Who is this brother?
His brother says of him: “Tarek Mehanna is a 27 year old Muslim Egyptian American born and raised in the United States. Highly educated, Tarek holds a doctorate in pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. He is a devout and tolerant Muslim who is not only respected in the local Islamic and interfaith communities, but who also gives back to his Islamic community by fulfilling the roles of brother, educator, mentor, scholar, and friend. Tarek is described by those who know him well as humble, reserved, warm, peaceful, intelligent, knowledgeable, reflective, pragmatic, dedicated, and straightforward. He is a person with strong ethical values who refuses to compromise on them regardless of the circumstances.”

How can you know him?
See his blog: http://iskandrani.wordpress.com/  (MyUmmah regularly publishes some of his works)

Some History:

This is abridged from the brother of Tarek Mehanna:

The FBI after trying to recruit Tarek as an informant and his flat out refusal to backstab his fellow Muslim brothers and sisters: The FBI then proceeded to repeatedly approach Tarek over the coming months, each time pressuring him more and more to collaborate with them.

This pressure came in the form of:

·         Blackmail
·         Threats that unless he consented to cooperating with the FBI, they would continue finding new ways to disrupt his life and to deprive him of a sense of security.

He was told outright by interrogators that they knew he was innocent, but that they would not be satisfied with his refusal to cooperate. Regardless of whether their methods were unethical, coercive, or failed to respect his civil rights, the FBI were quite fortunate in catching an opportunity to arrest Tarek in 2008 based on a weak accusation of issuing "false statements" to a federal officer. After two months of imprisonment, his court-appointed attorney, Jay Carney, jr. was able to negotiate a bail settlement of $1,250,000. Tarek was subsequently released after this absurdly inflated amount was paid by his parents, who were desperate to have him return home safely.

Tarek did return home for nearly a year, living a quiet life, restricted by a court-ordered curfew, and monitored by FBI investigators. In the meantime, the case against him, based on "false testimony" charges, began to stagnate, and court dates were far and in between with no advances made by the FBI. Over time, the Mehanna family began to finally feel a sense of restored normalcy and stability in their lives. This feeling was suddenly and violently shattered during the fajr hours of September 21st, 2009, when FBI agents showed up at the Mehanna home doorstep at 5:00AM in the morning. Despite the lack of ANY new evidence since the prior arrest, the agents came with an arrest warrant. According to Dr. Ahmed Mehanna, Tarek’s father, the agents were visibly excited and enthusiastic about their invasion of the Mehanna private household and the seizure and arrest of Tarek. The situation facing Tarek now is one where his second arrest means that there is no chance for bail. Tarek is currently incarcerated at the Plymouth Correctional Facility, where he is expected to remain for the several year duration of a new trial based on outright FALSE AND LUDICROUS accusations of aiding and abetting terrorism. He currently faces LIFE IN PRISON if convicted guilty in a trial by grand jury. We must offer our greatest support and most dedicated effort if there is to be hope of Tarek’s release.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

·         As the brothers from www.pureislam.co.za said: “We ask everyone to remember br Tarek in your duas and ask Allah to grant him and his family sabr and steadfastness in this time of trial.”

·         Further to this, please take the two minutes further of your time, and go to the link: http://www.petitiononline.com/Tarekm/petition.html

·         You can also, send this message to all you know, print it, and share it with your family – and get others to at the least make du’ah for the brother.

·         Write to the brother and his family, showing support:

From: www.cageprisoners.com

Tarek Mehanna
ID# 50660
Room E327
Unit E3
Plymouth Country Correctional Facility
26 Long Pond Road
Plymouth
MA 02360
USA

Remember to try the very best you capable of and more -  to live upon Qur’an and Sunnah:

·         “Indeed, the believers are brothers…” [al-Hujurat; 10]

·         “The male and female believers are allies of one another…”[at-Tawbah;71]

Muhammad S.A.W. said:

·         “Feed the hungry, visit the sick, and free the prisoner!”

·         “It is upon the Muslim faithful to free their prisoners and to pay their ransom.”

·         “There is no Muslim who forsakes a Muslim in a situation where his reputation and honor are violated except that Allah will forsake him in a situation where he would want His help, and there is no Muslim who helps a Muslim in a situation where his reputation and honor are being violated except that Allah will help him in a situation where he would want His help.”

·         “The believer to the rest of the believers is like the head to the body: the believer is pained at what afflicts the rest of the believers just as the head feels the pain of whatever afflicts the body.”

·         “Whoever relieves a Muslim of a hardship in this life, Allah will relieve him of a hardship in the Hereafter, and Allah will help His slave so much as he helps his brother.”

In Conclusion:

A reminder from: Shaikh Abu Baseer in his article on Free the Prisoner!

“O Muslims, you want the scholars and callers to Allah to openly proclaim the truth and to fulfill their obligations towards the Ummah, yet if they do this and are afflicted with trials and hardships such as their being thrown into the depths of the prisons of the oppressors, you abandon them and distance yourselves from them, and sit back from helping them as if you don’t know them and they have no rights over you… “That is a division that is most unfair!” [an-Najm; 22] So, Islam should be aided by the Muslim people as well as their active scholars together – not one instead of the other.

A door to the doors of good has been opened for you, O slave of Allah! So, take advantage of it before it shuts and you are prevented from this abundant good! This door is that you see to the needs of your imprisoned brothers and their families and children. So, I give glad tidings to those who take advantage of this before the door is shut, and they spend the rest of their lives in regret!”

"Don’t look at the meagerness of your sin, look at who it was that you disobeyed." – Bilaal ibn Sa’d

Muslim Matters obtained this heart wrenching transcript of Mr. Siddiqui’s speech at the Muslim Legal Fund of America’s (MLFA) annual fund raising event from an attendee.

Learn about this case’s unique challenges and support Dr. Aafia’s official legal defense fund at: https://www.mlfausa.com/donateAafia.php!

The following is a transcript of Mr. Siddiqui’s (Aafia’s brother) speech at the MLFA Annual Fund Raising Dinner on April 25, 2009:

“Asalam Alaikum,

Thank you for the opportunity to share with you information about my little sister, Aafia Siddiqui’s case. I especially want to commend you for your courage and support in that you are here tonight.

I have been given the difficult task of presenting a short briefing regarding the facts surrounding Aafia’s case.

However, a brief explanation will not allow me delve into all the angles involved in the case so I will try to focus on the core points from my perspective.

So much has been claimed about my sister. So many labels have been applied to Aafia that unfortunately her humanity has been lost. In order to put the case in context, I will have to digress slightly, and perhaps the best place to start is the beginning – the beginning for me was our upbringing.

Aafia was the youngest child in our small family of three. She was always an accomplished student, who treasured education and it was this pursuit of education that lead her to the U.S. at a young age. When she came here, she lived with me before getting her scholarship to MIT. During this time, my little sister devoted herself to her studies and Muslim student activities. She always had a soft spot for helping people and dawah work.

Aafia also had a passion for children, which sounds nice to say; however, proof was in the fact that she dedicated her education at MIT and Brandeis towards the developing of creative and easy techniques for teaching children. Her own dream was to start a school where her techniques could be put into practice. And when she had children of her own, she was totally devoted to them.

Here is one of the many cruel ironies of Aafia’s life in that someone who dedicated her life to children would end up losing her own.

It was just over 6 years ago that my family’s nightmare began.

In March 2003, my little sister and her three small children all disappeared from Karachi.

It was Aafia, her oldest, Ahmad, who was 6 at the time, Maryum who was 4 and Suleman, who was only 6 months.

After many attempts by my family to find out what happened, we heard reports from both the Pakistani & U.S. press that Aafia had been picked up by security officials and handed over to the U.S. for questioning.

Then nothing… Silence. We could get no official word.

As we started to raise questions, my family was “advised” to stay quiet and told we would be left alone…

I am sure you all remember the atmosphere of the time. There was a tremendous climate of fear… and many reports of people just disappearing, especially overseas. Over time, we made discreet inquiries but as hope began to fade we resigned ourselves to the belief that she and her children were probably dead. My mother would search burial sites as not a single day went by that we forgot her but we kept our pain private as we struggled to move on.

Meanwhile, my sister Aafia, the human being, the mother of three was lost in her own abduction. Her story made her fair game. She was transformed into a flash point, a talking point for all sorts of allegations and speculations in the press, while legends evolved around her from parties with their own interests and agendas.

While we were silently grieving, many human rights groups added Aafia’s name to the growing list of missing persons. It seems Aafia’s was not an isolated case. There were hundreds…

Some of you may recall the time when the issue of missing persons became a hot button in Pakistan. It was during this time, when the Chief Justice started asking about the missing persons, that he was sacked.

In early 2008, Moazzem Beg, a former detainee at Gitmo identified Aafia among the women prisoners at Bagram. By early July, a prominent Pakistani politician, Imran Khan and British reporters released reports about Aafia being a detainee in one of the secret prisons.

Then suddenly, in late July 2008, we learned directly from the FBI that Aafia had been shot in Afghanistan and was being brought to the US on charges of attempting to shoot U.S. servicemen.

We were in total shock – on the one hand my family was overjoyed to learn that Aafia was alive… yet at the same time she faced such extraordinary charges and allegations that we feared for her future.

In an instant, we experienced simultaneous joy and horror; hope and despair, a miracle and an extraordinary test.

And the children – Only one of her children is accounted for. The others, to this day are still missing.

I have often wondered what it must have been like for her and I cannot imagine … just imagine what you would do if somebody took your children? Or, rather what would you not do?

It is important that you understand this, because unless you grasp this, you will not grasp the enormity of this case and what it represents. Why Aafia is where she is and how she acts. Why so many feel for her and why others may feel threatened by her case.

Officially she is charged with the attempted murder of U.S. soldiers. She has categorically denied these charges. Several journalists, including one of the first foreign journalists from Reuters who visited the scene and interviewed eye witnesses have disputed the official version, echoing Aafia’s account.

The charges are hard for me to understand because my little sister loved this country (The U.S.), where she earned an outstanding education. She disliked violence and respected the American work ethic and the value placed on merit and self achievement. Her own life exemplified this. She completed her education at MIT by working campus jobs and earning scholarships. She balanced her religious faith with a desire to forge a modern education. – And here is another one of those cruel ironies – as that very education is being used to vilify her.

