The Road to Guantanamo
Encyclopedia
The Road to Guantanamo, alternatively The Road to Guantánamo, is a British
2006
docudrama
directed by Michael Winterbottom
and Mat Whitecross about the incarceration of three British detainees (the 'Tipton Three
') at a detainment camp
in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base
, Cuba
. It premiered at the Berlinale on 14 February 2006, and first shown in the UK on Channel 4
on 9 March 2006. The following day it was the first film to be released simultaneously in cinema
s, on DVD
, and on the Internet
. It won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature
.
Filming took place in Afghanistan
, Pakistan
, and Iran
, which doubled as Cuba. Mat Whitecross is credited as co-director, and handled most of the interviews with the real-life counterparts to the main characters.
The original poster made to promote the film in the United States (shown right) was refused by the Motion Picture Association of America
. The reason given was that the burlap sack over the detainee's head was considered to be depicting torture
, and therefore inappropriate for young children to see. Howard Cohen of US-distributors Roadside Attractions
condemned this as "inconsistent" when compared to the MPAA-approved posters for contemporary horror films such as Hard Candy
or Hostel. The final version of the poster showed just the detainee's manacled hands.
, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul
(the 'Tipton Three
'); three young British men from Tipton
in the West Midlands
of Pakistani and Bangladesh
i origins who travelled to Pakistan
in September 2001 just days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the USA, ostensibly to a wedding of a friend of theirs. While staying at a mosque in Karachi
, the three decided to take a rash and dangerous trip to Afghanistan
to see first-hand the encounters of the region.
Mixed with interviews with the three men themselves, and archive news footage from the period, the film contains an account of the three men's experiences from their travels into Afghanistan and to their capture and imprisonment.
Travelling by van, Ruhal, Asif, and Shafiq, with two other friends, crossed the border in October 2001 just as US warplanes began attacking Taliban positions all over the country. They made it to Kandahar
without incident, and later to the capital city of Kabul
a few days later. After nearly a month of "lingering" aimlessly around Kabul, the Tipton Three decided to return to Pakistan. But through a combination of bad luck and the increasing chaos, the friends apparently took the wrong bus which travelled further into Afghanistan towards the north and the front-line fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance rebels. The convoy of vehicles they were riding in was hit by an airstrike, and they were left wandering around the trackless and inhospitable terrain of the unfamiliar country. In mid-November, near the town of Baghlan
, the three came across a group of Taliban fighters and asked to be taken to Pakistan, but they all were captured shortly thereafter by Northern Alliance soldiers.
Imprisoned at a base at Mazar-e Sharif
, they were interrogated and discovered to be of British origin. With no luggage, money, passports or any kind of identification, Ruhal, Asif, and Shafiq were handed over to the United States military and imprisoned in a US army stockade for a month with other prisoners, being regularly interrogated and occasionally beaten by irate US soldiers, ostensibly in retribution for the 9/11 attacks in their country.
In January 2002, the 'Tipton Three' were declared "enemy combatant
s" by the US military, and flown with dozens of other alleged Taliban and al-Qaeda
fighters to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba
, where they remained for the next two years. They were held in mostly solitary confinement
without charge or legal representation
.
The rest of the film shows several scenes depicting beatings during interrogation, the use of torture
techniques such as 'stress position
s' and attempts to extract forced confession
s of involvement with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The isolation continued from the Camp X-Ray where they were held as well as another camp. During two years they were subjected to more questioning by US army and Central Intelligence Agency
interrogators.
In one incident, one US army guard at Camp X-Ray
desecrated one prisoner's Qur'an
by throwing it to the ground to incite a reaction from the rest of the prisoners.
In another incident, Ruhal witnessed a group of US soldiers severely beat up one unruly and mentally ill Arab
prisoner for not obeying their orders. When Ruhal shouts out to the guards that the beatings and torture are in violation of the Geneva Conventions
governing the treatment of POWs, he is responded with laughter from the guards who respond that those laws do not apply to enemy combatants.
The Tipton Three were all released without charge and without any compensation for their imprisonment in 2004. The three were flown back to England
where, one year later, they went back to Pakistan for the wedding they planned to attend in the first place.
The torture depicted in the film had to be softened from the detainees' claims for the benefit of the actors; according to Rizwan Ahmed, they were unable to bear the pain caused by the shackles pressing on their legs, and had to have them cushioned. They were also unable to remain in the stress positions depicted for more than an hour; the Tipton Three claim they were left in them for up to eight hours.
