Our Group’s Letters of Concern Helped Release Shaker Aamer of the United Kingdom.
Shaker Aamer is a former United Kingdom resident. He has been held without charge at the United States detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for more than 13 years without ever being charged with a crime or allowed to see and challenge any evidence the government may have had against him.
Shaker Aamer was swept up in the wide net cast by the U.S. military after the 9/11 attacks. Granted permanent residency status in the U.K. based on his marriage to a British national, he had moved his family to Afghanistan in 2001, after a decade of living in the U.K. He was arrested by Afghan forces in the fall of 2001, subsequently transferred to U.S. custody, and sent to Guantanamo in February 2002.
Shaker Aamer
Through his lawyers, Shaker Aamer has alleged that he was subjected to torture, including severe beatings, and other ill-treatment while being held in secret detention and interrogated at Bagram, Afghanistan, in early 2002.
In the years following his transfer to Guantanamo Bay, Shaker Aamer repeatedly alleged that he had been tortured there, too. Throughout his imprisonment at Guantanamo, his lawyers expressed concern about his physical and mental health, which they say was exacerbated by the lack of adequate medical treatment for the multiple illnesses from which he suffers.
The Global Importune letter signing group began sending letters of concern on behalf of Shaker Aamer to officials in the government of the United States of America April 2012
The national and international outcry helped secured the release of Shaker Aamer October 30, 2015.
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