An open letter to Jack Straw who is responsible for the human and civil rights of British citizens abroad.
The British government has been under pressure to resolve the cases of nine Britons held at Guantanamo Bay, who enjoy no protection under any national legal system and are subject to the arbitrary judgment of the US administration.
If they have committed a crime they should be charged; if they are prisoners of war they should have been released a long time ago. So, it comes as no surprise that 22 year old Feroz Abbassi will be one of the first to face a secret tribunal by the Pentagon’s Military Commission.
Zumrati Juma, the mother of Feroz Abbassi, from Croydon, South London, who is being held after allegedly being caught fighting in Afghanistan, argued that Mr Abbassi was being held in Camp X-Ray in a way that "violates his fundamental rights under international law".
Mrs Juma had called upon the foreign and home secretaries to demand that the US government grant her son access to a lawyer. She claimed her son had been wrongly denied PoW status and that the government had "wrongly failed" to take up his case under the Geneva Convention and customary international law to "ensure the recognition of that status".
This is the first time a “friendly government” has admitted beforehand, that a British subject will not be entitled to a fair trial and if found "guilty" Feroz Abbassi could receive the death penalty. What does your Office intend to do to ensure Mr. Abbassi is granted justice by due process of law, or do you sanction extra-judicial state murder?
If they have committed a crime they should be charged; if they are prisoners of war they should have been released a long time ago. So, it comes as no surprise that 22 year old Feroz Abbassi will be one of the first to face a secret tribunal by the Pentagon’s Military Commission.
Zumrati Juma, the mother of Feroz Abbassi, from Croydon, South London, who is being held after allegedly being caught fighting in Afghanistan, argued that Mr Abbassi was being held in Camp X-Ray in a way that "violates his fundamental rights under international law".
Mrs Juma had called upon the foreign and home secretaries to demand that the US government grant her son access to a lawyer. She claimed her son had been wrongly denied PoW status and that the government had "wrongly failed" to take up his case under the Geneva Convention and customary international law to "ensure the recognition of that status".
This is the first time a “friendly government” has admitted beforehand, that a British subject will not be entitled to a fair trial and if found "guilty" Feroz Abbassi could receive the death penalty. What does your Office intend to do to ensure Mr. Abbassi is granted justice by due process of law, or do you sanction extra-judicial state murder?
Comments
Display the following 5 comments