I received this email from a friend who works on the Brighton Argus newspaper…

The Argus newspaper in Brighton is running a campaign to get justice for a Guantanamo detainee from Brighton, Omar Deghayes and needs help….

I am going to deliver coupons and emails of support we have been collecting to the Home Office on Monday and would be massively grateful if you could bump up the numbers by emailing news@theargus.co.uk before Monday. At the end is a message you could cut and paste. I have detailed who he is and why you should help him below, but if you haven’t got time to read it, skip straight to the bottom.

I am really sorry for the mass ‘please do this’ incredibly long mail which I know everyone hates, but this is now literally a matter of life and death. Please help.

Miriam Wells

Reporter
The Argus

…

Omar and his family are Libyan refugees who fled here in the 80s after their father was murdered by Colonel Gadaffi’s regime. We gave them asylum. Omar grew up and went to school in Brighton then got a law degree.

In 2001 he went travelling and doing humanitarian work in Afghanistan, where he got married. After 9/11 he fled because Afghanistan was a very dangerous place to be, but got captured by bounty-hunters in Pakistan and sold to the Americans.

He has been in Guantanamo Bay ever since. He has not been charged with a crime and the only evidence produced against him is a video supposedly linking him to the Madrid bombings, but the man said to be him in the video just blatantly isn’t, something which has been confirmed by various facial recognition experts (not to mention the fact he was in Guantanamo when the bombings took place).

He has been blinded in on eye by American guards, and been beaten, sexually abused, humiliated, mentally tortured and had his religion abused, like all the other prisoners. He has been in solitary confinement for most of his time there. I have read his accounts which describe in exact detail dates, times and names of people involved in the horrific things which go on there day in, day out.

Because they have now lost all hope, more than 200 inmates are now on hunger strike. Dozens are seriously ill and their lawyers fear people will start dying very soon. Omar has specifically been mentioned several times.

The British Government has got all the British nationals out, but because Omar is a Libyan refugee rather than a British national, it says it won’t help him. it says it is up to the Libyan government (the same one that murdered his dad and that will torture/kill him if he returns).

Incidentally, Omar’s lawyer, this amazing international human rights lawyer who represents more than 40 of the inmates, said Omar’s case is the worst miscarriage of justice he has seen in 20 years and he believes it will come to be known as the worst in British history.

This is the message we’ve been using in our coupons, you can cut and paste it into an email to news@theargus.co.uk

Dear Home Secretary,

It is a scandal that Omar Deghayes has been held in Guantanamo Bay without
trial for more than three years. He has the right to a trial so the courts
can decide whether he is innocent or guilty. I support the campaign to get
justice for Omar.

(Name and address)

More details here.

A quick cut’n'paste and a small blow for justice struck. Go on. And please spread the word if you’re so inclined.