained how, from December 2011 to April 2012, he was held in the maximum security cells of Camp V, where those regarded as troublesome have been held since the block was built in 2004, but was then returned to isolation in a block known as Five Echo.
The existence of Five Echo — where the cells are only half the size of those in Camp V — was first revealed by the US military in December 2011, when David Remes, another of Shaker’s lawyers, explained to the Associated Press that his client had been held there and that it was “a throwback to the bad old days at Guantánamo.” Read the rest of this entry »
Who's still at Guantánamo?
