LONDON, Jan 11: Protesters on Friday marked the sixth anniversary of the opening of the US-run detention camp for suspected extremists at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba with demonstrations around the world.

From London to Sydney, activists mobilised by human rights organisation Amnesty International and others called for the camp to be shut, six years to the day since it received its first prisoners of the “war on terror”.

In London, about 100 people assembled near the US embassy, wearing orange boiler suits similar to those worn by detainees.

“Guards” in military uniform, some with dogs, barked orders at the “detainees”, a journalist at the scene said.

On Thursday evening, two steel cages corresponding exactly in dimensions to those at the military base were set up in front of the heavily-fortified embassy in Grosvenor Square, in the upmarket Mayfair district.

Protesters took it in turns to be incarcerated throughout the night.

“This is really to show our rage against the fact that this black hole facility continues to exist, that there are still 275 people outside any rule of law, and to demand its immediate closure,” Amnesty's international campaigns director, Sarah Burton said.

In Sydney, hundreds of people in orange boiler suits and white face masks carried placards through the central business hub of Martin Place.

Another protest in the Australian city of Adelaide included Terry Hicks, whose son David — the so-called “Aussie Taliban” — is one of only three Guantanamo detainees to have faced formal charges.

He admitted providing material support for terrorism at a US military commission hearing last March and completed his sentence in Australia last month.

His father said: “His views are the same as mine. The best thing is to shut the place. The bottom line is: the place needs shutting, put people through proper processes of law.” Demonstrations were more low-key elsewhere.

About 30 to 40 people gathered in Rome brandishing placards saying “Close Guantanamo Now” and “End Illegal Detentions”, while in Athens, about a dozen people — blindfolded and chained — protested outside the Greek parliament.

They placed chaises longues on a strip of astroturf under a banner saying:

“Guantanamo: 50-star hotel.” Similar numbers took part in a demonstration in a freezing central Stockholm.

In Madrid, Amnesty's Spanish branch presented the US embassy with a petition containing the signatures of 170 Spanish lawmakers demanding that the camp be closed.

British national Ruhal Ahmed, who spent two years at the camp before being released in 2004, also read poems written by Guantanamo prisoners outside the building.

In Africa, several human rights groups staged an hour-long sit-in outside the Mauritian ministry of justice in Nouakchott to demand the government do more to release two nationals still held in Guantanamo Bay.

Nine rights groups were to protest in the Moroccan capital Rabat Friday evening.

They called for guarantees from the Moroccan government about the fair treatment and trial of two nationals sent back from Guantanamo.

In total, the United States has released 10 former Moroccan detainees — nine in 2004 and 2006 and one in 2007. Five others with dual nationality have been sent to France, Britain, Belgium and Spain.—AFP