Currently, the court proceedings are lingering. This adds to all the confusion and hype surrounding the case, not to mention challenging her physical and mental well being and even the ability to build a proper defense.

Then, there is the atmosphere of fear that we still live in today as those who would rise up and speak boldly are few and far between. I hear many private testimonials from people who knew her and still speak highly favorably about her but most fear speaking out publicly.

Aafia has alleged that she was held captive for over 5 years. The government’s response was to initially send Aafia for a mental evaluation and their own doctors determined she was incompetent to stand trial and may have post traumatic stress disorder.

The prosecution, not liking this, decided to get outside experts to overrule the findings (their own original findings) and currently the original doctors are revising their findings so she can stand trial.

Meanwhile, so much time has passed and Aafia continues to linger in prison. But despite all these challenges, she remains spiritually strong and her faith is undiminished although I do find myself questioning my own at times.

Aafia does have court appointed lawyers. But we learned over the past few months that court appointed lawyers have severe restrictions. For example, in 9 months not one defense lawyer has visited the scene of the crime nor interviewed a single witness or even made a motion for bail.

Court appointed lawyers are paid low fees, and even then, the lawyers constantly struggle get funds pre-approved from the judge. In this system, the other side knows everything you are doing.

Appointed lawyers do not even have to have expertise or experience in the area of charges relevant to the case of Aafia.

So, how can Aafia build a trusting and confidential relationship without a lawyer of her own choosing?

The case is complex and requires independent investigation and a team of capable and experienced lawyers.

This is why are teaming up with MLFA. They have experience in getting a solid legal team in place and are set up to do proper fund raising and accounting for cases like this. They have access to the best legal minds and experts and the ability to negotiate the best fees.

I never thought anything like this could ever happen to my family… I mean this is, or this was, something that only happens to other people…. We were professionals going about our daily lives and yet, here I stand before you after 6 years, 6 long and painful years that have taken a very heavy toll on all our lives, the lives of our children and on our community.

But I stand here because I want to thank you for your courage, your support and your prayers. In spite of, or perhaps because of all the contradicting reports, you are here tonight. Help us help Aafia.

I believe that perhaps the most striking duality about my little sister’s case is that while justice has eluded her, perhaps she can help establish justice for others.”

Dr. Aafia’s family has offically partnered with MLFA to secure funding and a effective legal defense. To support Dr. Aafia visit her case’s website at: https://www.mlfausa.com/donateAafia.php!

This is an account of the experience of our brother Abu Sabaya that came to New York (from a different state) just to see the condition of our sister and to tell the world who this woman is. May Allah reward our brother, free our sister (and all other Muslim prisoners); if you haven’t already, please leave a note for Sr. Aafia Siddiqui by clicking here; with the help of a brother who is in contact with her lawyer, she will be able to read your letters to her.

“I want you to come to know of the concern and dedication that this woman had for Islam as described by those who knew her – a dedication that was manifested by way of actions that were very simple and easy, yet seldom carried out by those who are able.”

“She is a high security risk.”

– Christopher LaVigne, assistant US attorney, on August 11th when trying to convince a judge to prevent Aafia from seeing a doctor for her gunshot wound

During the time of the Prophet (sallallahu ‘alayhi wassallam), those who entered Islam were of two types: those who remained in their lands with the general populace practicing the basic tenets of the religion, and those who took it upon themselves to migrate and join the Prophet in his expeditions. There are ahadith that show that the Prophet treated these two groups differently from each other due to their difference in status. For example, Muslim and at-Tirmidhi report that when appointing a leader to a battalion, he would instruct him on how to deal with those of the enemy who became Muslims, saying: “…invite them to migrate from their lands to the land of the Muhajirin, and inform them that if they do so, they will have all the privileges and obligations of the Muhajirin. If they refuse to migrate, tell them that they will have the status of the Bedouins, and will be subjected to the commands of Allah like the rest of the believers…” This distinction was simply of one group deciding to take upon its shoulders certain responsibilities in contrast to the other whose inactivity limited them to a very individualistic, localized, benign practice of Islam. One can in essence say that the Prophet divided the practice of the Muslims at the time into two types: the religion of the Migrants (Din al-Muhajirin, whose adherents took upon their shoulders the responsibilities of aiding and giving victory to Islam), and the religion of the Bedouins (Din al-A’rab, whose adherents did not go beyond the basics).

Although the depiction is of a situation that existed over a thousand years ago, it is an eternal pattern that Muslims will be distributed amongst these levels in every era and in every place. So, one can notice this distinction even amongst the practicing Muslims of the East and West. The Din al-A’rab of the past can be compared to the Islam that is limited to the five pillars, eating zabihah, and keeping the local mosque clean. Considering how difficult it is in the West to come across even these Muslims, imagine what joy comes to the eye and heart to see those who go a step further and reach the level of adhering to Din al-Muhajirin – those whose concern spans the entire Ummah, driving them to get up and become active workers for Islam, to dedicate their every minute to the service of Allah however they can no matter what other responsibilities clutter their busy lives, to have their hearts beat with the rest of the Muslims – all this with their heads raised high and paying no regard to those around them who eat and live like cattle, as it was said:

Such are the free in a world of the enslaved…

Recently, the entire world has been speaking about one such person – a short, thin college student, wife, and mother of three small children. Her name is Aafia Siddiqui.

I want you to be drawn to the story of this woman and also understand why I was drawn to it. I want you to come to know of the concern and dedication that this woman had for Islam as described by those who knew her – a dedication that was manifested by way of actions that were very simple and easy, yet seldom carried out by those who are able.

Those who knew Aafia recall that she was a very small, quiet, polite, and shy woman who was barely noticeable in a gathering. However, they add that when necessary, she would say what needed to be said. She was once giving a speech at a fundraiser for Bosnian orphans at a local mosque in which she began lambasting the men in the audience for not stepping up to do what she was doing. She would plead: “Where are the men? Why do I have to be the one standing up here and doing this work?” And she was right, as she was a mother, a wife, and a student in a community full of brothers with nothing to show when it came to Islamic work.

When she was a student at MIT, she began organizing drives to deliver copies of the Qur’an and other Islamic literature to the Muslims in the local prisons. She would have them delivered in boxes to a local mosque, and she would then show up at the mosque and carry the heavy boxes by herself all the way down the three flights of very steep stairs. Subhan Allah, look at the Qadar of Allah: this woman who would spend so much time and effort to help Muslim prisoners is now herself a prisoner (I ask Allah to free her)!

Her dedication to Islam was also very evident on campus. A 2004 article from Boston Magazine mentions that “…she wrote three guides for members who wanted to teach others about Islam. On the group’s website, Siddiqui explained how to run a daw’ah table, an informational booth used at school events to educate people about, and persuade them to convert to, Islam.” The article continues to mention that in the guides, she wrote: “Imagine our humble, but sincere daw’ah effort turning into a major daw’ah movement in this country! Just imagine it! And us, reaping the reward of everyone who accepts Islam through this movement, through years to come. Think and plan big. May Allah give this strength and sincerity to us so that our humble effort continue, and expands until America becomes a Muslim land.”

Allahu Akbar…look at this himmah (concern)…look at these lofty aspirations and goals! As men, we should be ashamed to have to learn such lessons from a sister.

She would drive out of her way every week to teach the local Muslim children on Sundays. I was told by a sister that she would also drive out of her way every week to visit a small group of reverts to teach them the basics of Islam. One of the sisters who attended her circles described Aafia as “not going out of her way to be noticed by anybody, or to be anyone’s friend. She just came out here to teach us about Allah, and English wasn’t even her first language!”

Another sister who would attend her circles describes: “She shared with us that we should never make excuses for who we are. She said: “Americans have no respect for people who are weak. Americans will respect us if we stand up and we are strong.””

Allahu Akbar…O Allah, free this woman!

But Aafia’s biggest passion was helping the oppressed Muslims around the globe. When war in Bosnia broke out, she did not sit back and watch with one knee over the other. Rather, she immediately sought out whatever means were within her grasp to make a difference. She didn’t sit in a dreamy bubble thinking all day about how she wished that she could go over to Bosnia and help with relief efforts. She got up and did what she could: she would speak to people to raise awareness, she would ask for donations, she would send e-mails, she would give slideshow presentations – the point I’m trying to make here is that Aafia showed that there is always something we can do to help our brothers and sisters, the least of which is a spoken word to raise awareness to those who are unaware. Sitting back and doing nothing is never an option. She once gave a speech at a local mosque to raise funds for Bosnian orphans, and when the audience was just sitting there watching her, she asked: “How many people in this room own more than one pair of boots?” When half the room raised their hands, she said: “So, donate them to these Bosnians who are about to face a brutal winter!” She was so effective in her plea that even the imam took off his boots and donated them!

There is much more to say about how passionate this sister was for Islam. However, the above gives you an idea of what she was like, and should hopefully serve as an inspiration for brothers before sisters to become active in serving Islam through whatever means are available. Remember that she was doing all of this while being a mother and a PhD student, and most of us do much less despite having much more free time.

So, having this image of Aafia in my mind, I was taken aback at what I saw when she was brought into court for what should have been her bail hearing. The door on the front left side of the courtroom was slowly opened to reveal a frail, limp, exhausted woman who could barely hold her own head up straight in a pale blue wheelchair. She was dressed in a Guantanamo-style orange prison uniform, and her frail head was wrapped in a white hijab that was pulled down to cover her bone-thin arms (the prison uniform is short sleeved). Her lawyers quickly sat around her, and the hearing began.

The head prosecutor, assistant US attorney Christopher LaVigne, walked in with a group of three or four FBI agents, one of whom was a female who looked Pakistani (may Allah’s curse be upon them). The defense began by announcing that the bail hearing was to be postponed because of Aafia’s medical condition. Essentially, Aafia’s lawyers reasoned that there was no point of her being out on bail if she was near death. So, they demanded that she be allowed a doctor’s visit before anything else. LaVigne got up and objected, saying that Aafia was a risk to the security of the United States. The judge didn’t seem to buy that, and the prosecutor continued arguing that “this is a woman who attempted to blast her way out of captivity.” As soon as this was said, I looked over and noticed Aafia shaking her head in desperation and sadness, as if she felt that the whole world was against her. By the way, Aafia was so small and weak that I could barely see her from behind the wheelchair. All I could see was her head slumped over to the left and wrapped in the hijab, and her right arm sticking out.

