Reprieve - Binyam Mohamed

Reprieve demo - from the reprieve website the day before...
As George Bush visits London, Reprieve tells Bush and Brown: Bring Binyam Back to Britain

Where: Trafalgar Square, in front of the National Gallery
When: 3 pm, Sunday 15 June
Who: Reprieve Director Clive Stafford Smith, former Guantánamo prisoners, Barney the Dinosaur and other special guests

On Sunday 15 June, US President George W. Bush is visiting London as part of his valedictory world tour, and will be having tea with the Queen and dinner with Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

Reprieve, the legal action charity that represents over 30 Guantánamo prisoners, is using this opportunity to highlight the suffering of Binyam Mohamed, the London resident who remains in Guantánamo Bay. The US military has announced that it wants to put him through its discredited military commission process, and a final decision will be made in the next two weeks. The commission system is so corrupt that Col. Morris Davis recently quit as the chief military prosecutor, because of the system’s many flaws, one being that evidence derived from torture was going to be used against the prisoners.

Nothing could be more true of Binyam, who was taken to Morocco where his genitals were razor-bladed for 18 months. After that he was rendered to more abuse in the CIA-run "Dark Prison" in Kabul, where he was tortured psychologically, hung up and subjected to incredibly loud music for 20 days at a time. He has been imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay since September 2004.

Given the fortuitous timing of President Bush’s visit to London, Reprieve is using this opportunity to make sure that both the President and Prime Minister Gordon Brown get the message – 'Bring Binyam Back'.

Representatives of Reprieve, including Clive Stafford Smith and former Guantanamo prisoners are meeting at 3 pm outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square where specific events aimed at highlighting Binyam’s torture will take place.

Reprieve will dramatize the torture-by-music that Binyam and other prisoners have suffered by singing the traditional nursery rhyme 'Knick-Knack Paddywhack' with new lyrics. 'Knick-Knack Paddywhack' seems to have been adopted as the Barney the Dinosaur theme tune, which in turn is being used by the US Administration as music for torture in Guantanamo, Iraq and other secret prisons around the world. Prisoners are bombarded with ear-splittingly loud music for days or weeks on end, often while they are held in prolonged solitary confinement, chained in painful stress positions, and stripped and humiliated.

Barney's unauthorized personal appearance highlights Reprieve's opposition to the use of music for torture. We are also hoping to involve other creative "cartoon characters": Katy the Kangaroo Court, and even Roger the Razor Blade. Cosmetics firm Lush, who have been supporting the work of Reprieve, have kindly agreed to bring along their massive "Fair Trial My Arse" orange underpants, to highlight the nature of the unjust process that Binyam is facing.

Our day will culminate at the Southbank Centre, where Massive Attack are hosting a series of Reprieve events as part of Meltdown 2008. Alex Gibney’s Academy Award-winning documentary, Taxi to the Dark Side, about the murder of an innocent Afghan taxi driver in a US prison in Afghanistan, is being shown in the evening, and Clive Stafford Smith and released Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg will both be speaking.

Clive Stafford Smith said:

'This week, Reprieve released a report, Human Cargo, which described in excrutiating detail the torture that Binyam Mohamed endured for years in Morocco, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, by or on behalf of the US Government and with at least some assistance from the British. As President Bush sits down to eat with Prime Minister Gordon Brown today, we want to make sure that these two leaders remember that Binyam is now on hunger strike at Guantanamo, and that Reprieve, and Binyam’s many supporters will not rest until he has been released from Guantanamo and returned to the UK. All Binyam has ever asked for is a fair trial but this can never happen in Guantanamo.'