An exhibition of works made in British prisons offers a glimpse into the lives of 40 Muslim men who were held without charge after 9/11. Victoria Brittain tells their stories
When much of this artwork was made, in Belmarsh prison in the aftermath of the post 9/11 roundups of Muslim men who were held without trial, none of these men would have imagined that almost seven years later they would be in an even worse position.
After the House of Lords ruling in December 2004 that detention without trial was unlawful, they went from Belmarsh in south-east London to a world of house arrests with stringent conditions and threatened deportations, or to Long Lartin prison in Worcestershire with bail refused thereafter to most. Seemingly endless legal appeals in the Special Immigration Appeals Tribunal (Siac) and again to the House of Lords have followed, on deportations to countries that practise torture - Algeria, Libya and Jordan - and on the conditions of the house arrests under control orders or deportation bail.
Britain has become for these men not a refuge but Kafka country. Evidence against them is kept secret even from their lawyers. And the system of Siac special advocates - senior barristers who can see the secret evidence but not disclose it - has been utterly discredited since Ian MacDonald QC resigned in 2004, saying that his role was, "to provide a false legitimacy to indefinite detention without knowledge of the accusations being made and without any kind of criminal charge or trial. For me this is untenable."
None of these men has been charged, or even questioned, by British police. Many came here as refugees, often victims of torture in their own countries.
Desperation is profound. There have been hunger strikes and suicide attempts as recently as this month; three men are in psychiatric hospitals, more are on heavy medication. And control order men are pale, the pallor of skin confined indoors. Their isolation is palpable.
For some of them this art is a memory of a better time. Belmarsh had a pottery workshop - a lifeline for their sanity. Mr B, (Siac has made an anonymity order for many of the men) made an elaborate pot with
extremely delicate painted ornamentation, picking up the colours and traditional patterns of his home in Kabylie, Algeria. And Mr G's pots have echoes of the Sahara and the neolithic rock carvings of his area. Today, neither man can work.
Mr G got bail after his health deteriorated dramatically. He is now in a wheelchair. He spent nine months under house arrest with his wife and child in a tiny flat in with no telephone, computer or visitors. Today he has three hours out to visit the mosque, his daughter's school and shops. He wears an electronic tag on his ankle, which he hides under a sock. Mr G must call the tagging company every time he leaves the flat.
All control orders are different, (except that all need clearance for visitors and no one can use the internet or a mobile phone). Mr B, for instance, is under curfew 22 hours a day. Could he make pots again? Time constraints and geographical boundaries make it impossible, even if he could summon the strength. He is a warm and sensitive man, but his life has shrunk to the smallest of pleasures - rain on the face, or being outside in the winter early darkness. "In prison, people never see the dark, or feel the rain."
Mr U, another Algerian, was famous in the group while in prison for always having his nose in a book. He painted the lyrical "Eid 2007" in Long Lartin. Although granted bail, he is still waiting for the Home Office to agree where he can live. They are quarrelling with an address offered to him in Brighton by a civic leader, and are proposing a 24-hour curfew and residence in a city where he knows no one.
His friend, Mr Z, whose artwork is a painted wooden train, got bail to go home to his wife and two small boys, but has a 20-hour curfew, can only go out for two hours at a time, and is not allowed to attend the mosque of
his choice.
Matchsticks are the most popular art medium in Long Lartin's art studio in recent years. For instance, Adel Abdelbari, an Egyptian who has been fighting extradition to the US for eight years, made matchsticks into a heart-shaped box, as well as painting, while Hussain Al-Samamra, a Jordanian, made an extraordinary, meticulous Andalucian mosque which took him months, and a sailing boat called Allahu Akbar which about 10 detainees helped with to get it ready for this exhibition.
Al-Samamra's experience in Britain is particularly appalling. He was a political prisoner in Jordan in the late 1990s. He suffered torture, including being hanged by his handcuffed wrists, being stripped naked and beaten on the soles of his feet. He claimed political asylum in the UK in 2001. He was arrested on the day his wife gave birth, and did not see his daughter until she was a year old as the family were not cleared for prison visits. A Siac court hearing last October, three years after his arrest, granted bail, but he is still in prison.
These artworks are a window into about 40 lives the government never wanted us to know about. Only people cleared by the Home Office can visit them, and few Muslims in today's Britain want to apply for such clearance.
These vulnerable families are isolated, and many have acute mental health issues, but there are also private inner resources these works hint at. Inside some of these homes, amid the tension, anxiety and depression, are also
surprising scenes of happy achievement - teenage girls going to public libraries to use the internet for their homework, cooking wonderful meals, dressing carefully for a wedding or dreaming of a future as a doctor or a writer.
· Captivated -The Art of the Interned is at Together, 12 Old Street, London EC1V 98E, from June 16 to July 4, 9am to 5pm except the opening day launch at 6.30pm.
The Guardian, Thursday June 12 2008
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