The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in Berlin
, Germany
on 14 February 2006. It was broadcast to the UK on Channel 4
on 9 March, attracting 1.6 million viewers, and released on DVD and the Internet the following day. Roadside Attractions, an independent distributor, bought the rights to show the film in the United States
in late March.
Iran
ian authorities not only asked the film's distributor to release the film in Iran, unusual for a Western picture, but, according to the distributor's president, ordered four prints instead of the usual one and offered three times the normal amount. As of late April the film was still awaiting official approval and was expected to be released in late May.
. Michael Winterbottom won the Silver Bear for Best Director
at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival.
Commentators have criticised Winterbottom for not questioning the decision of the Tipton Three to enter Afghanistan in the first place; a review in The Times
(which gave the film 3 out of 5 stars) refers to this gap as "an insane lack of cool perspective...The sheer stupidity of these Brits mocks the sincerity of the film. Winterbottom refuses to ask the bleeding obvious. His unquestioning faith in his 'cast' is bewildering."
Regardless of the wisdom of the men's initial trip, their account of human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay highlights widespread criticism by organisations such as Amnesty International
, who referred to the prison as "the gulag
of our times" and world leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel
, who stated that "An institution like Guantánamo in its present form cannot and must not exist in the long term".
after returning from the film's premiere in Berlin. Rizwan Ahmed alleged that during questioning police asked him whether he had become an actor to further the Islamic cause, questioned him on his views on the Iraq war, verbally abused him and denied him access to a telephone. He was then asked to become an informant for the police.
A spokesperson for Bedfordshire police
said that none of the men were arrested and that the Terrorism Act
allows the police to "stop and examine people if something happens that might be suspicious". She did not clarify what the actors had done to arouse suspicion.
documentary Lie Lab in an attempt to prove their innocence of allegations made by the US Government. The technology used on the show was developed by Professor Sean Spence from the University of Sheffield
. It uses functional magnetic resonance imaging
to look at the activity in the pre frontal cortex to determine the truthfulness of statements.
Having previously claimed that he had entered Afghanistan for the purposes of carrying out charity work, Ruhal Ahmed admitted on the programme that he had visited an Islamist training camp, where he handled weapons and learned how to use an AK47. Rasul refused to go through with the test.
"Being in Afghanistan, we were at that age where… seeing a gun… you’d never seen a gun in the UK… you want to hold it. You want to see what its like. But we were never there to do any training. That’s what, that’s what, we were just there. We held it to see what it was like. That’s how we’ve explained it. But it has been taken out of context, saying that ‘Oh, these guys from the UK, they were at that age, 9/11 had just happened, and they were there for terrorist training’. But, but – that’s not the case. That’s not what happened"
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
2006
2006 in film
- Highest-grossing films :Please note that following the tradition of the English-language film industry, these are the top-grossing films that were first released in the United States in 2006...
docudrama
Docudrama
In film, television programming and staged theatre, docudrama is a documentary-style genre that features dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. As a neologism, the term is often confused with docufiction....
directed by Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom
Michael Winterbottom is a prolific English filmmaker who has directed seventeen feature films in the past fifteen years. He began his career working in British television before moving into features...
and Mat Whitecross about the incarceration of three British detainees (the 'Tipton Three
Tipton Three
The Tipton Three is the collective name given to three men from Tipton, England, who were held in extrajudicial detention by the United States government for two years in Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba. Ruhal Ahmed was born on March 11, 1981;...
') at a detainment camp
Guantanamo Bay detainment camp
The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a detainment and interrogation facility of the United States located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba. The facility was established in 2002 by the Bush Administration to hold detainees from the war in Afghanistan and later Iraq...
in Guantánamo Bay Naval Base
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is located on of land and water at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba which the United States leased for use as a coaling station following the Cuban-American Treaty of 1903. The base is located on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba. It is the oldest overseas...
, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
. It premiered at the Berlinale on 14 February 2006, and first shown in the UK on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
on 9 March 2006. The following day it was the first film to be released simultaneously in cinema
Movie theater
A movie theater, cinema, movie house, picture theater, film theater is a venue, usually a building, for viewing motion pictures ....
s, on DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, and on the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
. It won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature
Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature
The Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature is one of the annual Independent Spirit Awards.-2000s:*2000: Dark Days**The Eyes of Tammy Faye**Long Night's Journey into Day**Paragraph 175**Sound and Fury...
.
Filming took place in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
, which doubled as Cuba. Mat Whitecross is credited as co-director, and handled most of the interviews with the real-life counterparts to the main characters.
