When barbarians take captives

  • From: "Imran Khan" <No1Khan@xxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <imran_dist@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 14 Mar 2004 11:50:40 -0000

Innal hamdalillaah wassalaat wassalaam alaa rasoolallaah.
Assalamu alaykum warahmatullah wabarakatahu wm, :-)
 
If you haven't read this already, please read this article I was forwarded
about the way the transgressors (US Administration) handle their prisoners.
I wonder if they expect the same treatment when the tides change!
It is amazing to also think, if this is the state of how these prisoners
were detained, imagine of those who were unknown to the rest of the world!
 
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=14042696_method=full_s
iteid=50143_headline=-MY%2DHELL%2DIN%2DCAMP%2DX%2DRAY-name_page.html 
 
MY HELL IN CAMP X-RAY 
Mar 12 2004
WORLD EXCLUSIVE
 
By Rosa Prince and Gary Jones
 
A BRITISH captive freed from Guantanamo Bay today
tells the world of its full horror - and reveals
how prostitutes were taken into the camp to degrade
Muslim inmates.
 
Jamal al-Harith, 37, who arrived home three days ago
after two years of confinement, is the first detainee
to lift the lid on the US regime in Cuba's Camp X-Ray
and Camp Delta.
 
The father-of-three, from Manchester, told how he was
assaulted with fists, feet and batons after refusing
a mystery injection.
 
He said detainees were shackled for up to 15 hours at
a time in hand and leg cuffs with metal links which
cut into the skin.
 
Their "cells" were wire cages with concrete floors
and open to the elements - giving no privacy or
protection from the rats, snakes and scorpions loose
around the American base.
 
He claims punishment beatings were handed out by
guards known as the Extreme Reaction Force. They
waded into inmates in full riot-gear, raining blows
on them.
 
Prisoners faced psychological torture and mind-games
in attempts to make them confess to acts they had
never committed. Even petty breaches of rules brought
severe punishment.
 
Medical treatment was sparse and brutal and
amputations of limbs were more drastic than required,
claimed Jamal.
 
A diet of foul water and food up to 10 years out-of-
date left inmates malnourished.
 
But Jamal's most shocking disclosure centred on the
use of vice girls to torment the most religiously
devout detainees.
 
Prisoners who had never seen an "unveiled" woman
before would be forced to watch as the hookers touched
their own naked bodies.
 
The men would return distraught. One said an American
girl had smeared menstrual blood across his face in an
act of humiliation.
 
Jamal said: "I knew of this happening about 10 times.
It always seemed to be those who were very young or
known to be particularly religious who would be taken
away.
 
"I would joke with the other British lads, 'Bring them
to us - we'll have them'. It made us laugh. But the
Americans obviously knew we wouldn't be shocked by
seeing Western women, so they didn't bother.
 
"It was a profoundly disturbing experience for these
men. They would refuse to speak about what had
happened. It would take perhaps four weeks for them
to tell a friend - and we would shout it out around
the whole block."
 
Jamal added: "The whole point of Guantanamo was to get
to you psychologically. The beatings were not as
nearly as bad as the psychological torture - bruises
heal after a week - but the other stuff stays with
you."
 
HE was talking from a secret location after being
reunited with his family. The website designer, a
convert to Islam, had gone to Pakistan in October
2001, a few weeks after September 11, to study
Muslim culture.
 
He accidentally strayed into Afghanistan - believing
he was being driven to Turkey - and was arrested as
a spy, perhaps because of his British passport. He was
held in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and fell into US hands.
 
Now Jamal bears the scars of Guantanamo. He stoops
into a hunch as he walks because the shackles that
bound him were too short.
 
As a punishment, inmates would be confined so tightly
they would be forced to lie in a ball for hours.
During lengthy interrogation, they would be tethered
to a metal ring on the floor.
 
Jamal said: "Sometimes you would be chained up on the
floor with your hands and feet actually bound together.
One of my friends told me he was kept like that for 15
hours once.
 
"Recreation meant your legs were untied and you walked
up and down a strip of gravel. In Camp X-Ray you only
got five minutes but in Delta you walked for around 15
minutes."
 
Jamal said victims of the Extreme Reaction Force were
paraded in front of cells. "It was a horrible sight
and it was a frequent sight."
 
