President Bush's visit has been dogged by protests, and his trip to the North-East was no exception.

Tony Marsh, a member of Durham Amnesty International, explains why campaigners hoped to make their point and the problems they encountered.

YESTERDAY, President George Bush visited County Durham as the final stage of his State Visit.

Along with many other groups of protestors, members of the Durham City branch of Amnesty International travelled to Sedgefield in the hope that they would be able to confront the President in peaceful demonstration.

The local police force had clearly gone to great effort to ensure the safety of the presidential party, protestors and residents, allocating parking for us at the racecourse and providing free buses to convey us to the village centre.

Unfortunately, demonstrators found themselves shepherded to the tightly cordoned village green, well out of sight of the road by which the motorcade later entered the village and some distance from the Dun Cow Inn, where the President, the Prime Minister and carefully chosen constituents were to have lunch.

It was very disappointing that Mr Bush continued to travel within such a tight exclusion zone, and was thus prevented from seeing and hearing the legitimate and peaceful demonstrations which he claims to value as an indication of democracy.

Despite the fact that we knew our protest would not be seen by the visiting party, our group replicated the Guantanamo Bay demonstrations which had been held by Amnesty International members in London.

We dressed in orange boiler suits, wore blacked-out goggles and surgical masks, and donned symbolic chains to represent the detainees in this and other camps.

We also held aloft a striking banner and distributed Amnesty International's protest cards, which read "You do not have the right ..."

These highlight the plight of more than 660 detainees, including some under the age of 18 and nine Britons, who are held without charge or trial and without access to legal counsel. For some, it is approaching two years since they were first detained.

Yesterday, we wanted to make the point that Amnesty International is calling upon the US authorities to ensure three things:

* Guantanamo Bay detainees are either charged with recognisable criminal offences or released;

* Detainees are allowed lawyers (and interrogations are meanwhile suspended);

* Amnesty International is granted access to Camp Delta in Cuba as well as other US-run military sites.

We were unable to present these demands to President Bush or to press the Prime Minister to make this case to him.

However, the presence of the group in their orange boiler suits provoked considerable media interest, thus justifying our presence in Sedgefield yesterday.

The group will continue to campaign for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay and to champion the cause of human rights wherever these are breached. We welcome new members who share our aims and beliefs.