Get your MP to sign EDM 1093: Guantánamo Bay

1: Get your MP to sign EDM 1093:
The London Guantánamo Campaign has teamed up with Caroline Lucas MP (Brighton Pavilion, Green Party) to produce the following EDM:

EDM 1093: Guantanamo Bay

"That this House notes with regret that President Obama's pledge to close the US Military Detention Centre at Guantánamo Bay by January 2010 is almost one year overdue and little closer to realisation; welcomes gestures by other European States to accommodate and receive innocent prisoners who have been cleared for release to help close the facility; notes with dismay that on 11 January 2011 the detention facility will have been open for nine years and that British resident Shaker Aamer has now been held there without charge or trial for almost the same length of time; urges the Government to step up its action to secure his release without further delay; and further notes the case of Ahmed Belbacha, previously resident in the UK and facing the imminent threat of forced return to his native Algeria where there are fears he will face abuse of his human rights; applauds the lead taken by countries such as Ireland, France, Spain, Germany and Bulgaria, who have accepted prisoners cleared for release from Guantánamo Bay by the US authorities on humanitarian grounds but who cannot return to their country of origin; and urges the Government to take similar measures to accept a number of such cleared prisoners."

We urge everyone to ask their MP to sign this important EDM. On 16 November, when Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke made the official statement about the out-of-court settlement with former prisoners concerning the government’s collusion in their torture and illegal detention, support for the closure of Guantánamo by MPs across the board was unequivocal. Sadiq Khan MP (Tooting, Labour) stated: “The Labour party has been, and will remain, completely opposed to Guantanamo Bay” and Conservative MP Tobias Ellwood in whose Bournemouth East constituency Ahmed Belbacha lived declared, “I am sorry that we did not do more to speak out against Guantanamo Bay and everything that it stands for”. Ask your MP to take a stand against Guantánamo by signing the EDM and joining the LGC on Tuesday 11 January for a lunchtime vigil in Trafalgar Square to mark the 9th anniversary of Guantánamo Bay. Write to your MP [find their contact details at www.theyworkforyou.com] and ask them:
- to sign the EDM
- to join the 9th anniversary vigil on Tuesday 11 January 2011
A short e-mail should be enough.