[Media-watch] Art + Politics PRESS RELEASE 'This Is Camp X-Ray' - Manchester Responds to Injustice with Art

[Sigi D]

 --- UHC Collective <mail at uhc-collective.org.uk>
wrote: 
> To: mail at uhc.org.uk
> From: "UHC Collective" <mail at uhc-collective.org.uk>
> Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:23:57 -0000
> Subject: [ArtistsATW] PRESS RELEASE 'This Is Camp
> X-Ray' - Manchester Responds to Injustice with Art
> ---------------------------------
PRESS RELEASE

'This Is Camp X-Ray' -
Manchester Responds to Injustice with Art.
A documentary film by Damien Mahoney.

Premier screening this Sunday 12th December.
Dancehouse Theatre, Manchester, at 7.30pm. 

The one and only screening of UHC Collective’s(1) Camp
X-Ray film 
will be showing at the Dancehouse Theatre, 10 Oxford
Rd (opp BBC), 
Manchester this Sunday 12th December at 7.30 pm. 

Tickets are £3 and are available from the Dancehouse
box office (0161 
237 9753) or through their website,
www.thedancehouse.co.uk 

The documentary film by Damien Mahoney promises to
reignite the 
debate about Guantanamo Bay at a time when
international scrutiny of 
the camp is steadily intensifying(2). 

Jai Redman's ‘This is Camp X-Ray’ installation became
one of the most 
critically acclaimed art events to take place last
year, receiving 
widespread international press coverage(3). The
controversial 
installation - a meticulous working replica of the
original camp in Cuba, 
stood for nine days in Hulme, an inner city suburb of
Manchester. 
Featuring live prisoners(4) and guards, it ran 24
hours a day and stuck 
rigorously to the regime of the actual camp. 

The film features emotional interviews with the
sisters of Jamal Al-
Harith(5), a Manchester resident who was recently
released from 
Guantanamo Bay. 

After the screening there will be a discussion with a
panel of special 
guest speakers, including the artist, director and a
representative of the 
detainees.

UHC 
www.uhc.org.uk

Contact Isabelle Cox at:: press at uhc.org.uk.
 
(0161) 238 8523 (office hours only)
07985 631 247


Notes for Journalists:

1) UHC is a radical art and design collective ran by a
group of artists 
based in Manchester.  They were established two years
ago. Examples 
of their work can be seen at www.uhc.org.uk. Jai
Redman is a resident 
of Hulme and one of the founders of UHC. Damien
Mahoney is a local 
film maker and musician. He was commissioned by UHC to
make the 
film and its original score. It has taken almost
twelve months to develop.

2) Jamal Al-Harith, alongside 3 others, was released
from Guantanamo 
Bay earlier this year. They are currently in
preparation to have their 
cases against the US Administration heard in the
Federal Court in 
Washington DC. The allegations against the
Administration include 
torture and other violations of human rights. The US
Federal Courts 
have also halted the proceedings of a controversial
military commission 
involving an associate of Osama Bin Laden. This could
stop all further 
court proceedings at the camp from taking place.

3) This is Camp X-Ray was billed as one of the top
theatre events of the 
year in its review of 2003. The installation was also
covered by several 
major Arabic news outlets including Al-Jazeera.

4) The nine volunteers incarcerated at ‘This is Camp
X-Ray’ 
symbolically represented of the nine British detainees
in Cuba. The five 
remaining Britons at Guantanamo Bay have been there
for over three 
years. The British Government is yet to take any
action on behalf of the 
men. Amnesty International estimates that there are
six hundred people 
detained at Guantanamo Bay. Only a very select number
of journalists 
and officials have been allowed inside the camp. 

5) Jamal Al-Harith is from  Moss Side. Four years ago
he was in 
Afghanistan, where he was seized by the Taliban on
suspicion of being 
a British spy. After his incarceration in Kandahar he
was freed by the 
Taliban, only to be arrested by US forces almost
immediately. Now 
suspected of being a member of the Taliban, Jamal was
flown to Cuba. 
He remained there for two years. No charges were ever
brought against 
him. 




-- 
UHC Collective
- anti-corporate, ecological, anarchistic, political
art
www.uhc-collective.org.uk

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Cheers.


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