On behalf of Barbara Zollner of BRISMES - British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.

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Outside The Law:Stories From Guantánamo
Spectacle Productions 2009
Directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington
www.spectacle.co.uk/outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo

Screening organised by BRISMES at Birkbeck College, Malet Street, http://www.bbk.ac.uk/....
on Wednesday, 2 June 2010, 6pm
RSVP to b.zollner@bbk.ac.uk or through http://www.meetup.com....

The screening is followed by a discussion with the directors, Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and one of the featured detainees, Omar Deghayes.


"Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo" is a new documentary film telling the story of Guantánamo (and including sections on extraordinary rendition and secret prisons). The film brings forward that the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws and focuses on how prisoners were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening (and often for bounty payments). It asks questions about why some of these men may have been in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons unconnected with militancy or terrorism (as missionaries or humanitarian aid workers, for example).

The film is based around interviews with former prisoners (Moazzam Begg and, in his first major interview, Omar Deghayes, who was released in December 2007), lawyers for the prisoners (Clive Stafford Smith in the UK and Tom Wilner in the US), and journalist and author Andy Worthington, and also includes appearances from Guantánamo's former Muslim chaplain James Yee, a London-based imam, and the British human rights lawyer Gareth Peirce.

Focusing on the stories of three particular prisoners -- Shaker Aamer (who is still held), Binyam Mohamed (who was released in February 2009) and Omar Deghayes -- "Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo" provides a powerful rebuke to those who believe that Guantánamo holds "the worst of the worst" and that the Bush administration was justified in responding to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 by holding men neither as prisoners of war, protected by the Geneva Conventions, nor as criminal suspects with habeas corpus rights, but as "illegal enemy combatants" with no rights whatsoever.

www.spectacle.co.uk/outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo



This message was sent by Barbara Zollner (b.zollner@bbk.ac.uk) on behalf of BRISMES - British Society for Middle Eastern Studies.
To learn more about BRISMES, visit http://www.meetup.com... or visit http://... www.brismes.ac.uk

Please note that the content of the film is not representative of BRISMES or of Birkbeck College or of the London Muslim Meetup group. Neither BRISMES nor Birkbeck nor London Muslim Meetup is liable for opinions brought forward in the film or responsible for the arguments articulated by participants on the discussion panel.