On Saturday, Jeremy Corbyn, a prominent supporter in Parliament of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, was elected, by a landslide, as the leader of the Labour Party, something that was unimaginable just three months ago. Jeremy is a member of the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group, and in May he visited Washington D.C. with three of his Parliamentary colleagues, to meet with Senators and representatives of the Obama administration, to try and secure Shaker’s release.

The Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group was established last November by John McDonnell MP, Jeremy’s close friend and colleague on the left of the Party, who, yesterday, was appointed by Jeremy as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Shaker now has two prominent supporters in previously unexpected high-profile positions, and I hope this fact is not lost on the Obama administration, which continues to hold Shaker needlessly. Cleared for release in 2007 (under George W. Bush) and again in 2009 under President Obama, he could be released in a month’s time if the will existed to free him, 30 days being the amount of time that lawmakers in Congress have required the defense secretary to give them before freeing any prisoner.

Other supporters of Shaker in the shadow cabinet are Diane Abbott, the shadow secretary of state for international development, and Ian Murray, the shadow secretary of state for Scotland, and while we wait to see how the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn will raise Shaker’s case (which I’m sure will happen soon), I’m cross-posting below an article about Shaker that was published in the Mail on Sunday, written by Ramzi Kassem, a professor at the City University of New York School of Law, who I have known for many years — and have also spoken with on occasion. Read the rest of this entry »

Today, following a meeting of the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group yesterday, which I attended, as the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, it was decided that an Early Day Motion would be submitted by Andrew Mitchell MP (Con., Sutton Coldfield), calling for the Obama administration to release Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, from the prison, and to return him to the UK, to rejoin his family in London.

Andrew is one of four MPs from the All-Party Parliamentary Group who visited Washington D.C. in May to try to secure Shaker’s release. When the EDM was submitted, it was also signed by the other three MPs from the delegation — Jeremy Corbyn (Lab., Islington North), the frontrunner in the Labour leadership campaign, David Davis (Con., Haltemprice and Howden), the co-chair of the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group, and Andy Slaughter (Lab., Hammersmith).

Showing the breadth of cross-party support demonstrated by the campaign to get Shaker released, Andrew also secured the support of Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat, Westmorland and Lonsdale), the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, who spoke at the Parliamentary debate for Shaker in March, and Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party, Gordon), the former leader of the SNP, and early signatories to the EDM were John McDonnell (Lab., Hayes and Harlington), the co-chair of the Parliamentary Group, who established the group last November, Dominic Grieve (Con., Beaconsfield), the former Attorney General, and Caroline Lucas (Green, Brighton Pavilion), who has been a supporter from the beginning. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s eight months since the Labour MP John McDonnell MP, an indefatigable campaigner for justice, established the Shaker Aamer All-Party Parliamentary Group, to call for the release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, who is still held, despite being approved for release by the US authorities twice — in 2007, under George W. Bush, and in 2009, under Barack Obama.

With support from the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, which spent many years working to get the Parliamentary Group established, and also from We Stand With Shaker, the campaign group established by Andy Worthington and Joanne MacInnes, which was also launched eight months ago, the Parliamentary Group sent a delegation to Washington D.C. after the General Election in May. The four MPs involved — the Conservative MPs David Davis and Andrew Mitchell, and the Labour MPs Jeremy Corbyn and Andy Slaughter — met with Senators, including John McCain and Dianne Feinstein, and Obama administration officials, in the hope of securing a timeline for Shaker’s release, although no date has been given, despite repeated rumors that it would be this summer, and despite a hard-hitting op-ed in the New York Times by the MPs, who wrote, “There is simply no reason, domestic or international, for the United States to keep Mr. Aamer in custody,” and also stated, “It is difficult for us to shake off the depressing notion that the Obama administration is indifferent to the repeated requests of the British government,” adding that this is “a slap in the face for America’s staunchest friend.”

Prior to this, in March, the Parliamentary Group also secured a hugely important debate in the House of Commons, which led to the government supporting the motion “call[ing] on the US Government to release Shaker Aamer from his imprisonment in Guantánamo Bay and to allow him to return to his family in the UK.” Read the rest of this entry »

Sometimes the stench of hypocrisy is so overpowering that one wonders how those mired in it can avoid gagging while they deliver their outrageous lies.

That was the case today in Runnymede, west of London, where, 800 years ago today, the barons of England forced King John to sign Magna Carta (the Grand Charter), a document that arose out of their anger at being made to pay for the king’s foreign wars, and which, significantly, limited his power.

Its most famous clause — Clause 39 — introduced habeas corpus to the world — the right not to be imprisoned without a fair trial. It states, “No free man shall be seized or imprisoned … except by the lawful judgement of his equals or by the law of the land,” and its lasting significance is generally considered with Clause 40 as well, which states, “To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay justice.” Read the rest of this entry »

In the latest news about Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, who has long been cleared for release, and who wants only to return to his family in London, his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, the founder of the legal action charity Reprieve, released sections from a number of Shaker’s recent letters from the prison. Clive made Shaker’s words available to We Stand With Shaker, the campaign group I established with Joanne MacInnes last November.

