Abuse of Shaker Aamer continues...

On Wednesday July 22nd 2009 Shaker Aamer was supposed to see his lawyer. Instead, he was beaten by six soldiers clad in riot gear, stripped down with a pair of heavy duty shears, and left to wallow under a cold air conditioning vent.

Shaker's attorney, Brent Mickum, said that Shaker has been "undergoing regular torture from beatings to food and sleep deprivation since his arrival in Guantanamo.

Though at first glance, Shaker does not seem like an ideal candidate for systematic torture and abuse. A UK resident whose wife and four children are British nationals, he is educated, a fluent English speaker and not at all the type of man that would sit on his rightseven in Guantanamo Bay.

However, it is these qualities that seem to have made him a target. According to Mickum: "They want to wear him down... the US perceives he is a threat," indicating that Shaker was singled out because he organized a hunger strike to protest prison conditions, and a prisoners' council to negotiate basic prisoner demands such as access to books and an end to religious abuse.

The UK's silence on Shaker's rendition, torture and indefinite detention in Guantanamo Bay is simply unacceptable. Please write to Prime Minister Gordon Brown, asking that the British government bring Shaker home to his family . It is high time that Britain stand up for all of its sons.