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I received a letter last week from an Algerian brother I know only as K, but I am sure he will not mind me sharing his thoughts with you.When he first arrived in Britain he naively believed this was a country free of persecution ... a civilised place where justice was the byword of the day.Like most dreams, this rosey image soon evapourated and instead he found himself trapped behind the bars of Belmarsh prison in a living nightmare where terror and fear were his constant companions.And, like so many others who rolled up to these shores in the belief that they would be treated with kindness and respect, he was falsely accused of being a terrorist.Never once, over the last five years, was he ever allowed to see the evidence the State held against him. Never once was he allowed to defend himself as laid out in British law. Never once was he allowed to appeal against his internment in a fair hearing afforded to others.In his letter he told me: “I am leaving the UK to return to Algeria, my country of origin. Voluntarily, according to the Home Office. In this process, I would like to give the British people a little insight of what has been done to me and other foreigners by its elected government, insidiously in line with its foreign policy and national security business, with the only achievement the creation of more enemies and destroying future UK relations with nations and individuals. “As far as I am concerned, I never planned to live in the UK nor did I ever have a problem with its people or rulers. Yet, at one stage in my life, I was forcibly deported from a foreign country to the UK and its infamous prison, Belmarsh. All this without any charge or crime or prospect of release. I was under the Nazi legislation called Terrorism Act 2001. “I asked to be returned to Algeria. The answer was surprising – it was not possible to deport me to a country that doesn’t respect human rights and where I could be tortured! Was it more humane to detain me without charge and forever!? I suffered three years of this legislation and finally it was scrapped by the House of Lords who declared my detention unlawful. There were many humiliating statements and comments made by organisations and high ranking people describing this Nazi law. I was freed then only to be subjected to another aberration of law called control orders. A kind of house arrest with high restrictions of movement, communication, association…... yet it did not last as after 7/7 it was even easier for the Government to detain me again as if I am responsible for everything. This time the will was to deport me to Algeria with the recommendation to the Algerian ruler to “monitor” me!!! Now the UK is exporting its human rights abuses over to Algeria. Today it is five years from the first day I was unjustly detained in the UK without charge or crime. It is the equivalent of a 10 year prison sentence. I am returning to Algeria not without a heart full of bitterness for this government and its practices.I am also sad that such abuse of justice and fundamental rights did not bother the British people ..”K said he was feeling sad ... well I am bloody angry. I am angry with myself for not doing enough and I am angry with you for doing even less.*K has now disappeared somewhere in Algeria along with another brother known only as Q who was also deported a few days earlier.And yes, they are in grave danger of being tortured and brutalised by a state which has an atrocious human rights record.The British Government deported Q on 20 January and K four days later, on the grounds that they presented a “threat to the national security” of the UK. K was arrested on arrival at the airport in the capital, Algiers, by agents from the military intelligence agency known as the Department for Information and Security (the Département du renseignement et de la sécurité, DRS). We suspect K and Q are in some military barracks in the capital, part of which is used as a secret detention centre. They have not been allowed access to their lawyers or relatives which flies in the face of their own country's laws as well as international human rights. Amnesty International says it fears that both are at risk of torture and other ill-treatment in the custody of the notorious DRS.According to Amnesty the DRS specialises in interrogating people thought to possess information about terrorist activities. Detainees held by the DRS are routinely held in secret places of detention, allowed no contact with the outside world, and there are persistent reports of torture and other ill-treatment.We know for a fact that British intelligence often benefits from information extracted under torture, and even some of its field officers direct the questioning and interrogations from an outside room.K and Q were among a group of men the UK authorities labelled as “suspected international terrorists”. The men had been held either in prison or under effective house arrest for several years on the basis of secret intelligence which was never disclosed to them or their lawyers, and which they have therefore been unable to challenge. While in custody awaiting deportation, both had their applications to be released on bail rejected. Both men had been held in Long Lartin prison in central England since August 2005, awaiting deportation. Both Q and K had attempted to seek asylum in the UK, but their claims were rejected. Up until August 2005, the UK authorities recognised that neither man could be deported to Algeria because there were substantial grounds for believing that there was a real risk that they would be subjected to torture or ill-treatment if they were removed to Algeria.They faced a stark choice: either continue to challenge their deportation to Algeria and face continued detention in high-security prisons far away from their families, friends and communities for years on end, or face an uncertain future fraught with risk by returning to that country. To pursue their appeal against deportation would have meant a legal battle involving the use against them of secret intelligence never disclosed to them or their lawyers and a standard of