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Amnesty Releases New Gitmo Torture Testimony
01/10/06 Amnesty International | Press Release
Washington - Marking the fourth anniversary of the first transfers
of detainees to Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, January 11, 2006, Amnesty
International released new testimonies alleging the use of torture
and ill treatment against prisoners in the U.S. detention center and
additional details on several detainee cases.
The testimonies include that of one of the first detainees to be
transferred to Guantánamo, Jumah al-Dossari, a 32-year-old Bahraini
national who was taken to the U.S. Naval Base in January 2002 after
being held by U.S. forces in the Kandahar airbase in Afghanistan.
Al-Dossari's testimony, corroborated by people who have now been
released from Guantánamo, includes several allegations of physical
and psychological torture and ill treatment inflicted by U.S.
personnel both on him and on other inmates in Afghanistan and
Guantánamo.
"Anniversaries usually represent milestones. Today's milestone is a
frightening and disheartening one. The situation at Guantánamo is
not getting better - in fact, it may be worse. First, the Bush
Administration wants all 186 pending habeas corpus petitions filed
on behalf of the detainees to be dismissed based on a new law that
was not meant to apply to cases filed before the law went into
effect. And now, after Congress overwhelming passed the historic
Anti-Torture Amendment, President Bush is asserting that he can
waive the restrictions on the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading
treatment against detainees. When does the hypocrisy of defending
democracy around the world while continuing to curtail fundamental
due process end?" said Dr. William F. Schulz, Executive Director of
Amnesty International USA.
"There are approximately 500 men who have been treated with complete
and utter disdain - the antipathy of the American value of
recognizing the basic human dignity of all people. It isn't
surprising that after years of uncertainty about their fate, some of
these men have expressed their intention to die rather than remain
in Guantánamo indefinitely," added Schulz.
Amnesty International also revealed further details on the cases of
Al-Jazeera journalist Sami al Hajj, transferred to Guantánamo in
June 2002 after spending time in detention in Bagram and Kandahar,
and Abdulsalam al-Hela, a Yemeni businessman, subjected to rendition
and secret detention before being transferred to Guantánamo. Amnesty
International is urging Congress to create an independent commission
to investigate all aspects of U.S. detention and interrogation
policies including the dozens of reports of torture and ill
treatment that have taken place since 2002 and to take measures to
prevent torture from recurring in the future.
Testimony Highlights of Jumah al-Dossari
Below are highlights from testimony of Jumah al-Dossari, which he
wrote in July 2005 in the U.S. detention facility at Guantánamo Bay
naval base, Cuba. The hand written testimony was given to Amnesty
International by Jumah al-Dossari's civilian lawyer. At the date of
publication Jumah al-Dossari remains detained in Guantánamo Bay.
This testimony is Jumah al-Dossari's personal account of his
experiences in Pakistani and US custody, and the views expressed in
it are his own.
From here, from the depths of the degradation that debase a person's
dignity, attack his religion, his person, his honour, his dignity
and his humanity, all in the name of fighting terror. I am writing
for those who will read my words. I am writing the story of what I
have suffered from the day I was kidnapped on the Pakistani border
and sold to American troops until now and my being in Guantánamo,
Cuba. What I will write here is not a flight of fancy or a moment of
madness; what I will write here are the established facts and events
agreed upon by detainees who were eye witnesses to them,
representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)
as well as soldiers, investigators and interpreters.
Arrest and Treatment by Pakistani Authorities
- I passed through several small jails where there was a lot
of abuse. I had previously met several people when I was on the
border, they were of different nationalities. They had left
Afghanistan and the Pakistani army abused us and gave us the
worst and most nasty kind of food. They put me in a cell which
was 4m x 4m in which there were 59 prisoners without mattresses,
blankets or a bathroom; there was only one bucket in the cell
for everyone to relieve themselves in without a screen.
- They stole many passports from the prisoners who were of
many nationalities and we were abused. They abused me personally
and beat me several times during investigations. The worst
tribulation for us was when they transported us from one place
to another: they would tie us up in the most savage way, so much
so that some of us got gangrenous fingers and our hands and feet
swelled and turned blue. They would tie us up for long periods
of time in military trucks, sometimes from daybreak until night,
in addition to the hours that they spent transporting us in
trucks.
