Stop the deportations to Iraq! For more information contact Sarah Parker on 0208 809 0633, email [email protected] or Dashty Jamal (International Federation of Iraqi Refugees) on 0785 603 2991. Email: [email protected]. Federation of Iraqi RefugeesManchester: Burhan Fatah: 07866757213. Office number: 0161 2342784.Email: [email protected]. Nottingham: Jasm Ghafor; [email protected]: See also our website www.csdiraq.com
• regularise the status of asylum seekers from Iraq to whom they have so far refused protection, by giving them leave to remain, and the right either to work or to decent levels of benefits.
This would be in line with the proposals made by the Joint Council for the Welfare of Immigrants in their document "Recognising Rights, Recognising Political Realities" published on 13 July. Mark Findlay As part of the worldwide protests for the fifth anniversary of detentions at Guantanamo Bay on January 11, Brighton saw a small but lively vigil for Guantanamo detainee and Brighton resident, Omar Deghayes. Many demonstrators wore badges simply saying "727", Omar's prisoner number in Guantanamo.
Although the demonstration was small about 30-40 people), it was significant for Brighton, which rarely has demonstrations outside of party conference times. It was also notable that none of the organised left had a visible present - there were no leafleters or paper-sellers.
Some Brighton protestors also went to Birmingham, to protest at Birmingham handcuff and baton manufacturer Hiatt & Company, which is known to have exported handcuffs and other products to the US for use at Guantanamo to restrain prisoners.
Omar is a 37-year old married man with a young son. He has lived with his family in Saltdean, near Brighton, for 20 years. In 2001, he and a friend went traveling round the world and looking for work.
In Afghanistan, Omar got married, but when he traveled to Pakistan on his way home after 9/11, he was arrested in Lahore.
He was turned over to the US authorities, who categorised him as an "enemy combatant", in spite of his being picked up hundreds of miles from the war zone and in a country regarded as an ally of the US. Subsequently he was taken to the then-new detention centre at Guantanamo and has remained The Blair
there ever since. government While at
Guantanamo, Omar
has
has suffered the consistently following tortures: refused to Systematic beatings
holding stressed demand his
positions being release chained to a wall,
suspended by his wrists, food deprivation, forced nudity, sexual assault, petrol and benzene being forced into his anus, water tortures (submersion until just before the point of drowning), suffocation Write to Omar Write to Omar Deghayes, Prisoner 727, 160 Camp Delta, Washington DC, 20053 USA. Send gifts of eye-patches, shampoo, toothpaste, books, particularly poetry, music, boxer shorts, and anything else you choose to Omar Deghayes, c/o Brighton Peace and Environment Centre, 39-41 Surrey St, Brighton BN1 3PB. His lawyer will dispatch them to Camp Delta. Turner's early Day Motion on Omar. London, SW1P 4DF Charles Street, London, SWA 2AA Let them know what you think. More information at http://www.save-omar.org.uk/or from [email protected]. (locked in a box with little air for prolonged periods), solitary confinement for 8 months, and repeated use of pepper spray.
He has also had a hand broken and is blind in one eye. A guard at Guantanamo pushed his finger into Omar's eye and permanently damaged it.
The Blair government has consistently refused to demand his release by the US authorities, even though the US government is believed to want to release Omar along with the other eight UK residents currently being held.
As a result, there is a fear that Omar, as a refugee from Libya, could be returned there instead of to his home in the UK. It would not be safe for him to return to the place where his father was killed for his political views.
Libyan intelligence agents interrogated Omar on September 9 and 11 2004 and threatened to kill him. Write to your MP and ask them to support Brighton MP Des Write to the home secretary, John Reid, at 2 Marsham Street, and the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, at the FCO: King