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PIK/CAMPACC: Margaret Owen now 5 days on hunger strike for Shaker Aamer

Margaret Owen on hunger strike, in support for Shaker Aamer.

Margaret Owen is among the protesters entering a solidarity hunger strike for British Guantanamo Bay prisoner Shaker Aamer. The campaign aims to put pressure on Prime Minister David Cameron to secure Mr Aamer’s release from the illegal US prison camp. Mr Aamer, whose family lives in Battersea, has been held in Guantanamo Prison without charge since 2002 when Afghan soldiers in Jalalabad abducted and delivered him to the US Bagram airbase.

Mr Aamer’s lawyers maintain that he was working in Afghanistan for a Saudi charity and say his jailers extracted false confessions under torture. He has long been cleared for release by the US.

The hunger strike is part of Reprieve’s Stand Fast for Justice campaign, which began with a weeklong hunger strike by reprieve founder and director Clive Stafford Smith, who is also Mr Aamer’s lawyer. He was later joined by Scottish comedian Frankie Boyle, and actress Julie Christie.

For more information, see: http://www.standfastforjustice.org/about

Margaret Owen OBE is a long time friend of Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC) and patron of Peace in Kurdistan campaign. She is a barrister and international human rights lawyer with a focus on women's rights and access to the justice system. She is the founder and Director of the international NGO Widows for Peace through Democracy, and for more than a decade has been engaged in work to bring about a peaceful solution to the Kurdish issues in Turkey and elsewhere in the region.

PiK and CAMPACC wish her well and stand in solidarity with Shaker Aamer and all the Guantanamo Bay detainees. www.peaceinkurdistancampaign.wordpress.org
campacc.org.uk

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