- When we reached the airport, an American military plane,
American soldiers and an American interpreter who spoke Arabic
were waiting for us. They took one by one and handed us over to
the American soldiers. The deal was done and they sold us for a
few dollars and they were not interested in us. US custody in
Afghanistan
- When we were all in the plane - there were approximately 30
of us - they closed the plane door which from behind said
"designed to carry machinery". After they closed the door, the
soldiers started shouting, screaming and insulting us with the
most vulgar insults and nasty curses. They started beating us
and took pictures of us on a camera; I could see the flash. I
had a violent pain in my stomach - I had had an operation on my
stomach and there was a piece of metal in it; when I complained
about the severity of the pain, a soldier came and started
kicking me in my stomach with his military boot until I vomited
blood. I do not know how many hours I was in that state as we
went from the base in Kohat to Kandahar Airport where there is
an American military base.
- We arrived at Kandahar airport after midnight. It was a
Friday night at the beginning of January 2002. They started to
wrap a very strong wire around our right arms; each of us was
tied at a distance of about two metres from the person in front
of him. After they pulled this wire, they started making us run
towards the unknown. When we approached the tents which had
previously been an instalment, they started to insult us
savagely. The prisoners started shouting and crying because of
their severe pain - there were many young people with us - and
the soldiers increased their insults and beatings and those of
us who fell started to drag themselves on the grounds on the
asphalt of the airfield and the others continued to jog. As I
have already mentioned, I still had the Pakistani shackle which
made it hard for me to walk, so I was one of those who fell and
was dragging himself along on the asphalt.
- When they wanted to take one of us, they would order us to
lie on our stomachs on the floor, and then they would tie our
hands behind our backs. When it was my turn, two soldiers took
me. I was barefoot and they beat me before I met the
investigator. They banged my head against the metal building and
made me walk on the barbed wire. They raised my hands from
behind my back so high that my shoulders were almost dislocated.
When I entered the investigation tent, I found that there were
two Americans among the investigators, one of whom was white and
the other was black. I said to them, "why are you torturing me
and you haven't even started questioning me? What do you want
from me? Give me a piece of paper and I will sign anything you
want". He said to me, "there is no torture here and there are no
beatings".
- During that time, I was moved to the camp clinic because of
the terrible state of my health. They would take me for
investigations which were mostly held at night; they would beat
me severely and tell me to confess that I was a terrorist!!
Once, from the excessive and severe beatings, one of my foot
shackles broke. Once, they poured boiling hot liquid on my head
and the investigator stubbed his cigarette out on my foot. I
said to him, "why are you treating me like this?" He then took a
cigarette and stubbed it out on my right wrist and said, "in the
name of Christ and the Cross I am doing this". Once, they had
beaten me so severely that my clothes were ripped and my
genitals were exposed. I tried to cover myself up but they
started kicking me with their boots.
- They started preparing to move us to Cuba. When it was my
turn and I was in approximately the third group to be moved to
Guantánamo, I was moved to another tent with several people. We
were next to an empty tent in which they put Afghans from the
northern states and Shabarghan.
Transfer to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba
- The third stage started on the day the plane landed us in
Guantánamo in Cuba; we did not know where we were. The soldiers
put us on a military bus that had no seats in it. They made us
sit on the floor of the bus. A translator who was Lebanese came
and said, "you are at an American base and you mustn't talk or
move. You have to keep your heads down.
- When I was put in the cage, a soldier told me, "you mustn't
talk, you mustn't touch the mesh, you mustn't cover your head
and your hands when you sleep and you have to stay in the middle
of the cage". He also me that there was a toilet outside the
cage; if I needed to relieve myself, I would have to ask one of
the soldiers. In the cage, there were two buckets, one had water
in it and the other was empty. The soldier said that the empty
bucket was for urine.
- It was then that my suffering started. If we wanted to go to
the outside toilet, a portaloo, the soldiers would take us
violently and would look at our genitals; even the female
soldiers did that. They would stand outside the door which was
open while we relieved ourselves.
