The letter to Jack Straw: Re – Omar Deghayes
Rt Hon Jack Straw
Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles St.
London
SW1A 2AH
October 4 2005
Dear Sir
I wrote to you on behalf of our organisation on April 27 2005. We, and many people in Huddersfield, are extremely concerned that nothing appears to have been done regarding the plight of Omar Deghayes who for the past three years has been detained without charge or trial in the US prison in Guantanamo Bay.
His solicitor Clive Stafford Smith confirms that Omar has undergone the most horrific torture. Omar himself gave a graphic and harrowing account of torture by US guards including being blinded in one eye, sexually assaulted and nearly drowned. His testimony of life in Guantanamo was published in The Independent on Sunday on April 24 2005.
The claims in this testimony were said to have shocked the Foreign Office minister, Baroness Symons and it is said that they played a major part in the Government’s decision to directly intervene in the cases of five British residents still held at Guantanamo Bay.
But Omar and other inmates are currently on a hunger strike that began in June of this year. They said they would choose a principalled death rather than continue to suffer torture, humiliation, desecration of their religious effects, the lack of decent food or clean water, the refusal of legal redress and regular contact with their families.
They only stopped their strike when the authorities promised treatment according to Geneva Conventions. For two days there was some improvement but once all those on hunger strike had stopped their strike, the authorities reneged on their promises and the prisoners have now resumed their strike. This time they have said they will continue until death unless their demands are met.
In a recent interview on Channel 4, Clive Stafford Smith singled out Omar Deghayes. He said that Omar was man of great courage and that with his background in British Law, he had been of tremendous help to him. He was afraid that Omar would go right to to the end and he feared for his life. In another interview, he said that the world should know that without direct intervention on their behalf, some of these men would die within the next few weeks.
An intervention by the British Government cannot be impossible. We have learned that only recently, the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan and spokesman for the regime, was brought home – a free man – at the request of President Hamid Karzai.
In the name of humanity, the British Government should act immediately to save the lives of Omar Deghayes and the other British residents on hunger strike. They should be brought home to be charged and given a fair trial or released.
Yours sincerely
June Jones
Chair Huddersfield Stop the War Coalition
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=9931