The original poster made to promote the film in the United States (shown right) was refused by the Motion Picture Association of America
Motion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
. The reason given was that the burlap sack over the detainee's head was considered to be depicting torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
, and therefore inappropriate for young children to see. Howard Cohen of US-distributors Roadside Attractions
Roadside Attractions
Roadside Attractions is a US film distributor based in Los Angeles, California, founded in 2003, specializing largely in independent films.Lionsgate bought a partial stake in Roadside in 2007.-List of films released by Roadside Attractions:...
condemned this as "inconsistent" when compared to the MPAA-approved posters for contemporary horror films such as Hard Candy
Hard Candy (film)
Hard Candy is a 2005 psychological thriller film focusing on the confrontation between an assumed sexual predator and a not-so-innocent 14-year-old girl....
or Hostel. The final version of the poster showed just the detainee's manacled hands.
Synopsis
The film documents the personal accounts of Ruhal AhmedRuhal Ahmed
Ruhal Ahmed is a British citizen. He was detained without trial for over two years by the United States government, first in Afghanistan, and then in Camp Delta, the United States prison for people it describes as suspects in its "War on Terror", at the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, Cuba...
, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul
Shafiq Rasul
Shafiq Rasul is best known for being a detainee held at Guantanamo Bay by the United States, which treated him an unlawful combatant. His detainee ID number was 86....
(the 'Tipton Three
Tipton Three
The Tipton Three is the collective name given to three men from Tipton, England, who were held in extrajudicial detention by the United States government for two years in Guantanamo Bay detainment camp in Cuba. Ruhal Ahmed was born on March 11, 1981;...
'); three young British men from Tipton
Tipton
Tipton is a town in the Sandwell borough of the West Midlands, England, with a population of around 47,000. Tipton is located about halfway between Birmingham and Wolverhampton. It is a part of the West Midlands conurbation and is a part of the Black Country....
in the West Midlands
West Midlands conurbation
The West Midlands conurbation is the name given to the large conurbation that includes the cities of Birmingham and Wolverhampton and the large towns of Dudley, Walsall, West Bromwich, Solihull, Stourbridge, Halesowen in the English West Midlands....
of Pakistani and Bangladesh
Bangladesh
Bangladesh , officially the People's Republic of Bangladesh is a sovereign state located in South Asia. It is bordered by India on all sides except for a small border with Burma to the far southeast and by the Bay of Bengal to the south...
i origins who travelled to Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
in September 2001 just days after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the USA, ostensibly to a wedding of a friend of theirs. While staying at a mosque in Karachi
Karachi
Karachi is the largest city, main seaport and the main financial centre of Pakistan, as well as the capital of the province of Sindh. The city has an estimated population of 13 to 15 million, while the total metropolitan area has a population of over 18 million...
, the three decided to take a rash and dangerous trip to Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
to see first-hand the encounters of the region.
Mixed with interviews with the three men themselves, and archive news footage from the period, the film contains an account of the three men's experiences from their travels into Afghanistan and to their capture and imprisonment.
Travelling by van, Ruhal, Asif, and Shafiq, with two other friends, crossed the border in October 2001 just as US warplanes began attacking Taliban positions all over the country. They made it to Kandahar
Kandahar
Kandahar is the second largest city in Afghanistan, with a population of about 512,200 as of 2011. It is the capital of Kandahar Province, located in the south of the country at about 1,005 m above sea level...
without incident, and later to the capital city of Kabul
Kabul
Kabul , spelt Caubul in some classic literatures, is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. It is also the capital of the Kabul Province, located in the eastern section of Afghanistan...
a few days later. After nearly a month of "lingering" aimlessly around Kabul, the Tipton Three decided to return to Pakistan. But through a combination of bad luck and the increasing chaos, the friends apparently took the wrong bus which travelled further into Afghanistan towards the north and the front-line fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance rebels. The convoy of vehicles they were riding in was hit by an airstrike, and they were left wandering around the trackless and inhospitable terrain of the unfamiliar country. In mid-November, near the town of Baghlan
Baghlan
Baghlan is a city in northern Afghanistan, in the eponymous province, Baghlan Province. It is located three miles east of the Kunduz River, 35 miles south of Khanabad, and about 1,700 metres above sea level in the northern Hindu Kush...
, the three came across a group of Taliban fighters and asked to be taken to Pakistan, but they all were captured shortly thereafter by Northern Alliance soldiers.
