Amnesty Brings Acclaimed Film To Malvern

Amnesty Malvern Hills group’s major event for 2010 is a presentation of this important new documentary film, followed by a discussion and public forum led by two former Guantánamo prisoners, Moazzam Begg and Omar Deghayes, and the film’s co-director, Andy Worthington. The date is Tuesday 19 October at 7.30pm, at The Forum, Malvern Theatres.

Directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, Outside the Law tells the story of Guantánamo (and including sections on extraordinary rendition and secret prisons) with a particular focus on how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws, how prisoners were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening (and often for bounty payments), and 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, Shakeel Begg, 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.

The documentary was launched at the Cochrane Theatre, London and has since been screened at the Prince Charles Cinema, London and in New York, Virginia, Washington DC and California.
For excerpts and extras see:

http://www.spectacle.co.uk/projects_page.php?id=140

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/outside-the-law-stories-from-guantanamo/

There are also clips from the Q&A session at the Cochrane Theatre here: http://www.spectacle.co.uk/projects_page.php?id=345

Tickets are £9.50 (concessions £8.50), on sale from 1 August at Malvern Theatres
(01684 892277; malvern-theatres.co.uk) or Amnesty Bookshop, 3 Edith Walk, Malvern (01684 563507).

Buying tickets from the Bookshop will save you the £2.50 (per transaction) theatre booking fee.
Students can buy tickets for £5 from the Bookshop only. (UPDATE: Since the end of July the Theatres have altered their booking fee from £2.50 flat fee to 6% (or 3% online) of the total transaction, which is in almost every case a reduction.)

For group bookings, please contact Trevor Trueman, oromiasg@waitrose.com, 01684 573722.

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