The Torture Drawings the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to See
Sami al-Haj is a journalist, but one unlike any other. For over six years since December 15, 2001 -- when he was seized by Pakistani soldiers on the Afghan border while on assignment as a cameraman for the Qatar-based broadcaster al-Jazeera -- he has been in a disturbing but unique position: a trained journalist held as an "enemy combatant" on the frontline of the Bush administration's "War on Terror," first in Afghanistan, and then in Guantánamo.
The outline of Sami's story should be familiar to readers; last summer AlterNet published a detailed article by Rachel Morris: "Prisoner 345: An Arab Journalist's Five Years in Guantánamo," which made clear how Sami was seized because of the erroneous claim that he had interviewed Osama bin Laden, and the disturbing fact that his many interrogations in Guantánamo have focused solely on the administration's attempts to turn him into an informant against al-Jazeera, to "prove" a connection between the broadcaster and Osama bin Laden that does not exist. As his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith of the legal action charity Reprieve, noted bluntly and accurately in his book Eight O'Clock Ferry to the Windward Side: Seeking Justice in Guantánamo Bay, "Sami was a prisoner in the Bush Administration's assault on al-Jazeera."
Less well known is Sami's frontline reportage from within Guantánamo. Stafford Smith recalls that when he asked Sami for information, he "would assemble important facts on almost any topic in the prison relying on the incredible prisoner bush telegraph." These have included reports on the religious abuse -- primarily of the Qu'ran -- that preceded a series of hunger strikes and suicide attempts, and a pioneering assessment of the number of prisoners who were under 18 at the time of their capture.
Since January 7, 2007 (the fifth anniversary of his detention without trial by the US), Sami has been on a hunger strike. Although he is strapped into a restraint chair twice a day and force-fed against his will and despite the fact that he is "very thin" and "[h]is memory is disintegrating," according to Stafford Smith, Sami continues to seek ways to publicize the plight of his fellow prisoners. During the most recent visit from his lawyers in February -- with Cori Crider of Reprieve -- he produced a number of morbid, and almost hallucinatory sketches illustrating his take on conditions in Guantánamo, which he described as "Sketches of My Nightmare."
Fearing that they would be banned by the military censors, Crider asked him to describe each sketch in detail and when, as anticipated, the pictures were duly banned but the notes cleared, Reprieve asked political cartoonist Lewis Peake to create original works based on Sami's descriptions.
"The first sketch is just a skeleton in the torture chair," Sami explained. "My picture reflects my nightmares of what I must look like, with my head double-strapped down, a tube in my nose, a black mask over my mouth, strapped into the torture chair with no eyes and only giant cheekbones, my teeth jutting out -- my ribs showing in every detail, every rib, every joint. The tube goes up to a bag at the top of the drawing. On the right there is another skeleton sitting shackled to another chair. They are sitting like we do in interrogations, with hands shackled, feet shackled to the floor, just waiting. In between I draw the flag of Guantánamo -- JTF-GTMO -- but instead of the normal insignia, there is a skull and crossbones, the real symbol of what is happening here."
In recently declassified testimony, Sami described more of his recent experiences of the force-feeding process:
On the Monday before last [February 11] a white male came to do the force-feeding. They gave him only ten minutes training, then he did three of the eight men being fed that day, including me. He screwed the tube into my nose, not slowly, and not using lotion. I had flu at the time and my nostril was closed. It made it much harder. I was in the chair. I could barely talk, and my mouth was covered with the mask they put on. I was waving my hands.
"That's very painful!" I eventually said. There were tears streaming down my face. "I am meant to do this to you," the man said, harshly. "If you don't like it, don't go on strike." He would not look me in the eye. He did not look in the least bit ashamed. He never said sorry, or paused when I was in pain. I almost thought he seemed happy that he was doing it.
They used my feeding tube for another man last Monday [February 18]. This, even though they have marked the boxes for each tube. I have been getting a sore larynx, maybe from the infection of another person using my tube. I requested a spray but it was denied.
