On Friday Amnesty International held a demonstration in front of the American embassy in London to mark the 6th anniversary of Guantanamo Bay. Yes, it’s been six years since this slap in the face of democracy and rule of law has been open for business.

I was there to protest, of course, and did not get arrested unlike demonstrators in Washington.

In London, Amnesty International built a replica prison cell and held an all-night vigil near the US embassy.

The video below has more from the event.

Let’s get the straw-men arguments out of the way: I am not “anti-American”, and neither do I harbour much sympathy for terrorists. I do however believe in a liberal democracy, rule of law, and Habeas corpus. And I want our governments to follow the principles they claim to be protecting.

While we are on the subject, this is also worth highlighting:

The United States has quietly expanded the number of “enemy combatants” being held in judicial limbo at its Bagram military base in Afghanistan, a facility which has now grown to more than twice the size of the controversial and much more widely discussed military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Bagram has received just a fraction of the world attention paid to Guantanamo, but the two facilities have prompted very similar complaints – about prisoners held incommunicado for weeks or months, the lack of recourse to any system of legal redress, and persistent reports of prisoner mistreatment that many human rights campaigners have characterised as torture.

The New York Times, which has seen confidential documents relating to the running of the Bagram prison, reported yesterday that the military base north of Kabul now contains around 630 prisoners, a far greater number than the 275 still being held at a rapidly emptying Guantanamo.

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