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The highly popular and widely respected Scholar Imam Anwar al-Awlaki, author of the much loved audio series which included the "Lives of the Prophets", "The Hereafter" and "The Life of Muhammad" has been detained incommunicado for the past 3 months in Yemen and reports indicate he may be facing torture or ill treatment in custody.
Imam Anwar al-Awlaki who was born in New Mexico, and is a US national with parents from Yemen, lived in the US for eleven years and received the early part of his Islamic education there.
He served as an Imam in Colorado, California, and later in the Washington, where he headed the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center and was also the Muslim Chaplain at George Washington University.
Prior to his detention, he was resident in Yemen, where he was studying Islamic Jurisprudence with prominent scholars. In the early hours of October 17 2006, a Yemeni secret police raid swept up eight foreigners living in Sana'a, under surveillance by the CIA and British intelligence, and at least 12 other men across Yemen. Yemeni authorities insist they dismantled an al-Qa'ida cell and disrupted a gun-running ring to neighbouring Somalia, however, evidence to support this theory is yet to be released.
It was subsequently reported that the key to the raids was Anwar al-Awlaki (identified in the media as 'Abu Atiq') who was arrested six weeks before the October 17 swoop.
Imam al-Awlaki is believed to be held in Central Security Prison in Sana'a. Locals in Sanaa insist that the two storey building where Imam Anwar Al-Awlaki is being held, sits above ground to eight stories underground, where torture rooms and darkened cells are often used.
Human rights organisations such as Amnesty International have repeatedly raised concerns regarding arrests and detentions by the Political Security Organ in Yemen, which are carried out with total disregard for the rule of law and for Yemen’s international human rights obligations.
Amnesty states that, “arrests are carried out without the judicial supervision required by law and those detained were invariably subjected to lengthy incommunicado detention and interrogations, during which some detainees claim that they were tortured or ill-treated. Detainees have also been denied access to lawyers, as well as being denied the opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention before a court.”
Campaigners for the release of Imam Anwar al-Awlaki have been sending letters and emails to the Yemeni embassy in Britain demanding his release.
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