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  1. Clive Stafford Smith by I.Robins BW

    What does the government have to hide?

    Clive Stafford Smith on 16 June 2009

    David Miliband has again stonewalled allegations that Britain was complicit in Binyam Mohamed's torture. What is he hiding?

    The question posed to David Miliband by the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday was a good one:  Would the government publish the policy that allowed Binyam Mohamed to be tortured for two years by our American allies without a peep from the British agent who met with him?

    Gordon Brown has ordered that the new government rule on torture should be made public (presumably it instructs British intelligence officers to object loudly when they witness it).  But what of the former ...

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  2. Chloe Davies

    Torture music leaves no marks but destroys minds

    Chloe Davies on 15 June 2009

    For you, the phrase "head-banging music" might evoke hazy student nights in the college bar. For Binyam Mohamed, the British resident recently returned from Guantánamo to the U.K., it brings back darker memories.

    Of his treatment in the CIA-run "Dark Prison" in Afghanistan Binyam recalls:

    "It was pitch black no lights on in all the rooms for most of the time…They hung me up. I was allowed a few hours of sleep on the second day, then hung up again, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My writes and hands had gone numb… There was ...

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  3. Zachary Katznelson BW

    Zachary on Radio 4

    Zachary Katznelson on 09 June 2009

    In June 2009, Ahmed Ghailani became the first Guantánamo prisoner to be tried in a federal court. Zachary talks about the significance of this development to Radio 4.

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  4. Clive Stafford Smith by I.Robins BW

    Captain Kirk Black: the hidden hero

    Clive Stafford Smith on 26 May 2009

    Former Guantánamo guard Captain Kirk Black's suggestions on how to deal with the rest of the Bay's prisoners have fallen on deaf ears.

    Disappointment has rippled through the ranks of Obama supporters in recent days, with his backtracking over the Guantánamo military commissions and other "War on Terror" issues.

    On Monday, the Times reported another opportunity to rehabilitate America’s image, and it seems that the Administration is poised to pass this up as well.

    Captain Kirk Black is the hero of the piece. He was a Swat team police officer in civilian life, mobilised into ...

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  5. Alex Grace BW

    Launch of Rendition Monologues

    Alex Grace on 24 May 2009

    Reprieve and iceandfire present a viral video promoting our documentary play Rendition Monologues.

    Adapted from client interview transcripts supplied by Reprieve, Rendition Monologues is a disturbing piece of verbatim theatre which gives voice to the victims of 'war on terror' rendition policies.

    Rendition Monologues will be performed at the Southwark Playhouse in London on the 24th May, and at the Edinburgh Festival.

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  6. Cori Crider BW

    No We Can't: Obama's Guantánamo

    Cori Crider on 21 May 2009

    Celebrations of a new civil liberties hero were sadly premature. Four months on, dozens of innocents are still in prison.

    You would be hard-pressed to find a kid more thrilled on Barack Obama's first day in office than Mohammed el Gharani. On January 21, had you been standing at the right corner of Guantánamo Bay, you could have heard him whoop for joy when the U.S. President made history -- so we thought -- by closing the prison el Gharani grew up in.

    Today marks four months since that decision, and the president has given another speech. He correctly referred ...

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  7. Binyam Mohamed

    Rhetoric and Reality

    Franck Martin on 21 April 2009

    Franck Martin speaks to Clive Stafford Smith about Guantanamo Bay and the profound significance of the legal case of Binyam Mohamed.

    ‘The rules have changed, you don’t get a lawyer.’ This disturbing reply is not what one would expect having asked an FBI agent for the right to legal representation. Yet these simple, callous words were the response Binyam Mohammed received as he tried to ascertain why he had been abducted while holidaying in Pakistan.

    Legal protection is a fundamental human right, but from the ashes of 9/11 a shadowy disregard for such norms emerged within certain factions ...

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  8. Clive Stafford Smith by Ian Robins Colour

    What President Obama could learn from Kathleen Hawk Norman

    Clive Stafford Smith on 20 April 2009

    Remembering the life of the heroic founder of Jurors for Justice.

    Kathleen Hawk Norman was appointed foreperson, and lead the charge as the jury imposed a death sentence for Daniel Bright III in 1996.

    The case seemed open and shut, and the entire penalty phase was over by lunchtime. It was an awful act; the worse because Dan Bright turned out to be innocent.

    Kathleen died unexpectedly last Thursday night, aged 54. Her obituary could teach President Barack Obama a thing or two.

    When it comes to another tragic mistake – the recent predilection for torture -- Obama tells the world that ...

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  9. Clara Gutteridge BW

    Torture memos raise as many questions as they answer

    Clara Gutteridge on 18 April 2009

    The release of "top secret" torture memos by the US is welcome. But they raise far more questions than they answer and the picture remains incomplete.

    Certainly, they demonstrate the extraordinary lengths Bush government lawyers went to in their efforts to legitimise barbarism. However, they only address a tiny strand of the global US detention programme – those prisoners held in the small, CIA-run prisons. They fail to mention the treatment of detainees held in prisons run by the US military, such as Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and Camp Lemonier in Djibouti, or those sent for "proxy detention" and torture ...

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  10. Clive Stafford Smith by I.Robins BW

    Europe, President Obama needs you

    Clive Stafford Smith on 17 April 2009

    How the European Union is getting in the way of Guantánamo's closure.

    It is heartening that even the most world-weary European governments are not immune to the magic of President Obama. It is difficult to imagine a US leader greeted with greater warmth by the European Community - and this has generally translated into concrete support for the Administration's goals.

    Yet, in a strange paradox, the unique freedoms enjoyed by EC citizens are proving an obstacle to one of Obama's thorniest missions: to close the notorious prison at Guantánamo Bay.

    Everyone agrees that President Obama cannot ...

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