The quotes were subsequently made available to the media and were read out in Parliament yesterday by Jeremy Corbyn MP (Labour, Islington North), a member of the cross-party Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group, and one of four MPs — along with the Conservatives David Davis and Andrew Mitchell, and his Labour colleague Andy Slaughter — who visited Washington D.C. two weeks ago to discuss Shaker’s case with senior officials.

In a foreign affairs debate in the House of Commons yesterday, Jeremy Corbyn urged ministers to “step up the fight to free Mr. Aamer,” as the Daily Mail described it. “He has never been charged, never been prosecuted, never been through any legal process whatsoever,” Mr. Corbyn said, adding, “Can we have an undertaking from the Foreign Office to follow this up with real vigour to push the Obama administration to name the date by which Shaker Aamer will be released and returned to his family?” Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an open letter that has just been made available by 13 human rights organizations and lawyers’ groups calling for immediate action by President Obama and defense secretary Ashton Carter to secure the release of the 57 men still held at Guantánamo (out of the 122 men still held) who have been cleared for release — or approved for transfer, in the administration’s careful words. The signatories also call on the administration to try or release the other men, and to move towards the eventual closure of the prison, as President Obama first promised when he took office in January 2009.

The spur for the letter, which I initiated on behalf of Close Guantánamo and We Stand With Shaker, is the second anniversary of President Obama’s promise to resume releasing prisoners from Guantánamo, after Congress raised legislative obstacles, which he made in a major speech on national security issues on May 23, 2013.

Also of great relevance is the arrival in Washington, D.C. today of a British Parliamentary delegation calling for the release and return to the UK of one of the 57, Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison. The four MPs involved are the Conservative MPs David Davis and Andrew Mitchell, and the Labour MPs Andy Slaughter and Jeremy Corbyn, who are part of the cross-party Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group, and they will be meeting administration officials and Senators to try to secure a timeline for Shaker Aamer’s release. Read the rest of this entry »

On March 17, as regular readers will know, a long-awaited — and long fought for — Parliamentary debate took place in the main chamber of the House of Commons, with MPs debating the motion, “That this House calls on the US Government to release Shaker Aamer from his imprisonment in Guantánamo Bay and to allow him to return to his family in the UK.”

I wrote a detailed article about the debate here, noting that Tobias Ellwood, a Tory MP and a junior minister in the Foreign Office, who was speaking for the British government, supported the motion, and stated, “I hope I have made it clear that the UK Government are absolutely committed to securing the release of Mr Aamer. Today I would like to underline that commitment and join the House in calling for the US Government to approve the release of Shaker Aamer to the UK.”

Below I’m cross-posting the transcript of the debate from Hansard. I’ve divided it into two parts, as it’s quite long, so the first part is below and the second will follow tomorrow.

As I noted in my article yesterday, the transcript contains some stirring speeches about the importance of the law and the perpetually shocking injustice of Shaker’s continued imprisonment from a variety of speakers, including John McDonnell, David Davis, Andrew Mitchell, Sir Gerald Kaufman, Andy Slaughter, Tim Farron, Jeremy Corbyn, Caroline Lucas and Gareth Thomas (the Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs), with other comments by Kate Hoey, Jim Cunningham, Neil Carmichael, Stephen Timms, Alistair Burt, Ian Murray, David Ward and Dennis Skinner. Others were present, but did not make comments, including Jane Ellison, Shaker’s constituency MP, who is a minister and therefore unable to comment. Read the rest of this entry »

POSTSCRIPT 11 May 2015: At the General Election on 7 May, 13 of the 41 MPs supporting the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group lost their seats. Seven others had announced their retirement as MPs before the election. These changes are noted in brackets after the MPs’ names. Now the election is over, please ask your MPs to join the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group, if they have not done so already.

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On Sunday, I wrote about the recently convened Parliamentary debate, on Tuesday March 17 at 4.30pm, for Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, and asked British readers to write to their MPs (via a letter you can cut and paste, or amend as you see fit) to ask them to take part in the debate, and to join the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group, chaired by John McDonnell MP.

I now have updated information. Shaykh Suliman Gani, a friend of Shaker’s family, has secured the support of the family for an important event on the morning of March 17 — the handing-in of Amnesty International’s petition for Shaker (signed by nearly 32,000 people) to 10 Downing Street at 11am. Saeed Siddique, Shaker’s father-in-law, will be there, along with his brother-in-law, and, hopefully, all three of Shaker’s sons as well.

In the late morning, the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign will be holding a vigil in Parliament Square, and then, at 12.30, supporters will make their way into the Houses of Parliament for a rally organised by John McDonnell MP in Committee Room 11, with speakers including the journalists Andy Worthington (the co-founder of We Stand With Shaker) and Yvonne Ridley, Joy Hurcombe of the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, Aisha Maniar of the London Guantánamo Campaign and the neurologist and human rights campaigner Dr. David Nicholl. Then, at 2pm, there will be a Green Card Lobby in the central lobby of the Houses of Parliament, where constituents will have the opportunity to meet their MPs before the debate and to brief them on Shaker’s case, before the Parliamentary debate at 4.30, to which supporters of Shaker are invited.  Read the rest of this entry »