I got a better understanding of why she was so sad and desperate when her lawyer began listing details of her condition:

* She now has brain damage from her time in US custody
* One of her kidneys was removed while in US custody
* She is unable to digest her food since part of her intestines was removed during surgery while in US custody
* She has layers and layers of sewed up skin from the surgery for the gunshot wound
* She has a large surgical scar from her chest area all the way down to her torso

With all of this, she had not been visited by a single doctor the entire time of her incarceration in the US despite being in constant incredible abdominal pain following her sloppy surgery in Afghanistan – pain for which she was being given nothing more than Ibuprofen! Ibuprofen is purchased over the counter to treat headaches!

With all of this, the prosecutor had the audacity and shamelessness to try to prevent her from being seen by a doctor due to her being a “security risk.” When he was pressed by the judge as to why Aafia was sitting all this time in a NYC prison without basic medical care, the government attorney stuttered, said that it was “a complicated situation,” and capped it with the expected cheap shot that “it was her decision as she refused to by seen by a male doctor.” As soon as the prosecutor said that last bit, I saw Aafia’s thin arm shoot up and shake back and forth to the judge (as if to say ‘No! He’s lying!’). I felt so sorry for her, as she was obviously quite frustrated at the lies being spilled out before her very eyes. Her lawyer then put her hand on her arm and began stroking it to comfort her and calm her down.

When the hearing was over, one scholarly statement stuck in my mind, and it is where Ibn al-Qayyim said that a person rises in his closeness to Allah until: “…there remains only one obstacle from which the enemy calls him from, and this is an obstacle that he must face. If anyone were to be saved from this obstacle, it would have been the Messengers and Prophets of Allah, and the noblest of His Creation. This is the obstacle of Satan unleashing his troops upon the believer with various types of harm: by way of the hand, the tongue, and the heart. This occurs in accordance with the degree of goodness that exists within the believer. So, the higher he is in degree, the more the enemy unleashes his troops and helps them against him, and overwhelms him with his followers and allies in various ways. There is no way around this obstacle, because the firmer he is in calling to Allah and fulfilling His commands, the more the enemy becomes intent upon deceiving him with foolish people. So, he has essentially put on his body armor in this obstacle, and has taken it upon himself to confront the enemy for Allah’s Sake and in His Name, and his worship in doing so is the worship of the best of worshippers.”

And this was absolutely clear that day when looking at the scene in the court. Despite Aafia’s apparent physical weakness and frailty, there was a certain ‘izzah (honor) and strength that I felt emanating from her the entire time. Everything from the way she forcefully shook her hand at the judge when the prosecutor would lie, to how she was keen to wear her hijab on top of her prison garments despite horrible circumstances that would make hijab the last thing on most people’s minds, to the number of FBI agents, US Marshals, reporters, officials, etc. who were all stuffed in this small room to observe this frail, weak, short, quiet, female “security risk” – everything pointed to the conclusion that the only thing all of these people were afraid of was the strength of this sister’s iman.

This is the situation of our dear sister, a Muslim woman in captivity…

What can I say…?

I will not close by mentioning the obligation of helping to free Muslim prisoners. I will not mention how al-Mu’tasim razed an entire city to the ground to rescue a single Muslim woman. I will not go back to the days of Salah ad-Din or ‘Umar bin ‘Abd al-’Aziz, who rescued Muslim prisoners in the tens of thousands. I cannot be greedy enough to mention these things at this point because what is even sadder than what is happening to Aafia Siddiqui is how few the Muslims were who even bothered to show up to her hearing in a city of around half a million Muslims (not counting the surrounding areas), and that not a single Muslim organization in the United States has taken up the sister’s cause or even spoken a word in her defense, and as Ibn al-Qayyim said: “If ghayrah (protective jealousy) leaves a person’s heart, his faith will follow it.”

Unfortunately, in a time where most of us are following Din al-A’rab, it seems that the best person to teach us a lesson in how to help Aafia Siddiqui would have been Aafia herself.

Wallahul Musta’aan

Source

What It Feels Like… To Be a Prison Guard at Guantánamo Bay
By Christopher Arendt, 24, Student

from Caged Prisoners

I liked working night shifts, because whenever they were awake, I wanted to apologize to them. When they were sleeping, I didn’t have to worry about that. I could just walk up and down the blocks all night long.

There was usually one detainee who would lead the call to prayer at five in the morning. That person was in the very last cell. The detainees, they sang beautifully. It was so eerie to hear, because it was such a beautiful song, and to hear forty-eight detainees just get up in the morning and, in unison, sing this gorgeous song that I could never understand — because Arabic is way out of my range of possibility — it was really intense.

Camp Delta is on a cliff that overlooks the ocean. I had never been to the ocean before in my whole life. There have been a few times in the military when I’ve been so stricken by the juxtaposition of how awful what is happening inside the moment is, and how aesthetically beautiful it is at the same time. Seeing the first couple detainees start preparing for prayer, and then at the same time the sun starting to come up over this cliff base — that was probably one of the most confusing moments of my life.

Every day you walked down the blocks, forty-eight people in two rows of twenty-four cells, and you have no idea what any of them are there for. They’re just sitting in their cells. You give them food, and if they get crazy, you spray them with this terrible oil-based chemical. Then you send these five guys in to beat the shit out of them.

I grew up in Charlotte, Michigan. This was the first time that I ever met any Muslim person before in my life. My family lived in a trailer in a cornfield on a dirt road. I enlisted when I was seventeen, on November 20, 2001. Oh, my God, I met a lot of new people by enlisting.

I had bought two pornos before I left for Cuba, and I had no idea that I would get so depressed that those wouldn’t even interest me. I ended up cutting them up, and I put the remnants of the pornos all over my wall. I made a wallpaper on my half of the room of all these like really grotesque pornographic photos. My mom had sent me a packet of dinosaur stickers, so all of the particularly obscene shots I covered with dinosaurs, and I would just sit and stare at that for a long time.

During the span of a few months, I worked maybe half the time on the blocks. It wasn’t a whole lot of time, but it was really starting to break me down. I couldn’t deal with it. I tied a 550 cord to the ceiling fan that was in my room and I tried to hang myself, but I ripped the fan out of the ceiling. I’ve never been happier about poor construction. That was about two months before we went home.

One thing I miss is the cups. The detainees were only allowed to have Styrofoam cups, and they would write and draw all over them. I’m not totally familiar with Muslim culture, but I did learn that they don’t draw the human form, and I’m not positive if they draw any creature, but they draw a lot of flowers. They would cover the things with flowers. Then we would have to take them. It was a ridiculous process. We would take the cups — as if they were writing some kind of secret message that they were somehow going to throw into the ocean, that would get back to somebody — and send them to our military intelligence. They would just look at these things and then throw them away. I used to love those little cups.

– As told to Lily Percy

As time goes by, more and more stories of the horror and atrocities from Gitmo are surfacing.

What it feels like to be a Prisoner at Guantanamo Bay
By Murat Kurnaz
from Caged Prisoners

They used to beat everybody. There was a man — he was really old and couldn’t see and couldn’t hear. If the guards told him something to do and he didn’t do it because he couldn’t hear, they went into his cage and beat him up. They did this for a couple minutes, and after that they took him out and brought him to isolation. That happened to me as well, a lot of times.

There doesn’t need to be a reason. First they would use a pepper spray. It’s burning. It is hot. You have trouble breathing and opening your eyes. All of your face is burning — your eyes especially and inside your nose. You can’t open your eyes because they are burning very hot. Since you have trouble breathing, you have to cough all the time. Then they’d punch me with their elbows. After they were done, they would write something down as to what could be the reason for it.

We were allowed to do the call to prayer every day, but they used to play music over us at the same time. The music some of the time was rock music, but most of the time they played the [American] national anthem. Or they used to kick the doors.

The worst thing about being in Guantánamo was having to live in the small cages. Most of the time there was nothing in there with me. Sometimes I had only my shorts on and nothing else. Nothing else except my shorts and myself.

I never lost my hope, of course. Not losing my hope is an important part of my religion.

From Caged Prisoners

Only allowed out of his home for four hours in his day, Detainee Z is subjected to harsh bail order conditions as he fights deportation to Algeria. Having been placed through a process of detention without charge through a plethora of counter-terrorism legislation, the government after seven years has still not been able to make a single allegation stick against him. He now speaks to Cageprisoners about how his status as a refugee to the UK has resulted in his unlawful detention.

CAGEPRISONERS: Could you please introduce yourself?
DETAINEE Z: I am Detainee Z and I’m from Algeria. I was detained until recently in HMP Long Lartin.

CP: Why were you initially picked up?
Z: They said I was a threat to national security. They detained me under the Immigration Act 1971, since then they have told me, ’you are a threat to national security’, but they never explained to me why.
CP: So what were you doing prior to your arrest?
Z: I was working from early morning to late evening to get a bit for my family. I was working in property, for repairs, for plumbing and DIY, and this kind of work.

CP: What sort of allegations have they made against you to indicate you were a threat?
Z: They didn’t put any allegation. The only allegation is they said you’re a threat to national security and they put it broadly, they never explained what it is, or showed me any evidence. They keep it secret.

CP: No evidence at all?
Z: No evidence at all. They didn’t show me any evidence, they just said you are a threat to national security, so okay, show me what I have done wrong, but he never show me anything. He said we cannot show you this for national security; everything being guarded in secret – not even my legal representative knows what it is.
CP: So, essentially you are saying that there was absolutely no reason why, in your mind that they picked you up in the first place, so why do you believe that they felt that you were not conducive to the public good or a threat to national security?
Z: Well, I think it’s a public show, maybe it’s political, because it happened after the event of 7/7, which we have nothing to do with it, nothing at all. So, they have to show to their public they are doing something, because the political agenda of the previous MP, everyone knows who he is and his view and policy towards the Muslims and so on. I don’t think there is any reason, I mean, I know myself I done nothing wrong. I am pretty convinced because of my religion and as a foreigner, so I am an easy target. So, they say we will pick up a few people and to show we are tough on terrorism.