Torture and Ill-Treatment in Guantánamo Bay
- During investigations, I was threatened with rape, attacks
on my family in Saudi Arabia, my daughter being kidnapped, and
my murder - assassination - by their spies in the Middle East if
I went back to Saudi Arabia.
- They went to a detainee and put his head in the toilet. The
toilets in Camp Delta are iron, Turkish-style toilets and then
they flushed his head down the toilet until he almost died. They
went to a detainee and started beating his head against the
toilet rim until he lost consciousness and he could not see for
more than 10 hours.
- One detainee, called Abdul Aziz Al-Masri, was ill and was
asleep in the hospital. These soldiers went and beat him very
badly in the hospital in front of the doctors and nurses. His
injuries were excessive and caused his spine to break. He is now
hemiplegic. They are now trying to operate on him but he is
refusing out of fear that they will play with his back and make
it worse rather than make it better as their operations often
do. These kinds of incidents happen often. They would make
sending them to the detainees an excuse for incidents in which
we would suffer extensive injuries, severe disfiguration and
fractures as there was no one monitoring or following up their
actions. Rather, their officers and officials gave them the
orders.
- At the end of 2003, a major incident happened to me in the
investigation room. The soldiers took me to the investigation
room and the investigator - who I only ever saw on this one
occasion - had a Koran in his hand when he entered the room. He
put it on the table and started talking and raving. Then he
asked some soldiers to come in so some soldiers came. This
investigator had brought the American and Israeli flags in with
him. He then ordered the soldiers to wrap the flags around me
tightly and then he took the Koran, threw it on the floor and
damaged it with his shoe. Then he exposed his penis and urinated
on it. He said a lot of things to me, such as, "this is a holy
war between the star of David and the cross against the
crescent" and "the whole world will submit to us and if any one
doesn't submit to us.
Camp 5
- This stage finished when they finished building Camp 5 which
was opened on 25 May 2004. I went into this new camp to start a
new stage of misery, privation, humiliation and distress. There
was an order to move me to Camp 5 for me to finish off the rest
of my days in solitary isolation there. All the cells in Camp 5
were isolation cells and the whole building was made entirely of
pre-cast concrete.
- I return now to my story. In March 2005, I met the lawyer
who had taken on my case. I was telling him about the torture,
violations and assaults I had faced and I do not know if they
were spying on us. When the lawyer left, a soldier came and he
had put on the military [illegible] and he was angry. He said,
"it's best that you forget everything that's happened to you and
don't mention it again to anyone if you want to stay safe."
- My state of health has become very poor recently. I fall and
faint nearly every day. On 12 June 2005, in the evening, when my
evening meal was brought to me, there was a dead scorpion on the
plate. When I ate a little and saw the scorpion, I gave the food
back to the soldier and showed him the scorpion. On that same
night, in the same meal, a Tunisian brother called Hecham was
also given a plate of food with a dead scorpion on it. Since the
day that they threatened until now, I have been removing insects
and dung beetles from the food and showing it to the soldier who
then says, do you want another plate?
- Today is the end of the second week and the strike is still
continuing. We have been in Cuba for nearly four years, during
which time we have not faced any trial or charges. We are also
on hunger strike because of the medical abuse and neglect we
face and because they prevent us from learning about our
religion and about religious issues. Two days ago, while I was
writing these memoirs, I became really ill; I fell and was taken
to the hospital. I spent two days there and then they brought me
back here. Here I am now; as I try to write the last page of my
memoirs, I am in a terrible state.
- I would thus like to point out that NOT all of the soldiers
in Guantánamo tortured and oppressed us. There were some
soldiers who treated us humanely, some of them would cry because
of what was happening to us and were embarrassed by the style of
management at the camp and even by the American government,
their lack of justice and oppression of us. To give an example,
when I was in Camp India in Camp Delta and I was being tortured,
an Afro-American came to me. He said sorry to me and gave me a
cup of hot chocolate and some sweet biscuits. When I thanked
him, he said, "I don't want your thanks. I want you to know that
we are not all bad and we think differently". When I was talking
to a soldier and I told him what happened to me, he cried and
had tears in his eyes. He was clearly moved. He said sorry to me
about what had happened to me and he also offered me some food.
These are examples to show the reader that there are some
soldiers who have humanity, irrespective of their race, gender
or faith.
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