¡¡  LONDON, July 7 (Xinhuanet) -- Ten foreigners held indefinitely and without charge under Britain's emergency anti-terror laws launched appeals Wednesday in the High Court against their continued detention.

    The 10, some of whom have been in jails since December 2001 in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, are among 14 suspects held at Belmarsh high security prison in London, according to a BBC report.

    They are appealing against a decision by the Special Immigration Appeals Commission (SIAC) last October that the government was right to hold the men.

    SIAC said there was "sound material" backing the view that the men were a risk to national security, but lawyers for the detainedare expected to tell the High Court that evidence from the suspects could have been obtained by torture.

    Nine of the 10 are now in high security prisons or mental hospitals while one was transferred to house arrest after a tribunal ruled the conditions of his detention had driven him insane.

    Another four are not appealing because SIAC has yet to hand down decisions in their cases, said a local media report.

    The House of Lords, Britain's upper house of parliament, is dueto hear an appeal against the entire legal basis of the suspects' detention without trial later this year.

    Outside the court, members of civil rights pressure group Liberty held up banners in protest.

    "This is Britain's Guantanamo Bay. There men are being held on the say-so of unknown intelligence operatives," Shami Chakrabarti,director of Liberty, was quoted by a BBC report as saying.

    "If they have committed a crime they should be put on trial, otherwise they should be released," he said.

    Under laws introduced after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, those considered a threat to national security can be heldindefinitely in Britain.

    The new laws were first challenged in March when the Court of Appeal ordered the British government to free a Libyan terror suspect. Enditem