proof heavily weighted in favour of the government. Q and K lost all faith in the possibility that they would receive any meaningful justice in the UK.Last year, they withdrew their appeals against the deportation orders because they believed that, in the circumstances, they would never get justice in the UK. They preferred to return to Algeria, despite the risks they would face.Now what I want you to do if fire off a bunch of emails to the following officials demanding to know where these men are being held and that they be treated humanely and be given any medical attention they might need.Furthermore, you might demand that their families are immediately informed of their exact location and well being.Finally, demand that the authorities release them unless they are promptly charged with a recognizably criminal offence and tried within a reasonable time.The first email/fax/letter should be fired off to : His Excellency Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Président de la République, Présidence de la République, El Mouradia, Alger, Algeria. Fax: +213 21 609618/ 691595 or email: president@el-mouradia.dzNext contact the Justice Minister: His Excellency Tayeb Belaiz, Ministre de la Justice, Ministère de la Justice, 8 Place Bir Hakem, 16030 El Bihar, Alger, Algeria Fax: +213 21 922956/ 921701/ 925557. E-mail: belaiztayeb@mjustice.dzNow try the Foreign Minister: His Excellency Mohamed Bedjaoui, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères Place, Mohamed Seddik Benyahia, 16070 El Mouradia, Alger, Algeria. Fax: +213 21 504141/ 504242 And let's not forget our own Foreign minister: The Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP, Secretary of State,Foreign and Commonwealth Office, King Charles Street, London, SW1A 2AH, United KingdomFax: + 44 20 7008 2144 or email: margaret.beckett@fco.gov.ukBelieve it or not there is an official Algerian human rights organisation which reports directly to the president. Anything is worth a try so your final letter should be faxed over to: Commission nationale consultative de promotion et de protection des droits de l’Homme, M. Mustapha Farouk Ksentinin (Président)Palais du Peuple, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, Alger, Algeria. Fax: + 213 21 239037/ 239005Finally, wherever you are in the world, please copy in the diplomatic representatives of Algeria posted to your particular country.Please, please, please do this one thing ... not for me but for the brother K who wrote me his farewell letter. Please don't let it be his final communication.He ended his letter in the belief that no one really cared about him, or the other prisoners still trapped in a legal limbo in Britain. (*With the exception of fantastic solicitors like Gareth Pierce and a magnificent woman I only know as Ann in Scotland).But I do want him to reverse his opinion of his fellow human beings, especially those living in Britain. I want him to write to me telling me he has been released in his native Algeria, a free man. And then I want to reveal to him that it was all down to you.Well, what are you waiting for?
I received a letter last week from an Algerian brother I know only as K, but I am sure he will not mind me sharing his thoughts with you.When he first arrived in Britain he naively believed this was a country free of persecution ... a civilised place where justice was the byword of the day.Like most dreams, this rosey image soon evapourated and instead he found himself trapped behind the bars of Belmarsh prison in a living nightmare where terror and fear were his constant companions.And, like so many others who rolled up to these shores in the belief that they would be treated with kindness and respect, he was falsely accused of being a terrorist.Never once, over the last five years, was he ever allowed to see the evidence the State held against him. Never once was he allowed to defend himself as laid out in British law. Never once was he allowed to appeal against his internment in a fair hearing afforded to others.In his letter he told me: “I am leaving the UK to return to Algeria, my country of origin. Voluntarily, according to the Home Office. In this process, I would like to give the British people a little insight of what has been done to me and other foreigners by its elected government, insidiously in line with its foreign policy and national security business, with the only achievement the creation of more enemies and destroying future UK relations with nations and individuals. “As far as I am concerned, I never planned to live in the UK nor did I ever have a problem with its people or rulers. Yet, at one stage in my life, I was forcibly deported from a foreign country to the UK and its infamous prison, Belmarsh. All this without any charge or crime or prospect of release. I was under the Nazi legislation called Terrorism Act 2001. “I asked to be returned to Algeria. The answer was surprising – it was not possible to deport me to a country that doesn’t respect human rights and where I could be tortured! Was it more humane to detain me without charge and forever!? I suffered three years of this legislation and finally it was scrapped by the House of Lords who declared my detention unlawful. There were many humiliating statements and comments made by organisations and high ranking people describing this Nazi law. I was freed then only to be subjected to another aberration of law called control orders. A kind of house arrest with high restrictions of movement, communication, association…... yet it did not last as after 7/7 it was even easier for the Government to detain me again as if I am responsible for everything. This time the will was to deport me to Algeria with the recommendation to the Algerian ruler to “monitor” me!!! Now the UK is exporting its human rights abuses over to Algeria. Today it is five years from the first day I was unjustly detained in the UK without charge or crime. It is the equivalent of a 10 year prison sentence. I am returning to Algeria not without a heart full of bitterness for this government and its practices.I am also sad that such abuse of justice and fundamental rights did not bother the British people ..”K said he was feeling sad ... well I am bloody angry. I am angry with myself for not doing enough and I am angry with you for doing even less.