Former detainees from Guantánamo Bay are gathering this weekend at an Amnesty International conference in London.
The human rights group interviewed a number of the detainees before the start of the conference and you can listen to parts of these interviews here, and read the transcripts. Around 25 former "war on terror" detainees are attending.
The detainees include Moazzam Begg - one of nine Britons who were held at the US naval base in Cuba - two Russian detainees and an Afghan.
Begg describes how a guard at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan, where he was also held for a year, told him that the only way they could do their jobs was to "dehumanise" the prisoners. He says he saw two prisoners beaten to death by guards at Bagram.
At a news conference today, Amnesty's secretary general, Irene Khan, called for the European commission to investigate claims about secret CIA-run detention centres in Poland and Romania.
The UK, as holder of the rotating EU presidency, should push for such an investigation, she said. Ms Khan hopes that by putting out the stories of detainees and gathering evidence about the alleged secret detention centres, complacency on these issues might be "shattered".
Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, founder of the charity Reprieve, who represents some Guantánamo detainees, says the White House's attempt to exempt the CIA from proposed legislation banning torture showed that "George Bush has still not got the message".
"Torture should have been left in the 16th century, where it belongs," he said at an Amnesty/Reprieve news conference today.
