Press Release from Campaign Against Criminalising Communities
Contact 020 7586 5892,  estella24@tiscali.co.uk, www.cacc.org.uk
12 December 2003

Guantanamo, Whitehall: Street performers join wide coalition of groups calling for justice for ‘war on terror’ detainees

Saturday 13 December 2003, from 1 to 4 pm, opposite Downing Street, London
Street theatre performance at 12.30pm (Trafalgar Square) and 1.30pm (opposite Downing Street)

A street theatre group will be performing ‘What’s Really Going on In Guantanamo?’ in support of a protest tomorrow calling for the immediate end to imprisonment without trial for the many hundreds of people currently detained by the US and UK governments - at Guantanamo Bay and in Afghanistan, Iraq, the United States and the United Kingdom.

The short play will include texts, music and relevant costumes and will be performed in Trafalgar Square and Downing Street. It has been written and directed by Romany Blythe of 'Clear Air Turbulence' Theatre.

The protest has been called by a wide coalition of organisations (1). Speakers will include family members of the detainees, lawyers representing those held, human rights organisations and groups representing migrant communities in the UK. They will testify to the injustice being meted out to those interned without charge or fair trial and to the flouting of basic human rights conventions regarding treatment of prisoners (2). They will call on the UK and US governments to abandon all forms of internment without trial and immediately to release those imprisoned without trial or for fair and transparent trials to be conducted

The first stage of a petition ( http://www.petitiononline.com/campacc/petition.html) to the UK and US governments will be handed in to the Prime Minister at Downing Street urging him to charge or release the detainees in Belmarsh Prison, to demand freedom for, or fair trial of, all prisoners at Guantanamo, and to end the use of anti-terrorism laws to harass migrant and refugee communities and suppress dissent.

Timetable: 12.30 – performance in Trafalgar Square; 1pm - assemble opposite Downing Street; 1.30pm - performance opposite Downing Street; 2pm - delegation to hand in first stage of petition to 10 Downing Street; from 2pm – speeches.

Speakers will include: Azmat Begg, father of Moazzem Begg, a British detainee at Guantanamo; Mark Littlewood of Liberty; Gareth Peirce, lawyer to detainees held in the UK; Louise Christian, lawyer to British citizens interned at Guantanamo; Jaffer Clarke of the Muslim Parliament of Great Britain; Jean Lambert Green MEP; Sarah Ludford, Liberal Democrat MEP; Dr Daud Abdullah of the Muslim Council of Britain and prominent Muslim Academic; Jasmine Kureshi of the Association of Muslim Lawyers; Naima Bouteldja of JustPeace; Mark Jennings representing Bishar Al-Raw’s family; Bruce Kent; Jeremy Corbyn MP; Mike Marqusee; Tim Gopsill, editor of ‘The Journalist; Stewart Hemsley, Chair of Pax Christi; Hugo Charlton, Chair of the Green Party & CAMPACC; Liz Fekete of the Campaign against Racism and Fascism; Paul Donovan, journalist; Gareth Evans of Voices UK; Mark Thomas; and a representative from Prisoners of West.

Contact: Estella Schmid: 020 7586 5892; Emma Sangster: 020 8806 6272, 07791 486 484; for more info on the street performance: Romany Blythe: 07866 474 408.
For more information:  http://www.cacc.org.uk.

Notes:
1. The petition and rally are sponsored by: Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC), Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Peace and Justice in East London, Pax Christi, Voices UK, City Circle, JustPeace, The Muslim Parliament of Great Britain, Association of Muslim Lawyers, The Green Party of England and Wales, Peace and Progress, Stop the War Coalition.
2. The Third Geneva Convention calls for a properly constituted tribunal to decide whether persons captured during a conflict are prisoners of war, who must be treated humanely, or civilians taken in error, who must be released. Trials at Guantanamo, if they happen at all, will be based upon confessions obtained wholly unlawfully. International law prohibits interrogation of prisoners of war.