Guantanamo detainee: Omar Deghayes

Omar Deghayes is a refugee from Libya, a country that executed his father, but had lived in the UK for some time. He became a trained lawyer and traveled to a number of countries before going to Afghanistan, where he married. After September 11 he fled to Pakistan and was planning to return to the UK when he was arrested - reportedly for a bounty of $5000 - and illegally imprisoned with no legal status as an "enemy combatant".

God bless Amnesty International, they do some amazing work. Like case sheets for each of the Guantanamo detainees. They make horrific but important reading.

Amnesty report that Deghayes was systematically tortured. They give the full details in the case sheet. It's clear, however, that his torturers tried everything from brute physical violence, to psychological pressuring and terror tactics to sexual abuse and finally, in an apparent moment of anger, to inserting a finger into one of his eyes and cauing him permeanant blindeness in one eye.

This is the world we live in. Omar is a real person. He is one the first to be on the receiving end of the fruits of the newly renegotiated social contract between state and citizen.

If that's not enough we shoiuld also ask ourselves whether we've learnt anything from the abuse of Cornelia Rau. The saying that "Governments do to foreigners what they'd like to do to their citizens" is sadly apt.

You can help by contacting:

Alberto Gonzales
Attorney General
US Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001, USA
Fax: + 1 202 307 6777
Email: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov

Rt Hon Jack Straw MP
Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
King Charles Street
London, SW1A 2AH
United Kingdom
Email the UK Ministry of Defence
Email the UK PM

Attorney-General's Department
Central Office
Robert Garran Offices
National Circuit
BARTON ACT 2600
Tel: (02) 6250 6666
Fax: (02) 6250 5900

Attorney General Phillip Ruddock
Tel: (02) 6277 7300
Fax: (02) 6273 4102
Email:Ag@Ag.gov.au

Minister of Foreign Affairs
100 King William Street
Adelaide SA 5000
Tel: 08 8237 7150
Fax: 08 8237 7950
minister.downer@dfat.gov.au

If you want to go further, talk to Amnesty International Australia:

By Post
Locked Bag 23
BROADWAY NSW 2007

By Email
servicecentre@amnesty.org.au

By Telephone
1300 300 920

By Fax
02 9217 7663

Or Amnesty International in general.

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