London's theatrical world is no stranger to political plays, but a new work opening this week has taken an original approach - telling the story of Britons detained at the US-run Guantanamo Bay jail in their own words.
"Guantanamo, Honor Bound to Defend Freedom", which opened Monday night at the well-respected Tricycle Theatre in the north-west of the capital, explores the plight of British men held at the prison in Cuba. "We've put together a show which is using the transcripts of interviews with British detainees, families of detainees, detainees who came back, some lawyers and some military people from Guantanamo," the play's director, Nicolas Kent, told AFP.
"Not a single word that is spoken wasn't actually spoken by the person that was interviewed by us. We've not made any bit up," said Kent .
Some of the play also rests on information collected in prisoners' letters to their families and on public speeches.
An excerpt of a letter by British detainee Moazzam Begg, 36, reads: "I don't know what crime I am supposed to have committed for which not only I but my wife and children should continually suffer."
Begg's father Azmat, a retired bank manager from Birmingham, has always claimed his son's innocence and denounced the alleged abuse of prisoners at the US-run military facility. Twelve actors at the theatre impersonate the main protagonists, from detainees to families - as well as hawkish US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld.
"People have been in tears when they've heard some of the testimonies. They think it's appalling and terrible," he added.
In all, nine Britons were held without charge at Guantanamo Bay, a US naval base at the eastern end of Cuba, having been detained in Afghanistan or Pakistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Five were sent back to Britain in March, where they were freed without charge and subsequently protested their innocence of any terrorism connections, as well as alleging widespread mistreatment of prisoners at the jail.
The remaining four, along with another 650-odd inmates, are being detained indefinitely and face possible military trial for alleged connections with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network and Afghanistan's deposed Taleban regime.
Human rights organisations accuse Washington of placing the detainees in a legal black hole, beyond the reach of any court in the world. Kent, who has previously staged other plays based events such as the Nuremberg war crimes trials and the 1993 racist murder of black London teenager Stephen Lawrence, said he hoped the latest piece would expose Britain's shortcomings in defending the detainees.
He expressed particular concern that while London was intervening on behalf of the British nationals, it was refusing to speak up for at least two non-passport holders who had nonetheless lived in Britain for many years.
"The government is making representations on behalf of anyone that has British nationality, (but) for anyone who does not, but has been a resident in this country for maybe 16, 17, 18 or 20 years, they're not," he said.
"They say it's the duty of their country of origin to make representation. If they fled that country of origin, which many did, it's a ludicrous situation," he slammed.
Kent highlighted the case of one Guantanamo prisoner of Iraqi origin, who settled in Britain 19 years ago but has little hope of ever being legally represented by his host country.
"Before the (US-led) Iraq war, the British authorities told him to get represented by Saddam Hussein's (deposed) regime. How cynical," he noted.
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