Former Guantánamo prisoners and legal advocates gathered in London on Tuesday for an event marking the 10th anniversary of the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Moazzam Begg, who spent nearly three years in U.S. custody without charge, was among those to speak.

Moazzam Begg: “What does 10 years of Guantánamo mean? It’s an anniversary. And we love celebrating anniversaries in the West, don’t we? And this is an anniversary of tragedy, of pain, of torment, of families being ripped apart, of a dark page in the modern history of humanity. It’s a story of children in custody. It’s a story of amputees in custody. It’s a story of old men. It’s a story of people held without charge or trial for a decade by the world’s most powerful and democratic nation, that talks about freedom.”

The anniversary comes on the heels of President Obama’s recent endorsement of the National Defense Authorization Act, which mandates indefinite military custody for al-Qaeda suspects and would make it even harder to free Guantánamo detainees. Clive Stafford Smith of the legal charity Reprieve said dozens of Guantánamo prisoners will remain behind bars despite being cleared for release.

Clive Stafford Smith: “The tragedy, I suppose, right now is that of the 171 prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, or at least one of the tragedies, is that more than half of them—89 according to the best estimates—have been cleared for release. I mean, this is extraordinary. This is not me saying it. This is the—first the Bush administration, in a large number of those cases, and then the Obama administration, saying that these people are no threat to the West and should be released.”

Guantánamo Bay prisoners also spoke out at public events in a number of other cities. In France, Amnesty International said two Algerian prisoners are living in virtual destitution after being released from Guantánamo. Amnesty is calling on the French government to hand over payments from the United States for taking in the prisoners following their release. One of the prisoners, Lakhdar Boumediene, spoke about his ordeal.

Lakhdar Boumediene: “What I can remember at Guantánamo is a very, very difficult situation, because the first time I went to jail, like Guantánamo, not like Bosnia or France, I was very, very sick. I remember the torture, the cell. I can’t forget—never, never, I can’t forget Guantánamo, because I try sometimes to forget, but it’s difficult to forget.”