UK Respect MP: Western media ignores Guantanamo hunger strike

British Respect MP George Galloway has accused Western media of ignoring coverage of the Guantanamo prisoners’ hunger strike.

In an interview with RT, Galloway Blamed the Western media for ignoring the very important Gitmo stories and said, “If this was happening in Russia, if people had disappeared into a legal black hole in Russia, and were facing indefinite, illegal incarceration without trial, without charge and without access of attorneys we’d never hear the end of it. The western media would be full of it”.

Bradford West MP in the House of Commons also said the Guantanamo prisoners have never received the help they deserved from the British government, adding that the country’s intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, were complicit with the US authorities in some cases.

He also said the British government should have pushed harder for the release of Shaker Aamer, the last British inmate at the US infamous prison in Cuba.

Aamer was arrested in 2001 and jailed on 14 February 2002. After being subjected to years of torture and abuse in US custody, he was cleared for release twice under the administrations of former US President George W. Bush in 2007 and Barack Obama in 2009.

Nevertheless, Aamer has never been released with The Independent saying the British government is responsible for his continued detention.

The hunger strike in Guantanamo has entered its sixth week by now. A US official at the prison confirmed on Tuesday, March 19 that the number of detainees on hunger strike at the Guantanamo has risen to 24 since last week.

The prisoners have staged a hunger strike to protest disrespect of the Qur’an and confiscation of personal items.