An eleven year long road to freedom for Shaker Aamer gains traction, with an e-petition exceeding the 100,000 signature threshold to secure a debate in British Parliament, calling for Shaker Aamer to be released from Guantanamo and returned to his family in England.

The issue of holding a British resident Mr Aamer in Guantanamo Bay away from his British family and with out trial or even charge for so long is becoming an increasing embarrassment for the United States, and indeed an embarrassment with out any compensating benefits.

Mr Shaker Aamer's Member of Parliament Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con) says: "I am leading the debate with the sole aim of understanding what more the British Government and the US authorities can do to make the release of Mr Shaker Aamer, my constituent, and his return back to his family in London—the clearly stated policy of the British Government—more likely."

"The debate has been given greater urgency by reports of a new round of hunger strikes, which started on 6 February".

"The UK has an exemplary record on reintegrating released detainees. To my knowledge, among all the Guantanamo detainees released to Britain, the sum total of recidivistic activity is a single speeding ticket. Indeed, I understand that the UK has the best record of any country to which a significant number of prisoners have been returned."

"He is Detainee 239. He has been cleared for transfer on two separate occasions by the US Government: in June 2007, when the Bush Administration conceded they had no evidence against him; and again in 2009, following the review of detainees initiated by President Obama’s Executive Order 13492, called “Review and Disposition of Individuals Detained at the Guantánamo Bay Naval". Jane Ellison MP

The Parliamentary debate in Westminster Hall, generates increasing awareness and concern for the injustice to a much respected British resident Shaker Aamer. Speeches and interventions by Members of Parliament are all supportive and sympathetic to Mr Aamer plight and the urgent need for his return to his family in London. The speakers include: Alistair Burt MP The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs; Jane Ellison MP (Battersea) (Con); Mike Freer MP (Finchley and Golders Green) (Con); Stephen Timms MP (East Ham) (Lab); Mr Jim Cunningham MP (Coventry South) (Lab); Caroline Lucas MP (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green); John Woodcock MP (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op); Mr Russell Brown MP (Dumfries and Galloway) (Lab); Yasmin Qureshi MP (Bolton South East) (Lab); Gavin Shuker MP (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op); John McDonnell MP(Hayes and Harlington) (Lab); Jeremy Corbyn MP (Islington North) (Lab); Kerry McCarthy MP (Bristol East) (Lab); Mark Durkan MP (Foyle) (SDLP); Mr Andy Slaughter MP (Hammersmith) (Lab); Eric Joyce MP (Falkirk) (Ind); Anas Sarwar MP (Glasgow Central) (Labour); also Sadiq Khan MP (Tooting) shadow Secretary of State for Justice, supported Mr Aamer, by attending the debate; Parliament.

The debate was followed by a demonstration opposite Parliament in Parliament Square, called by Save Shaker Aamer Campaign and other human rights campaigns. Westminster, London, UK, 24 April 2013















































"Call For The Release Of Shaker Aamer Last Londoner in Guantanamo" Jean Lambert Member of the European Parliament for London





Jane Ellison, Member of Parliament for Battersea says "I have campaigned on behalf of Shaker Aamer's wife and children, my constituents, since I was elected in 2010. Mr Aamer's detention without charge, now in its eleventh year, is entirely unacceptable. I would like to thank the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign, with whom I work, for their efforts to raise the profile of Mr Aamer's case. I will continue to do all I can to see Mr Aamer released back to his family, here in the UK, and welcome the consistent efforts of the SSAC."


Shaker Aamer Guantánamo prisoner says: "If you chase life, it has a habit of running away from you. When I complied with the picayune rules in Guantánamo, it never did any good; though I was cleared for release almost six years ago now, in 2007, I am still here. When I started a campaign of non-violent protest – all I wanted to do was sit outside in a cage for a week as a silent objection to the Obama Administration trampling on my rights – they FCE’d me almost every day for a year. (FCE is a Gitmo euphemism, when the goon squad comes in and performs a 'Forcible Cell Extraction'.) But in the end the authorities half-capitulated and gave me another of their euphemisms (additional 'comfort items') to try to shut me up. So when I ran away from life, it came hurrying towards me.

But I’m 47 years old and a white uniform, a table, a chair and a Nintendo game are no substitute for being back with my wife and four children. My youngest boy, Faris, was eleven on February 14 and - can you imagine? - I’ve never met him, since that was the day I got to this forsaken place.

They’ve taken almost all my 'comfort items' away again now, along with the knee brace the doctors ordered, the back brace, the medical socks for my edema, and the blanket for my rheumatism. Not that I care. Everything is meaningless, so long as I am still here, cleared, without charges, and without a trial. Nobody has yet had a fair trial, and an additional 85 of the 166 detainees who have been cleared for release. So a little over fifty percent of the prisoners have been told they can go home – or go somewhere – but who are still here. The Administration got mad down here where people started calling Guantánamo a "gulag", but I’ll bet no gulag in the Soviet Union ever saw half its population cleared for release but still there years later.