He said one unit used force-feeding to end a hunger
strike by 70 per cent of the 600 inmates. The strike
started after a guard deliberately kicked a copy of
the Koran.
 
Rice and beans was the usual diet and the water was
"filthy". Jamal added: "In Camp X-Ray it was yellow
and in Delta it was black - the colour of Coca-Cola.
 
"We had it piped through with a tap in each 'cage' but
they would often turn the water off as punishment.
 
"They would shut off the water before prayers so we
couldn't wash ourselves according to our religion.
 
"The food was terrible as well, up to 10 years out-of-
date. They would open a hatch and shove it through a
section at a time.
 
"We had porridge and something they called 'like-milk',
which was disgusting and 'like-tea' and a piece of
fruit. The fruit had been frozen and pounded with
chemicals. An apple might look red but there was waxy
white stuff all over it and inside it would be black
and brown.
 
"They would play tricks on people by denying them
things - you might be the only person on your block
who didn't get any bread. I prided myself on never
asking them for anything. I would not beg." Jamal
said they were told they had no rights. "They actually
said that - 'You have no rights here'. After a while,
we stopped asking for human rights - we wanted animal
rights. In Camp X-Ray my cage was right next to a
kennel housing an Alsatian dog.
 
"He had a wooden house with air conditioning and green
grass to exercise on. I said to the guards, 'I want
his rights' and they replied, 'That dog is member of
the US army'.
 
"You would be punished for anything - for having six
packets of salt in your cell rather than five, for
hanging your towel through the cage if it wasn't wet,
even for having your spoon and things lined up in the
wrong order."
 
Being forced to use a bucket as a toilet in view of
other inmates and guards was particularly embarrassing.
Jamal said: "I never got used to it - we would all put
our towels and clothes around us.
 
"But the Military Police up in the tower would see us
and would shout to each other.
 
"We were only allowed a shower once a week at the
beginning and none at all in solitary confinement.
 
"This was very tough because you are supposed to be
clean when you pray.
 
"Gradually the number of showers rose to three a week.
They were always cold.
 
"You would be chained by two MPs while you were still
in the cage before being taken off for what they called
'rec and shower'.
 
"You could sometimes see the guards tampering with the
shower heads to make water squirt all over the inmate's
clothes if he had put them up to protect his privacy."
 
Inmates were issued with "comfort items" - known as CIs
 - like shampoo, towels, a washcloth and boxer shorts.
CIs would be removed as a punishment.
 
Jamal defiantly refused "treats", such as watching a
James Bond film in a room dubbed The Love Shack by
inmates.
 
He added: "Some people were given pizzas, ice-cream
and McDonald's, but they didn't offer them to me. I
guess they knew bribery would work with some and not
with others."
 
To pass the time, inmates would chat to each other,
pray, read the Koran and sing Islamic songs. In Camp
X-Ray, they were given Mills and Boon-style romance
novels in Arabic, which they refused to read.
 
Describing medical treatment, Jamal said he knew of
11 men who had legs amputated and two who lost toes
and fingers. He was told that the Americans had
removed far more tissue than was necessary.
 
HE added: "The man in the cell next to me had
frostbite in two fingers and two toes. He also had
it in his big toe, but they didn't treat that for
a year by which time they had to cut off much more
than was needed.
 
"All the men who had lost limbs complained they would
chop them off high up and not bother to try to save
as much as possible."
 
Jamal added that he didn't have close friends in
Guantanamo, saying: "When I did meet the other Brits,
we would reminisce about home - particularly the food.
 
"We were all obsessed with Scottish Highland
Shortbread - we wanted some so much.
 
"One of the Brits told me he was asked why he was a
Muslim, because he ought to be praying to the Queen."
 
Jamal, who is divorced with daughters aged three and
eight and a son of five, is convinced his refusal to
succumb to mind-games gave him the will to come
through.
 
He said: "It was very, very hard at times, but I
tried to think about nothing but survival.
 
"I kept my thoughts from home as much as possible
because it would drive me crazy.
 
"About a year into my time, I had a dream. A voice
said, 'You will here for two years'.
 
"In my dream I said, 'Two years! You're joking'. But
when I woke up, I was calmer because at least that
meant I would be getting out one day.
 
"I was sent to Guantanamo on February 11, 2002 and
left on March 9, 2004, so I was there for just over
two years, just like the voice in the dream said."
 

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