Knosha

This video is not new but I’ve only just been introduced to it thanks to my friendship with folks from Witness Against Torture who, among other things, do advocacy and demonstrations on behalf of Guantanamo detainees.  This segment from a British news show, Dateline, addresses the temporary resettlement in Palau of several Uighur men who had been imprisoned at Guantanamo for the last eight years.  There are interviews with the men, shots of their first opportunity to cook, discussion of the pressure from China that keeps these men from reaching their hoped for destination (Australia), etc.  I found the account is particularly poignant when watched in light of the following  words from an attorney, “These men have never committed any terrorist acts…never had any terrorist training…”

In October Salon.com published a story titled “Confessions of a former Guantánamo prosecutor” written by Human Rights Watch counterterrorism advisor Stacy Sullivan.  The article is based on correspondences between Sullivan and Army Lt. Col. Darrell Vandeveld, a prosecutor at the Guantánamo Bay military commissions.  Vandeveld prosecuted seven cases before resigning.  The difficult decision to resign came when Vandeveld was no longer able to serve in good conscience as prosecutor for an unjust Commission.

The article describes the case of detainee Mohamed Jawad, a youth accused of injuring three people by throwing a grenade into a vehicle with US troops.  Among the numerous disturbing details of Jawad’s case is the fact that the teenager was unlawfully detained with adults and denied contact with his family (a violation of US and international law).  The boy was subjected to prolonged isolation; was made to wear a hood over his head while shackled and forced to stand for extended periods of time; and over a 14 day period, he was moved from one cell to another 112 times (about every 3 hours) as part of a sleep deprivation exercise known as the “frequent flier program”.

Following Vandeveld’s resignation, the Pentagon dropped the charges against five of the detainees whose cases he was working.  Jawad was not among the five.