Event: My Name is Ahsan... and I'm Not a Terrorist

**Jayyid Jiddan** · 4th May 2012

My Name is Ahsan... and I'm Not a Terrorist
UNJUST EXTRADITION OF BRITISH CITIZENS TO THE US MUST STOP

PUBLIC MEETING

WEDNESDAY 23RD MAY
6-8PM

HEND HOUSE (also Zakat House),
233 SHAFTESBURY AVENUE, LONDON WC2 BEE

CHAIR: BRUCE KENT
SUPPORTED BY LIBERTY

SPEAKERS:

GARETH PEIRCE,
FR JOE RYAN (Chair, Westminster Justice and Peace Commission)
ISABELLA SANKEY (Liberty),
SALMA YAQOOB (Respect)
RIZ AHMED (Actor, The Road to Guantanamo, Four Lions)
DAVID BERMINGHAM (Natwest 3)
VICTORIA BRITTAIN

Nearest underground: Tottenham Court Road or Holborn
Buses 25, 73, 19, 38, 29, 134

UK CITIZENS ACCUSED OF CRIMES ALLEGEDLY COMMITTED IN THE UK SHOULD BE TRIED IN BRITAIN ON THE BASIS OF EVIDENCE OPEN TO CHALLENGE IN OUR COURTS.

SYED TALHA AHSAN, AND HIS CO-DEFENDANT, BABAR AHMAD, ARE AMONGST THEM, AS ARE COMPUTER GEEK GARY McKINNON, AND STUDENT RICHARD O’DWYER, WHOSE CASE WAS DESCRIBED AS “LUDICROUS” BY THE LIBERAL DEMOCRAT PRESIDENT. EILEEN CLARK’S 15 YEAR OLD CASE INVOLVES “KIDNAPPING” HER GROWNUP CHILDREN WHO CALL THE CASE “ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS.”

TALHA WAS BORN IN LONDON IN 1979. HE IS A GRADUATE WITH FIRST CLASS HONOURS. HE HAS BEEN DIAGNOSED WITH ASPERGER’S SYNDROME, LIKE GARY MCKINNON.

IN 2006 HE WAS ARRESTED AT THE REQUEST OF THE UNITED STATES. HE HAS BEEN IN PRISON HERE EVER SINCE, WITHOUT CHARGE OR TRIAL, RESISTING EXTRADITION TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES. THIS IS A COUNTRY HE HAS NEVER BEEN TO AND WHERE HE HAS NEITHER FRIENDS OR RELATIONS

HE FACES EXTRADITION WITHIN A FEW MONTHS AFTER THE EUROPEAN COURT REFUSED TO BLOCK IT. HE HAS NEVER BEEN ARRESTED OR QUESTIONED BY BRITISH POLICE.

WE WANT TO PREVENT THE EXTRADITION OF ALL THESE INDIVIDUALS AND ASK OUR GOVERNMENT TO PUT THEM ON TRIAL IN THE UK AND HAVE FAITH IN OUR OWN CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM.

For further information:

http://www.freetalha.org/
info@freetalha.org
https://www.facebook.com/pages/FreeTalha-Ahsan/156232611062457
http://twitter.com/freetalha

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**Abdullah11** · 5th May 2012

Allahul mustaan. Pure dhulm...

**Jayyid Jiddan** · 14th May 2012

“In July 2011, I invited Hamja Ahsan to come and speak at a meeting about the Bradford 12 and 30 years of anti-racist struggle which I was involved in organizing. Hamja’s speech about his brother Talha moved many of us to tears that day.

Soon after this I started writing to Talha, hesitantly at first, acutely aware of the constraints and barriers of his imprisonment and also of differences of age, gender and religious belief. But his grace and warmth meant that these things did not matter. Now he is a friend whose letters I look forward to receiving, who, with utmost sensitivity asks how I feel about various things going on in my life and at the same time gives me his ideas and analyses about the books he has read or would like to read. He is a gentle and reflective man, as perhaps one might expect a poet to be, but he is also deeply caring of other human beings. That someone like him should be in prison at all under at all speaks volumes about the racism and arbitrary cruelty of Britain’s justice system. If he is extradited and placed in solitary confinement in a Supermax prison it will effectively mean the senseless and brutal wiping out of a young life which has so much promise.

What Talha is asking for is only to be tried in his own country for the crimes he is alleged to have committed here in Britain. If he is extradited to the US it will confirm that Britain no longer cares about its sovereignty when it comes to the US, and cares nothing for the rights of its own citizens. Let us hope that the growing pressure from his family, friends and the many others who have been touched by this remarkable young man will prevent this terrible injustice.”

Amrit Wilson
Human Rights Activist and writer
Winner of the Martin Luther King Award

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