CP: You are Algerian, so why did you leave Algeria in the first place?
Z: Well when I came first, it was nearly seventeen years ago, I came here as a tourist and at the same time I wanted to finish my Masters’ degree, just to see if I could go to University to do a Masters degree in Civil Engineering. But when I came here, the situation changed very rapidly and quickly in Algeria. In the summer in 1991, and on the advice of all my family, they said you better stay for a while as it was getting bad at that time in Algeria, so I was simply advised not to go back, but stay there and try to do something, then when the situation is stable try to go back. But I never had that chance, the problems still there, the problem with my country, so I couldn’t go back to Algeria, but I wish I could go back. I want to stay there. I’ve got my family, my parents. I miss my country a lot, but it’s not safe.

CP: Well, I mean this is the whole point, because they are threatening to deport you to Algeria, but what are your fears exactly if you are sent back there?
Z: Well, if you threw someone in a jungle and you know it’s full of lions and I don’t think someone who is intelligent will put himself in a cage with a lion. And if you don’t trust the lion, even when they try to use this kind of memorandum and assurances; how can you trust someone who yesterday use torture and today you say he’s okay?

CP: So, explain a bit more about these memorandums of understanding or assurances?
Z: Well, they try to say ‘okay, we don’t say that it is not a country which has been recognised by all the N.G.O.’s, that they use torture and mistreatment of detainees in prison’ and so on. But, we try to get some sort of assurances from them, that these people will be well treated and respected with human rights and we will use mechanisms like with other third party N.G.O’s to monitor them. But, it’s all… I don’t think it is acceptable. I mean how can you monitor if someone is being tortured? How can you force this memorandum? Even if you are from my country, my country, they refuse to sign up for that. I mean, like, other countries they sign up and they pressure you, I don’t think they are willing to sign up with other countries like Jordan and Libya, but they are being put under pressure. You know how this country uses pressure on other weak countries, like Jordan is a very weak country, Libya is a very weak country, so they put pressure or they offer them stuff, I don’t know, like money or whatever. But my country – I mean, from what I know – don’t want to sign this memorandum, because of Algerian sovereignty and we don’t want like people to check on us. I don’t know what the reason is; maybe they have their own reasons.

CP: So, in order to appeal against this deportation order, you actually had to go through a process called ‘SIAC’. Could you just explain what ‘SIAC’ is?
Z: ‘SIAC’ actually itself is a ‘kangaroo court’, it’s a show, so when they try and abuse the power and try to give you an injustice they put you on ‘SIAC’. ‘SIAC’ has nothing to do with the law or justice or whatever, because it’s based only on one person. I don’t how he’s been selected, the judge, he makes the decision, it’s vetted, and most of the arguments are in secret, even your solicitor can’t tell you what it is and whatever has been said is done in secret it’s kangaroo. You see the judge, I think the previous judge is very well known that he’s got fascist views, because we know some of his neighbours and he said, ‘we know this guy and he’s a fascist’, and we know he’s a fascist basically this judge, because what happened, when they tried to secure the memorandum in Algeria, because when they arrest us on the condition that they won’t send us until they get this memorandum. So, they arrest before getting, signing the memorandum with this country, but they didn’t manage to get this memorandum with Algeria. Algeria, they refused to sign it. So, when we went to the court in 2006 to say there’s no memorandum ‘Why are you holding these people?’ So, they were waiting for the ruling of the judge, even the ‘Home Office’ they know that they cannot deport us for this memorandum and so they issued an order to the prison to tell these people to pack their stuff. They sent even a van to pick us up; I mean I think they were planning to put us on a ‘control order’. So, even the ‘Home Office’ who is the man responsible for our detention, he was convinced that this was it for the case, but the surprise was that the judge said ‘Yes, we can deport them without this memorandum, just on their word, because he made the ruling without having any sort of background about my country, not at all, he wrote some piece of few paper about the reconciliation in Algeria and he said ‘o.k. we don’t need this memorandum, that’s it, we deport them under this reconciliation. He makes his own mind, like he became the Home Office.

CP: So what were the problems in terms of the process of ‘SIAC’?
Z: It’s very long, it takes time and if you asked for example for bail they say ‘No’, because I applied for bail four times before and it’s been denied bail and they know you have family, two kids and they say ‘Yeah, I accept’. My family, they are under an immense amount of stress and even though they say ‘yes I accept that, but I think he is going to abscond, even if he’s got family’. How he based his judgment is ridiculous.

CP: And so you finally received bail, after how many years did you spend in prison?
Z: Well for two and a half years as a hostage, I don’t see it as a prisoner, because someone who is sent to a normal prison, he is someone who has committed murder or crime or a common law crime and he can have the chance to progress through the system, where he’s in prison and at least he knows he maybe commit something, he commit something he is for that, I can’t say he’s guilty or not, it is not for me to judge, but at least he has been convicted by the court. For us it’s different, we don’t have any sort of mechanism. They say ‘Okay, you are in prison for one year, or two years, or life’ – you don’t know when you are going to be released. For us, it’s you are there, you don’t know why you’re there, so it’s worse and we are put in small units, it’s very claustrophobic, that affected all our mental health, we got all mental problems. Like, at the moment, I find it very difficult to read and I’m losing my eyesight, because of the poor lighting and cannot see long distance as well, so my eyes are going very, very bad at the moment. I cannot read small print or a newspaper I cannot read without having bright light and magnifying glass. You are in a very small unit with a small number of people and this has been built as segregation – we were worse than someone who had committed something. So, it was like we were hostage, because when you put someone without any charge, without any reason, it’s kidnapping; this hostage that you take from his family at 5 o’clock in the morning and they put you in jail and you go through an abusive legal system like this ‘SIAC’, it’s very difficult to cope with.

CP: What were the circumstances that led to you finally being released on bail?
Z: I applied for bail months ago and it was refused the same as it’s been refused before, because we put some legal points and arguments to the House of Lords and we were waiting to see will they accept this. When you submit something to the House of Lords it takes a year, and we said if it’s going to be taking a year, and there’s no time limit for detaining someone. The judge didn’t make this ruling on that on this point of law. But he said I’m going to refuse him bail. If they accept it is going to take a year, then if they accept this legal point. So he’ll be willing to listen to our bail in a month’s time. So after the House of Lords decided to hear our case, and I believe the judge in his mind thought they are not going to accept that, because I know him, how he think. Finally, the House of Lords accept our legal point to hear and they said yes, we will be responsible because this will take a year to hear because of the backlog in the cases. Then he made the ruling to the Home Office, “if we are going to oppose the bail you must bring someone from the Security Service to say why you are opposing the bail, you have to explain yourself why.” After a while the Home Office came back and said, “we don’t need to bring anyone because we are not going to oppose their bail.”

CP: And now you have a case in the House of Lords?
Z: The reason behind it why they are not opposing it, I don’t know. It’s quite strange. It’s quite surprising – maybe they don’t want to bring someone from the Security Service. Maybe they will look ridiculous to be challenged because they know they will be challenged on why, what are the reasons. It will expose there mischief and so on. The Home Office, they want to keep everything in SIAC, they don’t want us to go to GIR or challenge them in other courts. In SIAC, no one’s heard of it, there’s no publicity. So as long as they keep it in SIAC, it’s fine for them. We stayed inside for nearly three years in our case.

CP: So you’re now on a bail order; firstly, how does it feel seeing your family again after so long?
Z: Well, Alhamdulillah, all thanks to Allah that I’m out. Even with very, very strict bail conditions. It’s abusive conditions anyway. But alhamdulillah I am very happy to be with my family, children and this is most important to be here for my family. Because basically what I want is to be able to go and see my family because my family were in real need of me.

CP: Has this affected you children?
Z: A lot. I mean now, my older boy can’t leave me for a second. He’s always sitting next to me, asking questions, so it was like an interview, twenty four hours a day! But you can see the happiness and joy in their face – not only their faces, but their eyes as well.

CP: Has it affected them psychologically?
Z: Yeah, a lot with the conditions not over yet, because there are some restrictions, that no one can visit, but alhamdulillah, anyway, time will take care of it. Women doing the shopping with two kids, is not easy, when someone is under stress and so on, it’s very difficult. I can see how it is a difficult relationship and taking care of the house, dealing with problems, it’s very hard.

CP: What does it feel like to be under bail conditions?
Z: At the moment, because I’ve only been out for a few days, as I said I wanted to be with my family, even with very, very strict bail conditions. Some of them say that you need these strict conditions, maybe for national security, maybe some of them you can understand them, but I don’t have to accept them. I don’t have to accept them at all, but you can understand them. If you go to the court, you can argue against these conditions maybe. Some of the conditions are nothing to do with security; I mean to restrict your movements, whatever, their main purpose to punish you and to punish your family, first of all. Because one of the conditions is that I’m allowed out for two hours, within certain hours, then I have to come back and take another two hours within the boundaries, which basically is about one mile, with a tag, and every time I have to leave, I have to call this tagging company to let them know that I am out, and this tagging effects only me. Two hours is not easy to take your children out, because of the boundaries, you cannot take your children so that they can enjoy their lives, and your family, and you cannot move very far with the boundary, only a one mile radius.

One of the conditions as well, you’re not allowed any access to a mobile phone or internet or anything to do with the computer. Even when they came I had an mp3 player for my kids, to listen to Quran, because it’s a storage device, and one of the bail conditions is that you’re not allowed any type of storage devices. They applied it very broadly and said you cannot have this one, and I said it belongs to my children and they said no, because it’s a storage device. They took the memory from my camera, video camera. the one you take pictures with, it still had pictures of my children. Because I don’t have a computer, what am I going to do with it? So now they are denying computers to my kids and now everyone’s using computers, accessing the internet, because they’ve started now to enjoy school and so on, you need to learn, so they are depriving them of what everyone else has access to and children need them for their upbringing and so on.

I cannot have any visitors, without them being vetted by security. So they have to send out their passport pictures. I don’t think anyone is willing to have his ID vetted and being put on the list and I don’t judge them, because if they travel and they give this ID and so on, and if he is going to travel their ID will be put on a database and when they travel they will have problems. Ok, so they say that me, I’m not allowed any visitors, but what about my wife? So they are denying that to my wife as well. Her mobile, she has to switch it off at home, but she can switch it on when she is outside with me, so it doesn’t make any sense.

