Labour Frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn Joins Cross-Party Signatories on Early Day Motion Calling for Shaker Aamer’s Release from Guantánamo

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Labour Frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn Joins Cross-Party Signatories on Early Day Motion Calling for Shaker Aamer’s Release from Guantánamo

Today, following a meeting of the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group yesterday, which I attended, as the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, it was decided that an Early Day Motion would be submitted by Andrew Mitchell MP (Con., Sutton Coldfield), calling for the Obama administration to release Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, from the prison, and to return him to the UK, to rejoin his family in London.

Andrew is one of four MPs from the All-Party Parliamentary Group who visited Washington D.C. in May to try to secure Shaker’s release. When the EDM was submitted, it was also signed by the other three MPs from the delegation — Jeremy Corbyn (Lab., Islington North), the frontrunner in the Labour leadership campaign, David Davis (Con., Haltemprice and Howden), the co-chair of the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group, and Andy Slaughter (Lab., Hammersmith).

Showing the breadth of cross-party support demonstrated by the campaign to get Shaker released, Andrew also secured the support of Tim Farron (Liberal Democrat, Westmorland and Lonsdale), the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, who spoke at the Parliamentary debate for Shaker in March, and Alex Salmond (Scottish National Party, Gordon), the former leader of the SNP, and early signatories to the EDM were John McDonnell (Lab., Hayes and Harlington), the co-chair of the Parliamentary Group, who established the group last November, Dominic Grieve (Con., Beaconsfield), the former Attorney General, and Caroline Lucas (Green, Brighton Pavilion), who has been a supporter from the beginning.

The EDM (EDM 413) states:

That this House calls on the US administration to release Shaker Aamer from his imprisonment in Guantanamo Bay; notes that he has now been incarcerated for 13 years without charge; further notes that he has twice been cleared for release and transfer, under President Bush in 2007 and President Obama in 2009; supports the call made by the Prime Minister for his release and return to the UK; notes the unanimous resolution of the House of 17 March 2015 that Shaker Aamer be released; and asserts that the defeat of terrorism will only be achieved by upholding the principle of the rule of law — to the protection of which Mr Shaker Aamer is entitled.

Other signatories who have already come on board include Peter Bottomley (Con., Worthing West), Tania Mathias (Con., Twickenham), Mark Durkan (SDLP, Foyle) and Graham Allen (Lab., Nottingham North).

If you’re in the UK, please can you write to your MP and ask them to add their name to the EDM — and can you also ask them to join the Shaker Aamer Parliamentary Group, and to let Joanne MacInnes, the co-chair of We Stand With Shaker, know if they are willing to join.

We can see no reason why hundreds of MPs will not sign the EDM — after all, it has serious cross-party support, and it reflects the government’s support for the Parliamentary motion on March 17 this year. In addition, as the Guardian noted in its coverage of the EDM, “David Cameron has raised Aamer’s case with Obama twice this year — at their meeting in the White House in January and at the G7 summit in Bavaria in June.”

As the Guardian also noted, the EDM “says that terrorism will only be defeated by upholding the rule of law, whose protection should apply to Aamer,” adding, “The MPs hope the Commons motion … will highlight the case of Aamer, who was was seized by bounty hunters in Afghanistan and handed over to US forces in December 2001. Two months later, he was rendered to the US military prison on Cuba. US authorities have made it clear that they have no intention of charging him.” It was also noted, “Aamer has accused UK security and intelligence officials of falsely claiming that he was a member of an al-Qaida network in London.”

The Guardian also stated, “Aamer, who was born in Saudi Arabia and has four children with his British wife, has twice been approved for release from Guantánamo. The first time was in 2007 under George W Bush, followed in 2010 by Barack Obama’s Guantánamo Review Task Force.”

Thanks for your interest in Shaker’s case. Please share this widely — and get everyone you know in the UK to write to their MPs — if you want to see this long and unacceptable injustice brought to an end.

Andy Worthington is a freelance investigative journalist, activist, author, photographer, film-maker and singer-songwriter (the lead singer and main songwriter for the London-based band The Four Fathers, whose debut album, ‘Love and War,’ was released in July 2015). He is the co-founder of the Close Guantánamo campaign, the co-director of We Stand With Shaker, calling for the immediate release from Guantánamo of Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in the prison, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by the University of Chicago Press in the US, and available from Amazon, including a Kindle edition — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. He is also the co-director (with Polly Nash) of the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (available on DVD here — or here for the US).