Sami El Haj, "His Story" 6.5 Years in Gitmo

Sami El Haj, Al Jazeera Journalist, Tells His Story

Held Hostage by Bush, for Six & Half Years in Guantánamo Bay

July 30, 2008

Standing straight and tall, an impressive and deeply introspective man, Sami El Haj walks with a limp and the help of a walking stick. Neither laughter nor smiles light up the refined face of this man, old before his time. A deep sadness pervades him. He was 32 years old when, in December 2001, his life, like that of tens of thousands of other Muslims, became a horrific nightmare.

He endured horrendous suffering. Weakened by a hunger strike which lasted 438 days, set free on the 1st May 2008, he greets you attentively and with a gentle manner. He calmly tells you of a world whose paralysing, suffocating horror is beyond your comprehension.

He is the first of the released detainees from the camps built by the Bush administration at the Guantánamo Bay naval base to be authorised to travel.

"I came to Geneva, the city of the United Nations and freedom, [1] to ask for the law to be respected, to demand the closure of the Guantánamo camp and secret prisons, and to demand that this illegal situation be brought to an end", he says calmly. The word has been uttered. Everything is "illegal"; everything is false, manipulated, absurd and Kafka-esque in this war waged essentially against those of the Muslim faith.

We now know many things; most notably that many of the terrorist attacks since 1996 which have been attributed to Muslims were financed and manipulated by secret agents of MI6, the CIA and Mossad. It was brave witnesses like the former German minister, Andreas Von Bülow [2] in particular, who discovered and denounced this kind of criminal activity, practised by the superpowers. Apart from the new media, which journalist has ever spoken of the revelations made by this great man, Andreas Von Bülow?

In Guantánamo, spurred on by his passion for justice and his conviction that every journalist’s mission is to bear witness to what he sees, Sami El Haj had the psychological strength to carry on, resisting the worse abuses and putting his own suffering to one side. His experiences were extremely painful but he was able, even in the worst moments, to cling to the hope that he would get out alive. And knowing that he had to observe everything in order to be able to tell the world helped him to bear the unbearable.

Moreover, it was through viewing this horrific place which could have been his tomb, created by President Bush, with the objective eye of the journalist that Sami El Haj was able to survive and remain sane. Others, who were not as lucky as he was, died or became insane, and so were unable to recount their experiences.

With neither pencil nor paper, Sami El Haj forced himself to memorise everything in order, even in a cage, to carry on his work as "an Al Jazeera journalist covering a story", as he put it.

Today he is driven by the idea of bringing to the world’s attention these tens of thousands of prisoners who are still suffering inhuman treatment in the prisons of Guantánamo, Bagram and Kandahar. He replies tirelessly and with good humour to all the journalists who interview him, hoping that his words will allow those who no longer have a voice to be heard.

uruknet.info...




[edit on 1-8-2008 by Dubyakadubla]

Thanks Dubyakadubla, a very harrowing read. I can only imagine what it must be like, too be locked up in one of these Hell-holes. I have a massive amount of respect for this reporter, too keep going in those circumstances is unbelievable. I'm glad he's survived, he can now tell his story.

They beat us up. They taunted us with racist insults. They locked us in cold rooms, below zero, with one cold meal a day. They hung us up by our hands. They deprived us of sleep, and when we started to fall asleep, they beat us on the head. They showed us films of the most horrendous torture sessions. They showed us photographs of torture victims – dead, swollen, covered in blood. They kept us under constant threat of being moved elsewhere to be tortured even more. They doused us with cold water. They forced us to do the military salute to the American national anthem. They forced us to wear women’s clothes. They forced us to look at pornographic images. They threatened us with rape. They would strip us naked and make us walk like donkeys, ordering us around. They made us sit down and stand up five hundred times in a row. They humiliated the detainees by wrapping them up in the Israeli and American flags, which was their way of telling us that we were imprisoned because of a religious war.

And what of those responsible for these prisons and acts? Absolutely disgusting, they're sick. They're not human. I hope one day, the people who perpetrated these sick acts, face the same consequences.

You Reap what you Sow.

reply to post by paul76


Well, this....like the many other horrific incidents which were reported and which were not, are an eye opener to those that cherish justice, to stand out from the others and protest strongly against these kinds of oppression, otherwise......it will envelope us all, that we knew....but were afraid to protest.

The journalist Sami El Haj in Geneva

The Al Jazeera journalist Sami El Haj will be in Geneva the week of June 24, 2008, at the invitation of the ALKARAMA Foundation for Human Rights for his first trip abroad since his release from Guantanamo on May 1, 2008.
Sami El Haj will be in Geneva to testify on his long years of arbitrary detention and torture he suffered on the U.S. military base at Guantanamo Bay where he was detained without charge or legal procedure for nearly seven long years. In protest against his conditions of detention and the absence of legal proceedings he had to initiate several hunger strikes.

His visit coincides with the celebration on June 26 of the United Nations Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

During his stay, Sami El Haj will have talks with officials from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the ICRC and human rights NGOs. A public event and a press conference are also included in the programme.

As part of its programme of assistance to those interned at Guantanamo, ALKARAMA had submitted his case to the UN mechanisms for the protection of human rights and had alerted these bodies on several occasions about his situation and requested that the arbitrary nature of his detention be formally recognized.

The Supreme Court of the United States, has also restored, in its judgement of June 12, 2008, the right of prisoners at Guantanamo to challenge the legality of their detention before U.S. courts under the "habeas corpus".

en.alkarama.org...