Closed: Bring Shaker home from Guantánamo
‘I am dying here every day, mentally and physically’ – Shaker Aamer on life in Guantánamo, 2005.
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Update 11 February 2013: This action is now closed. Many thanks to the over 20,000 of you who signed this petition and urged Obama to send Shaker home from Guantánamo. |
About Shaker and Guantánamo
When Shaker Aamer was detained by Afghan forces in November 2001 he was a healthy man in his early 30s who lived with his wife and four children in Britain. According to his account, he was in Afghanistan because of his work for a Saudi charity. Shaker is now 44-years-old and has spent nearly 11 years behind bars at the notorious prison camp in Guantánamo Bay, thousands of miles away from his family who have not seen him for over a decade. He is riddled with arthritis and other medical complaints, the result – he and his lawyers claim – of years of brutal torture and solitary confinement, and the ongoing denial of adequate medical attention.
He has been denied freedom in this way despite never being charged, tried or convicted of any criminal offence.
Shaker is the last remaining former British resident detained at the notorious prison camp and the UK government has repeatedly called on the USA to release him. But despite President Obama promising on his election in 2009 that he would close the camp by 2010, Shaker remains behind bars at Guantánamo. Read more about Shaker and Guantánamo