*K has now disappeared somewhere in Algeria along with another brother known only as Q who was also deported a few days earlier.And yes, they are in grave danger of being tortured and brutalised by a state which has an atrocious human rights record.The British Government deported Q on 20 January and K four days later, on the grounds that they presented a “threat to the national security” of the UK. K was arrested on arrival at the airport in the capital, Algiers, by agents from the military intelligence agency known as the Department for Information and Security (the Département du renseignement et de la sécurité, DRS). We suspect K and Q are in some military barracks in the capital, part of which is used as a secret detention centre. They have not been allowed access to their lawyers or relatives which flies in the face of their own country's laws as well as international human rights. Amnesty International says it fears that both are at risk of torture and other ill-treatment in the custody of the notorious DRS.According to Amnesty the DRS specialises in interrogating people thought to possess information about terrorist activities. Detainees held by the DRS are routinely held in secret places of detention, allowed no contact with the outside world, and there are persistent reports of torture and other ill-treatment.We know for a fact that British intelligence often benefits from information extracted under torture, and even some of its field officers direct the questioning and interrogations from an outside room.K and Q were among a group of men the UK authorities labelled as “suspected international terrorists”. The men had been held either in prison or under effective house arrest for several years on the basis of secret intelligence which was never disclosed to them or their lawyers, and which they have therefore been unable to challenge. While in custody awaiting deportation, both had their applications to be released on bail rejected. Both men had been held in Long Lartin prison in central England since August 2005, awaiting deportation. Both Q and K had attempted to seek asylum in the UK, but their claims were rejected. Up until August 2005, the UK authorities recognised that neither man could be deported to Algeria because there were substantial grounds for believing that there was a real risk that they would be subjected to torture or ill-treatment if they were removed to Algeria.They faced a stark choice: either continue to challenge their deportation to Algeria and face continued detention in high-security prisons far away from their families, friends and communities for years on end, or face an uncertain future fraught with risk by returning to that country. To pursue their appeal against deportation would have meant a legal battle involving the use against them of secret intelligence never disclosed to them or their lawyers and a standard of proof heavily weighted in favour of the government. Q and K lost all faith in the possibility that they would receive any meaningful justice in the UK.Last year, they withdrew their appeals against the deportation orders because they believed that, in the circumstances, they would never get justice in the UK. They preferred to return to Algeria, despite the risks they would face.Now what I want you to do if fire off a bunch of emails to the following officials demanding to know where these men are being held and that they be treated humanely and be given any medical attention they might need.Furthermore, you might demand that their families are immediately informed of their exact location and well being.Finally, demand that the authorities release them unless they are promptly charged with a recognizably criminal offence and tried within a reasonable time.The first email/fax/letter should be fired off to : His Excellency Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Président de la République, Présidence de la République, El Mouradia, Alger, Algeria. Fax: +213 21 609618/ 691595 or email: president@el-mouradia.dzNext contact the Justice Minister: His Excellency Tayeb Belaiz, Ministre de la Justice, Ministère de la Justice, 8 Place Bir Hakem, 16030 El Bihar, Alger, Algeria Fax: +213 21 922956/ 921701/ 925557. E-mail: belaiztayeb@mjustice.dzNow try the Foreign Minister: His Excellency Mohamed Bedjaoui, Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères Place, Mohamed Seddik Benyahia, 16070 El Mouradia, Alger, Algeria. Fax: +213 21 504141/ 504242 And let's not forget our own Foreign minister: The Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MP, Secretary of State,Foreign and Commonwealth Office, King Charles Street, London, SW1A 2AH, United KingdomFax: + 44 20 7008 2144 or email: margaret.beckett@fco.gov.ukBelieve it or not there is an official Algerian human rights organisation which reports directly to the president. Anything is worth a try so your final letter should be faxed over to: Commission nationale consultative de promotion et de protection des droits de l’Homme, M. Mustapha Farouk Ksentinin (Président)Palais du Peuple, Avenue Franklin Roosevelt, Alger, Algeria. Fax: + 213 21 239037/ 239005Finally, wherever you are in the world, please copy in the diplomatic representatives of Algeria posted to your particular country.Please, please, please do this one thing ... not for me but for the brother K who wrote me his farewell letter. Please don't let it be his final communication.He ended his letter in the belief that no one really cared about him, or the other prisoners still trapped in a legal limbo in Britain. (*With the exception of fantastic solicitors like Gareth Pierce and a magnificent woman I only know as Ann in Scotland).But I do want him to reverse his opinion of his fellow human beings, especially those living in Britain. I want him to write to me telling me he has been released in his native Algeria, a free man. And then I want to reveal to him that it was all down to you.Well, what are you waiting for?
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