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Islamic Human Rights Commission
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11 August 2003

PRESS RELEASE: Failure to repatriate Guantanamo Bay Britons masks Islamophobic policy

IHRC condemns the Blair administration’s abrogation of its responsibilities towards British citizens illegally imprisoned by the US government at Camp X-Ray (Guantanamo Bay). IHRC regards the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith’s recent trip to Washington of little substance.

What has been completely repudiated in this game of diplomatic semantics between the Bush and Blair administrations is that under any fair and universally acceptable system of justice, the circumstances and conditions of all those detained in Camp X-Ray would be denounced as unacceptable and illegal. Any attempt to bring charges against the accused, given their duress under torture, is wholly unjustifiable and exposes the farce that is the war-on-terrorism.

IHRC notes that if Camp X-Ray’s inmates were allowed trial under US domestic laws, the charges brought against them would be dropped and they would be accorded the right to take civil action against the US government for illegal arrest, imprisonment and torture.

IHRC believes that the prevalence of Islamophobia within the international community permits the ongoing human rights violations at Camp X-Ray. IHRC points to the recent Metropolitan Police Service raids against Al-Muhajiroun against whom there have been no claims of criminal activity compared with its apparent unwillingness to tackle the threat posed by proscribed anti-Muslim organisations such as MKO (Mujahideen-e Khalq Organisation), as illustrative of this Islamophobia.

For more information please contact the Press Office on (+44) 20 8902 0888 or email info@ihrc.org.

Islamic Human Rights Commission
PO Box 598
Wembley
HA9 7XH
United Kingdom

Telephone (+44) 20 8902 0888
Fax (+44) 20 8902 0889
Email: info@ihrc.org
Web: www.ihrc.org