Wednesday 4 March 2009

J7 Exclusive: Interview with political prisoner Hussain Al-Samamra

For almost a decade the British government has been engaging in the practice of arbitrarily detaining people, predominantly Muslims, whilst preventing them, and their legal representatives, from knowing exactly what they are accused of doing. The government awarded itself new anti-terror laws and the right to carry out detentions without charge or trial after the September 11th 2001 attacks in the U.S.A. Tony Blair frankly admitted in 2007:
"In the aftermath of such an outrage it was relatively easy to do.

We gave ourselves the ability, in exceptional circumstances, to detain foreign nationals who we believed were plotting terrorism but against whom there was insufficient evidence to prosecute."
In cases where there is insufficient evidence to prosecute, it logically follows that there is insufficient evidence for for a successful prosecution to occur. If there is insufficient evidence to prosecute, then it is entirely reasonable to deduce that the allegations are baseless and invalid.

Hussain Al-Samamra is a Jordanian of Palestinian extraction and is one of many individuals who have suffered the torture of this legislation, having arrived in Britain in 2001 and finding himself under arrest twice, in 2004 and 2006. On both occasions being told no more than he was a "threat to national security" yet no charges were brought and no evidence to support the accusations was produced. Hussain spent two years in prison following his second arrest and now lives within the confines of Immigration Bail.

In this exclusive interview, Hussain describes life under the oppressive shadow of being labelled a "terror suspect" without being allowed to know on what evidence, if any, this suspicion is based, thereby making it impossible for him defend himself against any allegations.

Read the full interview with political prisoner Hussain Al-Samamra here.

[Picture above shows a meticulous Andalucian mosque made of matchsticks which took Hussain al-Samamra months to build, as exhibited at CAPTIVATED: The Art of the Interned]