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
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Due process of law
04.07.2003 19:16
allah is the only judge, apparently... ho ho ho
Support to those seeking justice
04.07.2003 21:51
It seems more and more that the life and alledged freedom of an American is so much more important than those of other countries- particualry islamic. This is institutîonlised racism of which the Amercian and English governments are guilty of.
justice
karmatic consiquence
05.07.2003 02:54
david gibson
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Justice?
05.07.2003 08:43
Suck it
Time to read some history, guys
05.07.2003 11:07
Once upon a time, the local head of police in Munich decided to place certain categories of persons in "protective custody", for the good of society. The authorities built a nice new holiday camp for these people in the suburbs and surrounded it with an electric fence. It was in a place called Dachau. Ten years later, six million people were dead.
I don't care if they capture Bin Laden himself. He still has to be given a fair trial. Otherwise we are no better than the Nazis. It wouldn't matter so much if politicians never told lies and policemen never fitted up suspects. But politicians do tell lies and cops fit up suspects all the time. Kidnapping suspects, holding them incommunicado for months at a time and denying them basic human rights (access to a lawyer, a jury trial) might perhaps indicate that the U.S. has no evidence against these men.
Even if these guys were in the Taliban, what does that prove? There are plenty of world leaders who are former members of organisations designated as "terrorist". I think we should be outside the U.S. embassy when the "trial" starts, or maybe even outside the Foreign Office. How shameful that our own government would rather sell us out so that Bush and his oil buddies can make a fast buck in Afghanistan.
DK