And they come and search your property anytime of the day or night, so that means if the children are asleep, they can wake them up. This is torture; this is deprivation for them, the children. They search your property, and you know when they come to search it, they turn it upside down and yourself you have to do it up again. You cannot have prearranged meetings. For example now I choose a mosque, because I know this mosque well, my wife and children go. They said you cannot go to this mosque to pray Friday prayer, because I’m allowed only one hour to pray on Fridays. They denied me this mosque because they said there’s something in secret. As I see, this is interfering with the freedom of religion. They are interfering with my religion; this has nothing to do with some security. They are denying me to express my religion. Until now, because it has not been agreed, I cannot go to Friday prayers, and this is wrong. This is one of the main conditions, as I said with a map, some of them I cannot remember, but anything that has to do with the computers, accessing internet at home, even a basic computer which has no access to the internet they said you cannot have anything with devices.

If you want to work you have to tell them in advance where you want to work. Who’s going to accept you say ok, if you find a job and if you offer me a job I have to be cleared? You want to work for him; no, you cannot work for him. If you want to study, you have to be vetted, you have to tell them what you want to study and of course, they will not accept whatever you ask them. It’s quite, very strict conditions, especially with the time out and so on, with the curfew and so on, it’s very, very difficult. Not only me, maybe me, I can accept it, I can cope but why the children? Because they are not only punishing me, they are punishing the children and my wife, the whole family with these conditions.

CP: What sort of message would you like to give the public regarding not only your situation but the situation of all the brothers that have been detained?
Z: I think first to the public and to the generally to the non Muslims. It’s better to find out the truth. Don’t listen or read everything that is said in these newspapers on these new laws and these people who are described as “threat to national security.” If they want they have to find out and ask and go to this court. Go to visit for example Cageprisoners to hear what they are saying. But don’t listen to anyone who say to you… because there is a saying from Gorin it’s just an analogy, but he said if you want to lead people to go to war, it’s easy; just say you are under threat and you can lead them where you want, just tell them you are insecure, they will follow you. But you can oppose it and denounce it. The newspapers, they try to incite people. The Sun, these tabloids they have nothing to do and they sell you only lies to make money, so look into SIAC then you can find the truth by yourself. Don’t just trust these people from one side. Be fair to you to your country, these people are nothing to do with your country, most of them have lived here for maybe a decade and have never been a threat at all. It’s all politics, so don’t listen to the politicians, because politicians are the biggest liars. To be an MP, to be elected it is not about democracy, I don’t call it democracy; this is a contest: who is the biggest liar, he will win. So don’t listen to them because you will see when they will be elected they promise you many things and nothing will happen. So it’s just lies to make you vote for them. So they are using this sort of terrorist to make you feel insecure. I know some are very honest but most of them are biggest liars and biggest thieves and they have the law of parliament. You are paying your TV licence and you can read the newspaper, they are taking your money. In fact they said we are threat to national security. There is one word is right, I agree with that, I am a threat but to them, these politicians, because we are the only people that knows these people are lying, we are the people that can say, look these people are lying while they know the truth. Because if you know the thief everyone is threat to him who knows he is stealing. So for us, these politicians are trying to get rid of everyone who knows how they deceive, how they lie to the people. They are abusing you, taking your money. Basically, this is what I want people to know and find out and read. Not from one side listen to the people.

CagedPrisoners have just released this harrowing interview with a Libyan prisoner whose identity is kept secret. Known simply as Detainee DD

Detainee DD was arrested in Britain two and a half years ago. Since that time he has been detained without trial or charge, fighting deportation to Libya, where he may face the threat of further imprisonment, torture or death. Initially held in Britain’s Secret Guantanamo, HMP Long Lartin, he was later released under a control order. A talented artist, whilst in prison DD took to expressing his despair, anger and frustration at the Government’s current approach to human rights in his satirical cartoons. In this exclusive interview, former Guantanamo detainee and spokesman for Cageprisoners, Moazzam Begg spoke to ‘DD’ about his plight. In a ray of hope, last week, the Government dropped the deportation orders for the Libyan nationals but now all continue to be held under oppressive control orders.

Moazzam Begg: In the name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, the Most Merciful, As-salaamu ‘alaykum wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh.

Detainee DD: Wa ‘alaykum assalaam wa rahmatullaahi wa barakaatuh.
MB: Can you introduce yourself: your name and where you are from?
DD: I’m not allowed to disclose my name or any information that could lead to my personal identification. I am not allowed to disclose this information to anyone no matter who he may be, even a police officer.

MB: Subhan Allah.
DD: However, I have only been allowed to identify myself as ‘DD’.

MB: And how old are you?
DD: 32 years.

MB: And your nationality is Libyan?
DD: Yes.

MB: How long have you been in Britain?
DD: Four years, to be exact.

MB: Can you tell us why you left Libya?
DD: I left Libya because I opposed the regime of Gaddafi. I came here as a political asylum seeker. My opposition to the Gaddafi regime was purely political; it did not involve the use of any sort of violence or force. This point is acknowledged by the British authorities too. The Libyan government has sentenced me to execution by hanging. When I sought asylum, I did not have any documentation to prove that such a sentence has been passed on me. However, now when the British authorities decided to deport me, they wrote to the Libyan Government, asking them to clarify their intentions regarding me. The Libyan Foreign Ministry wrote back stating that, should this person be handed over to the Libyan government, he shall be sentenced to death. I have this document with me now.

MB: What did you expect and hope from the British authorities at that time?
DD: When I sought asylum here, I gave them access to all my personal information; my name, address, even my thoughts, what I do, everything. I remember on my arrival at Heathrow airport, on the same day, I didn’t leave the airport; the MI5 sat with me and asked me some questions. I too asked whether my proposed political activities in opposition to Libya were against any British laws. They replied that the country is open to you for this purpose. They now view me as a threat to the country. If I intended to engage myself in any such activities, I would not have given them files of information about myself. I would have stayed undercover and done what I intended to do. My point is that all my files are very, very clear that my activities are purely political and focussed only against the Libyan regime.

MB: But since then diplomatic relations between the two countries have become stronger and that changes everything. When did you seek asylum, upon first arrival?
DD: Yes, upon my first arrival.

MB: Was your application successful?
DD: I was refused at the first instance but was successful when this decision was challenged in the court. The court immediately gave judgement in my favour to stay in the UK. However, this judgement has now been completely taken away from me, my children and my wife too. It is surprising, as my wife has had a residence permit for Spain for about fifteen years; she studied and grew up there; so my nationality is Libyan, hers is Spanish but my children have no nationality!! When I ask them, ‘Are my children British?’ they say, ‘no.’ ‘Are they Libyan?’ They say, ‘no’. When I ask for a decision, they say we have not yet decided.

MB: Subhan Allah. How old are the children?
DD: One is three and the other is four. They have no passports, they have no ID cards. They cannot travel outside the UK, visiting relatives etc is not possible. Although theoretically, they have a choice whether to stay or leave, they are compelled to stay here, because once they leave the UK, they cannot return back. And incidentally, I hold Libyan nationality, whereas Libyan law states that marriage between a Libyan national and a non-Libyan national must be first sanctioned by the Libyan government. Failure to do so results in termination of the Libyan spouse’s nationality.

MB: Subhan Allah.
DD: So from a practical perspective, I don’t have a nationality; neither Libyan nor any other.

MB: Subhan Allah. Strange indeed! What is your educational background?
DD: I studied till college then took courses in many fields of computing and IT. I have been working in this field for approximately fourteen, fifteen years now.

MB: Do you have any other relatives apart from your wife and children in the UK?
DD: No.

MB: And they don’t have a right to hold British Nationality?
DD: No, they don’t.

MB: When were you arrested?
DD: They arrested me on 2nd October 2005. They broke into the house while we were asleep at 5am. The whole area was alarmed. I was hurt and shaken and taken away. I did not see my wife or children. They then took my wife and children to London. For three days, they plundered our home.

MB: Was this house in Birmingham?
DD: In Cardiff. Many of my belongings were stolen during this period. Then when my wife came back with the children after three days, they didn’t allow her to enter the house – they said that news of the raid had spread in the neighbourhood and that they were afraid that racist groups may target the family, so it was unsafe for them to enter the house. So instead they left her in the street with the children. They did not offer her any support at all. My wife had to appoint a solicitor. She was then put in a hostel. She spent approximately two and a half months in that hostel, which was mixed.

MB: When they took you, were you mistreated?
DD: Compared to my other friends I was treated very well. Others have been taken in such a violent manner – it cannot be described. They have been trampled upon, beaten, some of them have had broken bones. Brother Muhammad had a rib broken, he still complains of pain in is chest. I, however, was very keen to co-operate. Once they chained me, I quickly left with them. Despite this, I was handled violently and forcefully. Upon arrival at the prison, it is the prison doctor’s duty to check you for injuries etc and report everything. It is however strange that on our arrival at the prison, the doctor simply asked whether we suffered from diabetes or high blood pressure. He did not even look at our bodies. This was to prevent incrimination of the police.

MB: Subhan Allah. When were you first informed of the reason for your arrest? Did they in the beginning tell you why you were arrested?
DD: No they didn’t. They didn’t even provide a translator and I hardly understood them. They asked if there were explosives in my house. I said no. Then, jokingly, I said you can even check the children’s nappies. This made the interrogator laugh too.

MB: So when were you provided with an interpreter?
DD: I didn’t see an interpreter until I was inside the prison – they tore my house apart – I had no idea why this was happening, nor did I understand anything.

MB: Do you know under which laws you were arrested?
DD: I didn’t know anything until I was visited by the interpreter in the prison.

MB: Can you explain to those reading this, what effect these laws have had on your life?
DD: Yes, I have reached many conclusions; firstly, the claim that this is a democratic or free country is hollow and void of substance. Here, democracy is applicable only to a certain section of the population. This is a police state; everything here takes place covertly. The MI5 & MI6 control everything. The judge, if I can be excused to say, is a brainless person. They put in front of him three thousand papers and he simply passes judgement without any deliberation whatsoever over the case and even without hearing us. If I can give an example, they seized from me an A to Z map booklet which I used for tourism work. They said that you were involved in the plot to bomb the Atlantic Airliners. I was in fact arrested 13 months before the Atlantic Airliners’ case took place.

