Justice and Due Process for Mohammed Fahsi

On the night before Eid 2006 near Barcelona, Spain, armed, masked men shot their way into the house of MOHAMMED MRABET FAHSI and nine other men. They arrested them with violence and without due process. They underwent a five hour journey to a torture centre in Madrid, Spain. The men were blindfolded and handcuffed. They had no idea where they were. They were shut up in unventilated underground cells for four days without access to the outside world. Nobody knew where they were except their captors. During that time they were beaten, sexually abused and threatened, their families were threatened, they were drugged, they were not allowed to sit at all or rest or sleep for more than a couple of hours. They were forced to renounce their religion and made to continually do press ups until they could no longer do so, when they were beaten again. All this to coerce them into giving false evidence in order to satisfy their captors. All this in the name of the War on Terror. Most of them are still being held in remand prison, scattered around various locations in Spain so their families can only visit them occasionally. Most of them spent up to a year in solitary confinement with no activities or company. After nineteen months in captivity not a single one has yet been formally charged nor has a trial date been set. The evidence has been kept under secret summary so their defence lawyers have been unable to mount any kind of defence. This case is being monitered by Amnesty International and Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve, who both say the evidence of torture is very strong. The UN wrote a report in 2003 by Theo van Boven which heavily critisized Spain for the evidence of torture and the lack of a reasonable defence process. Spain tried as hard as possible to prevent the publication of this report. This has destroyed many lives but has saved none. Mohammed is a British Resident and his wife and children are British Citizens. We call on the British Government to stand up for democratic values and basic human rights to intervene in the case of Mohammed in order to ensure a swift and just solution to this distressing situation.