A protest against the ongoing imprisonment of Shaker Aamer in Guantanamo Bay was held outside the US Embassy in Independence Day.

Wandsworth Times:

Detainee: Shaker Aamer

On the day many Americans spend with family and friends, the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign wanted to remind people the Battersea father was unable to be with his loved ones.

He has spent 13 years in Guantanamo without charge, suffers from post traumatic stress disorder, and claimed he has been beaten and starved during his time in the Cuban prison.

Mr Aamer, who has a wife and four children in Wandsworth, is accused of being a close associate of Osama bin Laden, which he denies. He has never met his youngest child, who is 13.

A blogger, hilaireinlondon on Wordpress, wrote about the event the following day.

She said: "Yesterday, it was hot and sunny in London. Yesterday, millions of US citizens celebrated Independence Day.

"Yesterday, Shaker Aamer endured another day held without charge in Guantanamo Bay, denied his most basic human rights, shackled, force-fed, kept in solitary confinement, trapped in a grim Kafkaesque legal no-man’s-land where he has been cleared for release for over seven years and yet he is still detained, where the UK’s 'special relationship' with the US apparently holds no sway.

"Yesterday, Shaker’s children suffered another day without their father."

As part of the protest campaigners set up a picnic "Guantanamo style", with people strapped to a restraining chair and force-fed by "President Obama" though a nose tube.

Hilaire wrote: "One of the activists who had taken on the role of a detainee described her short stint in the restraining chair as horrible and frightening."

Following the enactment, she read her poem for Mr Aamer - Letter from Battersea.

She said: "I hope I never have to read this poem again. I fear though that I will.

"Cameron, Obama - free Shaker Aamer. Bring him home."

His MP, Jane Ellison, has previously said: "Shaker Aamer’s continued detention in Guantanamo Bay is unacceptable.

"The UK Government has confirmed repeatedly that they want him released to the UK and the latest revelations serve to underline that Shaker Aamer should be immediately reunited with his family in Battersea."

In an open letter to the US Ambassador Matthew Barzun, the campaign said: "The House of Commons has called on the US to release Shaker Aamer and allow him to return to his family in the UK.

"David Cameron has repeatedly called for Shaker's release, as have many MPs, community leaders and thousands of people here in the UK and also in the UK. President Obama has promised to prioritise Shaker Aamer's case."