It’s sad: President Obama made his big promise back when he was first elected, but I guess it was just a politician’s promise. The number of men going back to their families has slowed to a trickle, far less than when President Bush was in charge.

Things were bad back in 2002 and 2003, the time of General Miller – we called it 'Miller Time'. To be sure, Miller was notorious, and he went off to Gitmo-ize Abu Ghraib, but in a way things are even worse now. This new Colonel seems to think they can abuse us into submission. He remarked recently that he has children, so he knows how to deal with us. Someone must send the American social services round to his house: I fear for his poor kids, the way he treats people here.

Right now, none of us is chasing life down here, but it may run away from us anyway. Some people are going to die in this hunger strike soon. People have been sending messages home, thinking they might be their last messages in this life.

I’m a bit of a professional hunger striker, I’ve done it so often. But this one is a whole lot different from the hunger strikes back in 2005 and 2006. I’ll tell you the story of one prisoner who has been near to me on the cell block. We’re not really allowed names. I sometimes wonder when I eventually go home whether I will answer when my four kids shout "Daddy", or whether I’ll be waiting for them to call out 239. The man I’m writing about is 171, but his real name is Abu Bakr from Yemen. If I’m a professional, this man’s in the Premier League – he’s been on hunger strike all the time since 2005. He’s paralysed, in a wheelchair, and he’s gone through a lot. Maybe for the first time, though, now he thinks he’s going to die.

The Colonel seems intent on breaking him. Back in October, 171 was tied in the feeding chair, and just left there for 52 hours. Then, from 4 January, he was isolated for a full month. He’s slipped to just 77 pounds. He’s so light now, he’s afraid that if he takes medication he’ll overdose. He’s afraid his time has come, and he’s going to die. He thinks they’ll kill him off, to encourage the others to give up their strike.
Three numbers down, there’s 168, who is Bilal, from Tunisia. He’s been cleared for years too, just like me. He tried to kill himself on 19 March. He was in Camp Five Echo, which is the worst of the worst places here in Hell, just the place you’d put someone you said was no danger, who should be sent home to his family. He didn’t die, fortunately, and they took him to hospital, patched him up for nine days, and then brought him right back to Camp Five Echo. That’s what they call treatment for people who are so depressed they’re suicidal.

So it’s the worst of times here, but actually it’s the best of times. Everyone is more united than they have ever been. Yes, they can break our bodies; but I think maybe, just maybe, we’ve finally learned that they cannot break our spirit." Shaker Aamer

Shaker Aamer has been in Guantánamo Bay since 2002. He has never been charged or tried for any wrongdoing. This above quotation comes through his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith OBE, and the charity Reprieve, which campaigns for the human rights of prisoners




Universal Declaration of Human Rights December 10, 1948 General Assembly of the United Nations
Article 5. No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.






Gulag no 239 Shaker Aamer of Guantánamo
Save Shaker Aamer campaign, selected images


Shaker Aamer is the last British resident (originally from Saudi Arabia) still held illegally in the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention camp since 2002. However, he has never been charged with any offence, in either a proper court of Justice or even by a dubious US military tribunal.

Aamer's problems all began when doing charity work in Afghanistan including projects to support a girls’ school and building wells, at the time of the US / coalition invasion; a time when America was offering tribal warlords $5000 bounty for handing in foreign Arabs.

Initially, Aamer mistakenly thought he was being rescued by the US armed forces, but the US armed forces are not the good guys these days, they were taking him to their newly created Bagram torturer facility and later rendered him illegally to Guantánamo. When President George W Bush discovered he had picked up quite a number of innocent people for imprisonment, his reaction was to keep it secret because this information might impede his war effort.

Skaker Aamer has been nicknamed the 'professor' by Guantánamo guards because of his high intelligence and concern for other detainees, he speaks with an American accent having lived in the US.

Aamer participated in prison hunger strikes, helping negotiate an agreement for the detainees to be treated more humanly and in a manner consistent with the Geneva Convention, (which actually is a legal and moral minimum obligation). However the prison camp authorities broke the agreement. When Aamer repeated the hunger strike in 2005, he was forcibly made to ingest liquid food with tubes through his nostrils. He was put in solitary confinement in a six foot by eight foot windowless cell where he has remained for years.

Shaker Aamer's wife is British and they have a family of four children, his youngest son has never seen his father. Indeed the family are not permitted any contact with their father. On the 11th of January 2010 his brave young daughter Johina personally took a letter to the then British Prime Minister Gordon Brown residence in Downing Street, asking for his help in brining her father home to the family, help that was not forthcoming.

Although, Aamer has been subjected to the most horrendous torturer and inhumane uncivilised treatment he is not the only victim of these war crimes committed against him. His family are also victims of this harsh injustice, a family who are made to suffer profoundly by his absence and live under an intolerable terror.

salam/peace