MB: Subhan Allah.
DD: The A to Z maps were used as classified evidence against me. When the judge passed judgement, it stated that A to Z maps were found in his possession, which may have been used for terrorist activities. I had A to Z maps for London, Wolverhampton, Manchester, Cardiff…

MB: Then you are a very big terrorist!
DD: Supposedly, yes!! And the London A to Z maps have markings on all the tourist centres and agencies because I used to work in the tourism industry and I used these for my work. The third point which I would like to point out, is when Tony Blair said that Libya has improved and described Libya as a democratic country, we prisoners interpreted that to mean that democratic Britain had actually stooped to the same level as Libya. Both dictators look at each other and they feel that both are at the same level so that now there is no difference between the so-called democracy in the UK and the Libyan dictatorship. At the moment, in Libya, people are imprisoned, without charge; in Britain, we too have imprisonment without charge. In Libya, they use classified evidence, we cannot have access to this nor do we have any knowledge of it; in the UK, they too use classified evidence. In Libya, you may have evidence but you are not allowed a lawyer to defend you, it is very similar here too. We are provided with a lawyer known as the special advocate. This lawyer has never met me, never seen me, nor does he know anything about me. It would be naïve to expect this lawyer to defend me, if he does not know what I have or haven’t done. For example when he (the lawyer) is told DD killed a fox in the forest, how does he defend me? He can deny that I killed the fox, while I in fact did not, in which case he is correct; or he can deny that I killed the fox while in fact I may have killed it in which case he would be wrong. How can he decide without seeing the evidence and talking to me? Apart from these there are many other points that I have found bizarre about this government.

MB: And the new control order legislation – this was non existent before and now you find yourself under it?
DD: Yes, this control order is applied only on the Muslims here and against nationals of countries that have good relations with Britain. Libya from the very beginning has been a bitter enemy of the UK – they have supported the IRA, they killed the British policewoman [Yvonne Fletcher], they blew up the aeroplane over Lockerbie, the Libyan Regime has taken part in and supported many of the terrorist groups. They have killed many of their opponents inside the UK – they killed Mustapha Ramadhan from BBC Radio. They also killed Abu Zayd – from the Salvation Front opposition in London; this all happened in the UK. Ultimately, the one who has power and petrol, rules. The moment Gaddafi stops the supply of petrol, the laws of the UK change. For example, when the Muslims called for an option to be governed by Islamic Law in some limited spheres of their civil and personal lives, there was an unending uproar. However, anti- terror laws change weekly. This is ironic when they say we have laws that have been around for three centuries and now they Myself, my wife and children are under a control order. We have to wear tags on our wrists, very similar to the watch you are wearing. Every time I want to leave, I must call the police from this tag and inform them that I need to go out. Over the last three years my children have memorised what I say. Once my young daughter was playing with the tag and called the police and repeated to them what I usually tell them. Despite the fact that only information given by myself can be registered, they believed her and this was also recorded against me. My daughters have become so paranoid now that if anyone knocks on the door forcefully, they cry out, ‘Police, police!’ When they see a police car, they are frightened.

MB: Subhan Allah! Allahu Akbar! So despite this length of time you do not yet know what accusations have been levelled against you? I mean, is there a specific allegation?
DD: The accusation is an open one. Using legislation from 1981 which applied to the IRA, is all lumped into it: Supposed links with ETA, Venezuela, Nigeria – the lot. The only thing that matters is that the accusations should be pleasing to Gaddafi.

MB: Subhan Allah. If you are deported to Libya, what do you think will happen?
DD: Like I told you I have been sentenced to death and this has been made official by the Libyan Foreign Ministry. The Libyan official who has issued this statement is responsible for inter relations between Europe and Libya. His name is Abdul Atif Al-Obeidi. He is part of the Libyan Regime. His statement read that: ‘DD will be sentenced to death upon being handed over to Libya under Rule 71,’ or something like that.

MB: When you were first arrested, which prison were you held in?
DD: In Long Lartin and, initially, without representation or anything – being moved from bed to bed.

MB: Can you please explain what the regime is like in Long Lartin?
DD: All of us who had not yet been charged were placed together in a special unit.

MB: In this country, anyone who has not been charged is innocent until proven guilty.
DD: I am very, very afraid of my acquaintance with some of the inmates. I recall the case of one of the Algerian brothers who has now been send back to Algeria. The evidence used against him was that he was associated with another person. The Algerian brother swears that he only met this alleged associate in prison. And I make no secret of it – I am also expecting the same because I have got to know the Jordanian brothers, the Algerian brothers, Abu Qatada etc in prison. The first time I ever met them in my life was inside the walls of the prison.

MB: Subhan Allah. This is very familiar to Guantanamo. We were accused of knowing so and so although we had only just met them in prison.
DD: Yes, but Guantanamo is well known while the prisons here are not. In fact, I believe that it is worse here than it is in Guantanamo because it is a well known fact that prisoners are held in Guantanamo without charge, while here people think that we are only held if charged and due legal process is adhered to; but in actual fact it is exactly like Guantanamo. At the moment, in the prison, we are banned from relaying anything to the outside. It is funny that on the inside of our handsets there is a notice which states that all calls are monitored except calls to legal representatives. It is so ironic that we then hear of the MP who was bugged by the MI5. I found that on more than one occasion the Home Office already knew about things I had discussed with my legal representatives in confidence.

MB: Can you describe the cell you were living in?
DD: The cell spanned about 1 metre by 1.5 metres. It had a w/c facility. This is where I lived, washed and prayed. They would at times come in with dogs to check for drugs. They know we don’t take drugs, but they only want to insult us. We are not allowed to send anything. They sometimes allow us to keep a copy of the Qur’an. At times, they lock these cells up for up to three days without letting us out. When we ask them why, they say that we found weapons with one on the inmates or that one of the inmates pointed a gun at the guards. Once I sarcastically told them that I was the one with the gun, I plead guilty and that they should now open the door. I did this to prove a point; that not everything they say is true.

MB: Can you talk us through your daily prison routine?
DD: We are Muslims, in sha’Allah, we believe in Allah and we hope that all this shall be placed in our scale of good deeds. We spend our time in prayer. We encourage and give moral support to each other until we overcome this crisis. And every crisis is eventually solved by supplication of the Muslims and prayer. Many people, even non-Muslims, are sympathetic towards us; we find this very encouraging and uplifting for our morale. This helps us be more patient inside the cells.

MB: Were you allowed visits and calls?
DD: Visits are not allowed except for my wife, children and legal representative. The British press wanted to visit me so I lodged an application for a visit but there was no response. My brother travelled secretly from Libya to visit me but he was not allowed either. They said there is no evidence that we were siblings, despite the fact that we both shared the same family names.

MB: What did they require to establish that he was your brother?
DD: They wanted him to hand over his passport, two photographs and his full address in Libya and a signed statement that he is my brother. It was obvious that these were asked for by the Home Office. They said they would grant permission after one month. My brother only had three days and he wanted to keep the visit a secret from the Libyan authorities. Eventually, he returned to Libya and we were unable to meet.

MB: Have you received letters from outside?
DD: Yes I have received letters and, like I said, these are very encouraging for us. We have received letters from both native English people and others too. Many people have complained to higher authorities but there is nothing they can really do for us due to the current policy. It is not possible to change the law, although there is no law governing our cases. I even doubt the integrity of some of the judges that take our cases. There have been flaws in the judicial system in that the law states that a Freemason Judge cannot preside over a case involving a Palestinian. There is a Judge who has written articles in support of Freemasons yet he is the Judge in the case of a few Palestinian brothers. We cannot stop him or have him replaced because we have no rights, and no body will listen to us.

MB: Were you allowed to pray and practice your religious activities freely inside your cell?
DD: Yes, these were allowed, although initially there were a few problems possibly due to slight misunderstandings. For example, in the workshop, we were initially not allowed to pray until we drew their attention toward the prison regulations which provided for us a prayer facility throughout the prison.

MB: Have you been abused in anyway by the guards or any other people?
DD: No, not really. Sometimes there were misunderstandings. For example, guards prevented us from praying in the workshop so we produced for them prison regulations that have been around for 30 years for them to adhere to and they would accept the mistake

MB: What about the other inmates? How was your relationship with them?
DD: To tell you the truth, more than 80% of them were very sympathetic and sincere towards us.

MB: Are these non-Muslims?
DD: Yes, non-Muslims. For example, in sports etc, they like to choose us to be part of their teams. Our friendship with them is so good that at times the security guard has intervened to separate us. And that reminds me of a security guard, he did not allow me to send out cartoons that I had drawn to my solicitor. I asked him, in the presence of witnesses (an officer and other inmates), as to why he did this when it was perfectly legal. He replied saying that the cartoons I had drawn were not legal because they were insulting to Tony Blair. So I asked why is The Times then allowed to publish such cartoons daily? He did not have an answer. I then through an interpreter told the guard that I wanted to challenge the reason he had given in court.

The day I left the prison (17.05.2007) at about 1pm, I had written on my white board some messages such as: ‘Welcome To Guantanamo – UK’ etc. Every prisoner has his own personal board in his room on which he may write anything. Two officers came into my room and ordered me to take down the board. I asked if the board together with its contents was legal. They replied that it was legal, but they still wanted me to remove it. I asked why other detainees were not ordered to do the same. They said that they (the other non-Muslim) detainees had the right to write what they wanted but not us (Muslims). I told them that this was racist and he said: ‘Yes, that’s correct, we are racist’. I asked if I could raise a case against him, he said, ‘yes’, I should go ahead but if the board isn’t taken down by noon we’ll make a case against you.

MB: Were you allowed access to and meetings with a solicitor?
DD: Yes, we were allowed.

MB: What do you think led to your release from prison?
DD: Not all judges are the same. Some of them do actually use their intellect when they decide cases. When the Home Office put forward our cases i.e. the Libyans, it was all a matter of trade with Gaddafi – his fuel in exchange for individuals he wanted – there was no substance to these cases at all. The A to Z maps they brought forward as evidence was literally complete nonsense. We actually won the case on a conditional basis that we would be returned (to Libya) should our safety in Libya be secured. There are numerous international bodies that assess and report on the political situation in Libya daily. There are more than 900 people that have been detained in Libya; nobody knows their whereabouts. Some have been missing for over twenty years now. I know one that is missing since 1984. Gaddafi killed 1200 people in 1996. He supported a massacre in 2007 where three people were killed and tens of people wounded. This happened on 1st January 2007. Some of the prisoners from the prison in Libya where the massacre took place, called Al-Jazeera from the prison and reported the massacre. As a result of this, since 1st January 2007 to date, access to all prisons in Libya has been shut down. Family visits, visits from lawyers, all correspondence and phone calls have been suspended. This is collective punishment.

