Guantantanamo Bay is celebrating its 5th birthday. Celebrating is the most inappropriate term ever, but generally, it goes with birthday, so for the sake of convention and the way language works, let us stick to it.

It is still an affront to Human Rights and the belief in a just world and no special announcement any American president can make will change that. But there are some slightly amusing stories to be told in the face of all the seriousness of the issue: The demonstrations against Guantanamo in Edinburgh and London, called for and organised by respectable NGOs including Amnesty International, have prompted a careful warning by the US embassy. Ever concerned for the safety of their citizens (that must be why they send more troops to Iraq), they have asked their subject to stay away from London and Edinburgh in case of violence perpetrated against them on the grounds of their nationality.
They must think we're all stupid. Or they are themselves stupidider than I thought. As if it's the US citizens' fault that Guantanamo exists and still operates. As if any of the protesters had anything against any US American. In fact, particularly US citizens are invited to join the demonstration. Being from the land of the free, they are probably the first to be ashamed of Guantanamo Bay one would think.

On a more serious matter though, Guantanamo Bay has demonstrated a great injustice of international law. Detainees at Guantanamo who are residents of a country but either stateless or resident in a country other than their nationality have not been represented by the state of their usual residence. Sounds technical? Well, here's an example. In Germany, until recently, if you were born to Turkish parents in Germany, you were Turkish. This Turkish citizen, who never lived anywhere but in Germany, would not benefit from representations made by the German government.
Similarly, a UK resident refugee or asylum seeker, even with indefinite leave to remain, who may be detained abroad (Guantanamo or not, this applies to any situation really) will not be protected by the UK government. Needless to say they're highly unlikely to be protected by the government of the country they fled, although I'm never against being surprised.

Effectively, this is an equalities issue, as status and particularly citizenship interfere with equality of treatment of the individual. A very serious matter.

I would like to put that to Tom Harris MP (who in fact sent me a Christmas card, thus wasting taxpayers money in my view) who publicly opposes the right of those given asylum in the UK to obtain a British passport. His argument is that he cannot understand why they would want to travel to their country of origin if they had to flee it, ignoring the issue of the protection British citizenship does in fact give and the very natural urge to visit family members after years of being apart and imposed restrictions to freedom of movement.
As long as the UK government, or any other government, fails to protect those usually resident on their territory, citizenship is in fact the only real alternative. A British or other passport is a very real tool for protection, it's not about travel or other petty issues.

Yet it is still a lottery. Even those with indefinite leave to remain have experienced difficulties in applying for citizenship, and even within one family, one person may be eligible while another person isn't. The reasons for this are beyond me, but I'm sure an immigration lawyer would be able to come up with an explanation. In real terms, though, it's another injustice, creating artificial differences between people who are effectively in the same boat.