Imprisoned at a base at Mazar-e Sharif
Mazar-e Sharif
Mazār-i-Sharīf or Mazār-e Sharīf is the fourth largest city of Afghanistan, with a population of about 375,000 as of 2006. It is the capital of Balkh province and is linked by roads to Kunduz in the east, Kabul in the south-east, Herat to the west and Uzbekistan to the north...
, they were interrogated and discovered to be of British origin. With no luggage, money, passports or any kind of identification, Ruhal, Asif, and Shafiq were handed over to the United States military and imprisoned in a US army stockade for a month with other prisoners, being regularly interrogated and occasionally beaten by irate US soldiers, ostensibly in retribution for the 9/11 attacks in their country.
In January 2002, the 'Tipton Three' were declared "enemy combatant
Enemy combatant
Enemy combatant is a term historically referring to members of the armed forces of the state with which another state is at war. Prior to 2008, the definition was: "Any person in an armed conflict who could be properly detained under the laws and customs of war." In the case of a civil war or an...
s" by the US military, and flown with dozens of other alleged Taliban and al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
fighters to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, where they remained for the next two years. They were held in mostly solitary confinement
Solitary confinement
Solitary confinement is a special form of imprisonment in which a prisoner is isolated from any human contact, though often with the exception of members of prison staff. It is sometimes employed as a form of punishment beyond incarceration for a prisoner, and has been cited as an additional...
without charge or legal representation
Legal aid
Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people otherwise unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right to counsel and the right to a fair trial.A number of...
.
The rest of the film shows several scenes depicting beatings during interrogation, the use of torture
Torture
Torture is the act of inflicting severe pain as a means of punishment, revenge, forcing information or a confession, or simply as an act of cruelty. Throughout history, torture has often been used as a method of political re-education, interrogation, punishment, and coercion...
techniques such as 'stress position
Stress Position
"Stress Position" is a fourth season episode of the television series Law & Order: Criminal Intent. It reintroduces Detective Mike Logan back into the Law & Order franchise.-Plot summary:...
s' and attempts to extract forced confession
Forced confession
A forced confession is a confession obtained by a suspect or a prisoner under means of torture, enhanced interrogation technique or duress.Depending on the level of coercion used, a forced confession may or may not be valid in revealing the truth...
s of involvement with al-Qaeda and the Taliban. The isolation continued from the Camp X-Ray where they were held as well as another camp. During two years they were subjected to more questioning by US army and Central Intelligence Agency
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency is a civilian intelligence agency of the United States government. It is an executive agency and reports directly to the Director of National Intelligence, responsible for providing national security intelligence assessment to senior United States policymakers...
interrogators.
In one incident, one US army guard at Camp X-Ray
Camp X-Ray
Camp X-Ray was a temporary detention facility at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp of Joint Task Force Guantanamo on the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.The first twenty detainees arrived at Guantanamo on January 11, 2002....
desecrated one prisoner's Qur'an
Qur'an
The Quran , also transliterated Qur'an, Koran, Alcoran, Qur’ān, Coran, Kuran, and al-Qur’ān, is the central religious text of Islam, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God . It is regarded widely as the finest piece of literature in the Arabic language...
by throwing it to the ground to incite a reaction from the rest of the prisoners.
In another incident, Ruhal witnessed a group of US soldiers severely beat up one unruly and mentally ill Arab
Arab
Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...
prisoner for not obeying their orders. When Ruhal shouts out to the guards that the beatings and torture are in violation of the Geneva Conventions
Geneva Conventions
The Geneva Conventions comprise four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish the standards of international law for the humanitarian treatment of the victims of war...
governing the treatment of POWs, he is responded with laughter from the guards who respond that those laws do not apply to enemy combatants.
The Tipton Three were all released without charge and without any compensation for their imprisonment in 2004. The three were flown back to England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
where, one year later, they went back to Pakistan for the wedding they planned to attend in the first place.
The torture depicted in the film had to be softened from the detainees' claims for the benefit of the actors; according to Rizwan Ahmed, they were unable to bear the pain caused by the shackles pressing on their legs, and had to have them cushioned. They were also unable to remain in the stress positions depicted for more than an hour; the Tipton Three claim they were left in them for up to eight hours.
Release
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
on 14 February 2006. It was broadcast to the UK on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
on 9 March, attracting 1.6 million viewers, and released on DVD and the Internet the following day. Roadside Attractions, an independent distributor, bought the rights to show the film in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in late March.
Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian authorities not only asked the film's distributor to release the film in Iran, unusual for a Western picture, but, according to the distributor's president, ordered four prints instead of the usual one and offered three times the normal amount. As of late April the film was still awaiting official approval and was expected to be released in late May.
Reception
The film received generally positive reviews, garnering an 86% positive rating at Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
. Michael Winterbottom won the Silver Bear for Best Director
Silver Bear for Best Director
The Silver Bear for Best Director is the Berlin International Film Festival's award for best achievement in direction.-Awards:-Repeated winners:*Mario Monicelli *Satyajit Ray *Carlos Saura -External links:*...
at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival.
Commentators have criticised Winterbottom for not questioning the decision of the Tipton Three to enter Afghanistan in the first place; a review in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
(which gave the film 3 out of 5 stars) refers to this gap as "an insane lack of cool perspective...The sheer stupidity of these Brits mocks the sincerity of the film. Winterbottom refuses to ask the bleeding obvious. His unquestioning faith in his 'cast' is bewildering."
Regardless of the wisdom of the men's initial trip, their account of human rights abuses at Guantanamo Bay highlights widespread criticism by organisations such as Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...
, who referred to the prison as "the gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
of our times" and world leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel
Angela Merkel
Angela Dorothea Merkel is the current Chancellor of Germany . Merkel, elected to the Bundestag from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, has been the chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union since 2000, and chairwoman of the CDU-CSU parliamentary coalition from 2002 to 2005.From 2005 to 2009 she led a...
, who stated that "An institution like Guantánamo in its present form cannot and must not exist in the long term".
Actors detained
Four of the actors in the film were detained for about an hour by police at London Luton AirportLondon Luton Airport
London Luton Airport is an international airport located east of the town centre in the Borough of Luton in Bedfordshire, England and is north of Central London. The airport is from Junction 10a of the M1 motorway...
after returning from the film's premiere in Berlin. Rizwan Ahmed alleged that during questioning police asked him whether he had become an actor to further the Islamic cause, questioned him on his views on the Iraq war, verbally abused him and denied him access to a telephone. He was then asked to become an informant for the police.
A spokesperson for Bedfordshire police
Bedfordshire Police
Bedfordshire Police, is the territorial police force responsible for policing the ceremonial county of Bedfordshire in England, which includes the unitary authorities of Bedford, Central Bedfordshire and Luton. Its headquarters are in Kempston. The county had an estimated population of 602,500 in...
said that none of the men were arrested and that the Terrorism Act
Terrorism Act 2000
The Terrorism Act 2000 is the first of a number of general Terrorism Acts passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It superseded and repealed the Prevention of Terrorism Act 1989 and the Northern Ireland Act 1996...
allows the police to "stop and examine people if something happens that might be suspicious". She did not clarify what the actors had done to arouse suspicion.
Lie Lab
In 2007 two members of the Tipton Three - Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul - agreed to participate in the Channel 4Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
documentary Lie Lab in an attempt to prove their innocence of allegations made by the US Government. The technology used on the show was developed by Professor Sean Spence from the University of Sheffield
University of Sheffield
The University of Sheffield is a research university based in the city of Sheffield in South Yorkshire, England. It is one of the original 'red brick' universities and is a member of the Russell Group of leading research intensive universities...
. It uses functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional magnetic resonance imaging or functional MRI is a type of specialized MRI scan used to measure the hemodynamic response related to neural activity in the brain or spinal cord of humans or other animals. It is one of the most recently developed forms of neuroimaging...
to look at the activity in the pre frontal cortex to determine the truthfulness of statements.
Having previously claimed that he had entered Afghanistan for the purposes of carrying out charity work, Ruhal Ahmed admitted on the programme that he had visited an Islamist training camp, where he handled weapons and learned how to use an AK47. Rasul refused to go through with the test.
BBC Five Live Interview
In January 2010, both Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul confirmed having visited a Taliban training camp, but explained that they were trapped in the province, and had visited only to find out "what was happening". The presenter observed that Ahmed had also admitted to handling AK47 guns. Shafiq Rasul responded"Being in Afghanistan, we were at that age where… seeing a gun… you’d never seen a gun in the UK… you want to hold it. You want to see what its like. But we were never there to do any training. That’s what, that’s what, we were just there. We held it to see what it was like. That’s how we’ve explained it. But it has been taken out of context, saying that ‘Oh, these guys from the UK, they were at that age, 9/11 had just happened, and they were there for terrorist training’. But, but – that’s not the case. That’s not what happened"