So with all this going on, how can a judge conclude that Libya is a safe country for us to be returned to? Secondly, that Gaddafi has promised to reform Libya and to become a democracy – like the UK. Although he has promised today, he could easily revoke tomorrow – if we are returned, it is we who will have to suffer the consequences. They should wait a few years and see that a democracy is actually implemented before rushing us back to Libya. We have not come to the UK to work or to collect wealth. We face serious problems in our countries. If we are not liked by the UK for any reason, we can be asked to leave to another country, but we should not be handed over to Gaddafi on flimsy promises that he will not torture us. We do not want to spend the rest of our lives in prison. The British government wants to return us to Libya on the reassurance that we will stand ordinary trial. Why should we stand trial when we have not committed any crime? It is Gaddafi who has committed the crimes in Libya. The whole of Libya has suffered at his hands. I will give an example of my own self; my father was imprisoned twice in Libya. He was tortured so severely that his torturers broke his leg. My brother till today is in mental hospital – he lost his senses after being electrocuted by high voltage during his torture. So how can they return me to Libya based on guarantees by Gaddaffi that he won’t torture me? And why do they want to send me back anyway – are my activities not legal? If not, then I am ready to account for everything. They should not hold only us Libyans accountable but together with us also hold accountable asylum seekers from other countries too; such as those from Sudan, opposing the Sudanese government and those from Iran who oppose the Iranian government. Iranian asylum seekers belonging to the Khalq party randomly bomb Tehran yet not an eyebrow is raised. It is ironic that despite our opposition to Libya being purely political, we are viewed as criminals while those who use violence are considered innocent.

MB: Can you briefly explain how life has been post your release from prison under the control order?
DD: I cannot do anything. I am not allowed to work or study any course that involves the use of computers –virtually every educational institute now uses these. I, my wife or children are not allowed to use computers, mobile phones, internet facilities or telephones except the special land line phone installed in my home. I cannot call 999 emergency numbers from outside my home. I cannot even go to the local police station without giving 24 hours notice to the Immigration authorities and acquiring prior approval from them. They have placed me far away from community. There is no hospital that my wife and children can visit. There is no bank nearby, although I am not allowed to use banking facilities. The area where I have been placed is full of graveyards – there are more than twenty graveyards nearby. The house where I have been placed has been derelict for many, many years. Most of the basic facilities are non- existent. There is no cooker, many of the lights don’t work, the doors are insecure and some have even fallen. I have asked for maintenance and repair work to be carried out many times but they hardly reply and if I’m lucky, they turn up after months. I have had to do most of the repairs myself, in order to make the place habitable. They do not give us cash, only vouchers which are usable in Asda only. I cannot shop anywhere else besides Asda. So for example, if I want to buy halal meat or certain things for the children, I cannot use these vouchers.

MB: Are you not allowed to carry cash?
DD: I am allowed to carry cash but they give me a very small amount every month. This is so small that it is not enough to cover simple expenses such as postage, transport etc. All I have are these Asda vouchers but Asda does not sell everything – they sell food products, a small line of clothing and few house wares. I believe that these vouchers are only used to make me feel subdued. I wait every month for them to deliver these vouchers to me – they come arrogantly and give them to me.

MB: And you have no right to work?
DD: I am not allowed to work. I have pleaded many times to be allowed to work so that I can spend on my children and improve our living conditions but they have always refused. Even my wife cannot work. My wife and children have no identity documents, even though both my children were born in the UK. My children only have their birth certificates – they have no passports or residence permits. They are alien nationals. I too I have no driving licence or national insurance number. When I asked for the national insurance number, I was told that I do not have rights to acquire this number. My means have been so much restricted that it is as if I am still in prison. All I can really do is go to the library but even that I am afraid to do because they might accuse me of using a computer or something. I spend most of my time in the mosque which is about five kilometres away. It takes me an hour and five minutes to walk there and about twenty five minutes by bus.

MB: Are there any limitations as to when you can leave your house?
DD: Yes, I can only leave my house between 7am and 7pm. Once I was on the bus and it broke down. I was afraid that I wouldn’t make it home in time and explained my situation to the bus driver. He was alarmed and all the same very sympathetic too. He gave me his contact details and also signed a short statement stating that the bus had broken down and any delay in me reaching home was due to a bus fault. He said he would be willing to testify too should he be required to do so.

When I go to the mosque or anyone comes to visit me I am afraid to take off my socks because that would expose the electronic tag around my ankle and fellow worshipers and visitors would think that I am a criminal.

MB: I recall you saying that the Immigration Authorities came to your house and said that your house was an extension of the prison. Can you elaborate on this?
DD: Yes, I was visited by some of my friends from London on my release from prison. Officers in plain clothes came to my house and in a violent and forceful manner, started to ask my visitors to produce identification documents. My visitors were alarmed and frightened at this because the British authorities could easily incriminate them for association with me. One of my visitors asked the officer in plain clothes if he had a court warrant or if he could show some ID. The officer had none of these with him. My friend then asked what would happen should he refuse to produce his identification documents. The officer replied that this house is considered an extension of the Home Office prison. And I was held here because I was released on bail pending case decision. The officer said that it was their job to keep a record of all those who enter and exit this building. He also said that if you refuse to produce your ID you will be arrested and taken to the police station to produce your documents.

MB: Subhan Allah.
DD: Many of the homes the Immigration Services visit and search are totally wrecked by them. The whole house is turned upside down. They deliberately break things and when we complain about this, they refuse to accept liability. Sometimes they take items away for further inspection, saying that they will be returned in a week’s time but they don’t. On the 04.11.2007 I wrote letters to my friends on the occasion of Eid Al Adha. I still haven’t received them yet. Whenever I enquire about them, they say that they have been sent for translation. When I ask for… [inaudible], they say you have none. Even when my solicitor writes to them he is told the same thing. They just come in and take anything, even my computer USB cables. Once the search officer picked up my earphones and started to examine them. I said these are simple earphones what are you looking for? Even the accompanying police escort said that this was ridiculous.

MB: What is the effect of all this on your children and family? I mean, the control order, all these prohibitions from the most basic activities and continued harassment from the Immigration authorities?
DD: My wife has become chronically depressed. She has been on medication for a while but has had to leave it because of its adverse side effects. Myself, I cannot sleep at night and I have to take medication to help me sleep. I suffer from insomnia and nightmares. I have been to see the doctor about this and he has now doubled my dose from 70mg to 140mg. My wife has the same problem too and it is getting worse as this tragedy prolongs. My eldest daughter is old enough to understand most of what is happening. When there is a loud knock on the door, she gets very frightened and runs shouting ‘police, police’. She is so scared that at times she even soils her clothes. They come knocking at 6.30am in the morning. At times, there is up to twenty of them and always a minimum of four.

MB: They come without any notice or warning?
DD: Yes, without any warning or notice. They just start knocking at the door and you have to open. It is strange that all the police wear bullet proof vests while the interpreter is unprotected in plain clothes. This is because he is Arab of Iraqi origin. I told them that if my house is so dangerous then why is the interpreter not protected? He too should be provided with the same vest. The officer replied by saying, ‘Are you racist?’ I said, ‘No, you are racist, just as you are concerned for your own security why don’t you have the same concern for the security of the Iraqi interpreter?’ He laughed and said that you are both Arabs, you both know each other etc, and just brushed the matter aside. My children are now scared of leaving the home. Whenever we want to go out they say, ‘we don’t want to go’. This fear has confined them to the house. My daughter doesn’t even like to go to the local nursery.

MB: How do you keep your morale high?
DD: This is a good question. I will tell you what raises my morale, but please try and understand my answer properly. When I want to boost my morale I think of Guantanamo Bay, and the prisoners there. Comparing my situation to theirs gives me a great sense of gratitude and appreciation.

MB: What has been your experience with SIAC (Special Immigration Appeals Commision)? What do you make of the hearings that took place in the SIAC?
DD: This Commission is like an illegitimate child, it has no lineage in the field of justice. It only listens to the Home Office’s side of the case and we are denied proper representation. They frequently use classified evidence. Before the classified evidence is brought forward, my lawyer and I are escorted out of the court room, the door is key locked in front of us so that we don’t hear anything, then the evidence is produced before the Commission.

MB: Not even your own lawyer knows what this evidence is?
DD: No, not even my own lawyer knows about the classified evidence. Neither am I allowed to meet or say hello to my lawyer. This is probably worse than Libya; although they don’t have lawyers, the individual can at least represent himself. Here we are represented but we don’t know who the lawyer is or how we are going to be represented. The Commission is like a gang of thugs, they close the door and listen to evidence against us, then they have discussions based on that evidence, then they make decisions without giving us a fair chance to defend ourselves. Nobody, neither the lawyers nor the Judges know the boundaries of the law. The law is constantly altered and changed as the case progresses. I don’t know when this control order will cease because the case cannot be determined from the outset. At every stage of the process the law is freshly tailored to suit the Home Office. You asked what is the effect of this court?

MB: Yes, I did.
DD: The effect of this court is felt in our countries. I have many relatives and family in Libya – about 1500 people – they all know what has happened to me and how the UK has treated me. Their opinion of the UK has totally changed. They view the UK as a colonialist power that harbours hatred against us. Tony Blair and his government are only concerned about the petrol wealth in our countries, they have no concern for democracy as they claim or for the people that suffer under the Libyan dictatorship.

MB: The Home Office appealed against SIAC’s decision in your case. Can you tell us more about this?
DD: As I said before, the Judge gave judgement in our favour, conditional on us returning to Libya once our safety there was secured. About ten days ago, the Home Office appealed against this decision. When I attended the appeal hearing, the Judge asked the Home Office why they appealed. They replied saying that they had appealed because the SIAC had not accepted their deportation order. So the judge asked why did you then come to the SIAC in the first place? To this the Home Office replied that it was due to a threat to national security. So the judge said the answer to her first question was the correct reason why the Home Office had appealed. The Home Office then said that SIAC had not considered documentation showing that Libya is a secure and peaceful country, etc, etc. It appears that the Home Office only appealed to please Gaddafi and so that a record could be kept… [inaudible]

MB: What did you receive from the Muslims of Britain, in terms of moral and other forms of support?
DD: There was much sympathy from most but not all of the Muslims, their hearts and supplications were with us. I fully appreciate that some of the Muslims are unable to offer the same support as others. I understand and accept that this is either due to their fear of being accused of being co-associates of us detainees or because they are simply unaware of our cases. They are quite rightly excused for not being able to extend their support because the UK has set a very frightening example in incriminating people by association. Despite the lack of support we shall nevertheless, carry on our work of exposing the abuses taking place in our country. Our children and women folk are killed, our youth are imprisoned so we have no choice but to speak out against this.

MB: Have you received any moral or other support from the non-Muslim, English members of British community?
DD: Generally when we speak to them they are very sensitive and sympathetic towards us. They disapprove of what the British Government is doing to us. They will help us with whatever means they possess. However, the media is in the hands of the government and it is they who are defaming us, and our campaign. And sadly, we do not have the means to stand up to the mighty media campaign they are waging against us. They accuse us of things we haven’t done. We in fact do not pose any type of threat to this country and the UK knows this. We do not agree with the bombings that took place in the UK or in other parts of Europe. We could never support the killing of innocent civilians – what has happened was totally wrong. However, it is part of the government’s political agenda that these bombings be used to focus their attention on us. Consequently it is due to these sad events that we find ourselves in prisons.

MB: Is there anything you would like to say to those reading this, or is there anything that you would like them to do for you?
DD: Firstly, the Prophet (may peace be upon him) said, ‘A woman was sent to hell for the sake of a cat she had starved to death; she did not feed her nor did she allow the cat to roam the streets so it may find its own sustenance.’ Similarly, the British government does not allow us to work so that we may provide for ourselves nor do they themselves provide sufficiently for us.

Secondly, the Prophet (may peace be upon him) said: ‘Do not consider insignificant even the smallest of good deeds.’ So every person, whether Muslim or non-Muslim, can support us by means of a good word. Be it a letter or voice in the form of protest against the government condemning its unjust policies, or advice, or publicising our plea. Every person is capable of helping us and seeing the truth if he wants to. Anyone willing to sincerely help us, Allah will guide them. Like the hadeeth says: ‘Do not consider insignificant even the smallest of good deeds.’ We are in need of people to speak out on our behalf, people to stand in solidarity with us and to support us.

You are now called for by Allah, and by Humanity, they are in desperate need of your help. If you stand back and do nothing then your silence in such difficult times will be recorded in history. So once again I appeal to all you listeners to break the silence, be it with an influential letter, article, protest, or through condemning and denouncing the government’s policies. Do anything you can to help those who are held indefinitely without charge. Indefinite detention without charge is found only in dictator countries like Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt etc. If this country is to maintain democracy we must put a stop to indefinite detention without charge. The government should not be allowed to use 07.07 as a pretext to justify indefinite detention or to buy our silence. Only because the real culprits of 07.07 have not been found the government is using us as scapegoats so that the people can extinguish their anger on us.

MB: Allah is the Most Generous. May Allah reward you with good.

Source
I first read the Dickens’ classic, Bleak House, in solitary confinement, Camp Echo. The concentric part of this story is based on the fictitious – though accurately representative – and never-ending case of Jarndyce vs Jarndyce which ultimately consumes and destroys the lives of it’s central characters, rather like the Supreme court decisions relating to the Guantánamo detainees. But it was the first sentence of another Dicken’s classic, A Tale of Two Cities, which reads, ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,’ that captured my imagination back then. For that is precisely how I would have described the noble months of Ramadhan spent in US custody.

It was the night before the festival of Eid ul-Adha that I was sent from Pakistani custody into US custody at Kandahar. After the brutal initiation of being processed like an animal and locked in a cage made of razor wire, I couldn’t believe my ears when a visitor from the Red Cross was wandering around the cells, with an army escort, handing out small pieces of meat and cold bread to detainees, uttering the words, ‘Eid Mubarak’.

That was the first Eid my family ever spent without me. Another five (both Eids of al-Adha and al-Fitr) were to pass before I saw them again. For most people in Guantánamo, it is approaching ten of these blessed days over a period of five years, dwelling in cages. And still they pray for deliverance.

However, the worst Ramadan I’ve ever had in my life was not in Guantánamo; that happened in Bagram – the US detention facility in Afghanistan. This was a place where already torture, humiliation and degradation of detainees regularly occurred. We were not allowed to talk, we were not allowed to walk or exercise without permission. We were not given access to natural light–or dark. We had to guess prayer times and were not allowed to pray in jama’ah (congregation), call the athaan or recite the Quran out loud. I had to make tayyamum (dry ablution) for a year and had forgotten how to make wudhu correctly by the time I arrived in Guantánamo, since water could only be used to drink, but not for wudhu (ablution). Anyone failing to comply with these rules was unceremoniously dragged to the front of the cell, their wrists shackled to the top of the cage and a black hood placed over the head. It happened to us all – sometimes for hours on end.

When Ramadhan came I was already dreading it. I think we were all dreading it. There were no hot meals or drinks for us in Bagram. Fresh vegetables were a luxury we were not afforded. Fresh fruit was a rarity. There was none of the food we all so lovingly prepare and indulgingly consume during this month of abstention in our homes. There were no snacks between meals or keeping food until later: everything had to be handed back within 15 minutes – eaten or not. The meals were small pre-packed sachets, the types used for campers, and, sometimes, a mouldy piece of Afghan bread thrown in for good measure.

There was no Taraweeh prayer, no Eid prayer. In fact there was no Jumu’ah (Friday congregational prayer). The detainees in Bagram and Guantánamo shortened every prayer not only as a mercy from Allah, but as a refusal to accept any permanence of incarceration, even though that was–and continues to be–a looming reality. It was a defiant rejection of imprisonment without charge or trial – a fact unnoticed and quite irrelevant to our captors.

As if to punish us for the very arrival of Ramadhan we were given only two meals: the suhoor (pre-dawn meal) and iftaar (sunset meal), the latter being given to us often four hours after sunset. On the day of Eid ul-Fitr we did not feast and make merry like most of the Muslim world. Instead we were made to fast from dawn to near midnight when we were finally given a food sachet. One of the guards, a young female to whom I used to speak often about Islam, history and literature was appalled by this and gave me some of her own food, at real risk to herself. It is a gesture I will never forget, but she was a rarity.

That was the worst of times. But it wasn’t over. I spent the following Ramadhan alone, in solitary confinement. In truth, I hated the approach of this Ramadhan too. I knew the outlook was bleak. I had to imagine how my family were passing this month and the festival that followed. It is a month of blessing, extra prayer, sharing, inviting others to meals; a month of anticipating celebrations with family and friends who, for me and many others, were both only a distant memory by then. I thought of all the Islamic rulings about fasting and how it all seemed rather immaterial here. In fact I could have not fasted, since I was shortening my prayer – hence I had the status of a traveller, albeit a coerced one. But I think fasting was a pronounced difference between us and them, and act of defiance too.

The concept of abstaining completely from food as well as drink from dawn to dusk was as alien to most burger-eating, fries-munching, Budweiser-drinking yanks as American justice was for us. Even the practicing Christian soldiers, who often read the Bible in front of me, couldn’t comprehend that the fast of the Muslim was like the fast Prophets, not the fast of Lent during which some devotees choose to refrain from having mushrooms on their pizza as a personal sacrifice to the Almighty. I remember telling a guard that in fact he ‘fasted’ every day, although his timings were different: the break-fast meal every morning. He still didn’t get it.

After the passing of this Ramadhan in seclusion, with no contact from another Muslim for close to two years, I was longing, praying and agitating that the next one will be spent in the company of Muslims – even one Muslim. My prayer was finally answered. And thus, my final Ramadhan and Eid were both spent in the company of the world’s most dangerous terrorists (according to Bush) and the world’s finest examples of patience and fortitude (according to me).

Some guards ridiculed the athaan when the muezzin’s voice echoed around Guantánamo – particularly at sunset, when it clashed with the US national anthem that simultaneously rung out on loud speakers. What followed was a daily reminder to us all about our [soldiers and prisoners] purpose in life: one group – the one dressed in khaki–stopped in their tracks, stood in the direction of their flag, raised their right hands and saluted their object of their devotion: the US flag. The other group –the one dressed in orange – also stopped in their tracks, stood facing east and raised both their hands to salute their object of their devotion: the Unseen God and Lord of the Worlds.

During the day, despite the intense tropical Caribbean heat, we recited and memorised the Quran, had debates on any subject from medieval African history to Hubble’s expanding universe theory; from the Islamic ruling on captives to the latest Western methods of capturing them. We exercised vigorously, many of us far surpassing the physical capabilities of the full time soldiers guarding us. Some of us controlled our anger and antipathy towards the guards during this month and offered smiles and kind words, when the opposite would have been expected. That too was an act of defiance.

The greatest defiance, to me at least, was wishing each other ‘hanee-an maree-an’ (bon appetite) at iftaar. It was also the spontaneous breaking out into anasheed (Islamic songs) in Arabic, Urdu, Pashto, Farsi, Uighur, Turkish and yes, even English; it was the recitation of poetry and prose in verses that could not have been compiled anywhere on earth but Guantánamo – the prison of the enemy where captive Muslims brought the first ever call to prayer; it was the individual calls of as-salaamu ‘alaikum wa rahmat Ullahi wa barakaatuh ya Abdullah (May the peace, mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you, O servant of Allah) emanating from cell blocks with invisible faces – faces that showered us with concern, hope and love, even though we couldn’t see them.

But there was an act of defiance even more potent. It was more powerful than throwing liquid cocktails at the soldiers, stronger than lashing out with shackled hands towards them or calling them himaar (donkey) or khanzeer (pig), even stronger than the hunger-strikes that nearly claimed the lives of many a brave man. It was the prayer. It was the du’aa (supplication) to Allah of the Imam reverberating, alone, amidst the chimes of razor wire rubbing against barbed wire impelled by a soft sea breeze. It was saying ‘Ameen’, in unison to a prayer we all wanted answered. It was the tears we all shed, in the knowledge that each of us had a reason to weep. It was the sadness that was almost sweet. It was our ultimate symbol of defiance. It was the best of times.