Nearly a year after his arrest, a Tunisian court found Ménad Benchellali not-guilty of terrorism related allegations. As a result, he was immediately released and can now be reunited with his family. 

CagePrisoners congratulates the family of Ménad Benchellali and calls on the Tunisian Ministry of Justice to look at similar cases with the same spirit.

Research Director of CagePrisoners, Asim Qureshi, said of the verdict,

“We welcome the release of Ménad Benchellali; especially since there was a concern that Ben Ali’s misuse of anti-terrorism legislation and abuses against detainees were being, to an extent, reproduced after the revolution. It is important that the Tunisian authorities continue on the path to end arbitrary detention and prisoner mistreatment.”

NOTES:

1. CagePrisoners is a human rights NGO that exists to raise awareness of the plight of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and other detainees held as part of the War on Terror. We aim to give a voice to the voiceless.

2. To learn more about the case of  Ménad Benchellali please visit click here

Press Enquiries:

Contact:                 Arnaud Mafille 

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Date of issue: 24 January 2013

The dark side of Guantanamo Bay - the torture, the indefinite detention and the suffering - have become all too familiar.  For those who campaign to shut Guantanamo Bay, there is a “them vs us” situation which has been created – them, being the C.I.A, the guards, the military judges – anyone involved in the daily running of the camp – and “us,” the detainees, the campaigners, the activists – everyone who wants to see the camp closed.  Credit is rarely given to the light in Guantanamo Bay; the glimpse of hope of justice from the other side which comes through the whistleblowers.  They have also been affected by the War on Terror, in a way that is not discussed enough publicly, which is an injustice to their bravery. 

Eleven years after the opening of Guantanamo Bay prison, and four years since the newly elected President Obama pledged its imminent closure, Guantanamo is still open. Since then President Obama has not only institutionalized Guantánamo and all the horrors it represents, but he has initiated new extrajudicial assassinations by drones. All this, and many other aspects of US policies at home and abroad, is always justified by the struggle to eliminate terrorism.

Since 13 February 2002, Shaker Aamer has been detained without charge or trial in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Despite being cleared for release by the United States Department of Defense, he continues to languish at the detention camps even though the UK government has specifically requested his release. 

The plight of Shaker's family has been one of severe trauma throughout the las 11 years. His youngest son, Faris, has never met his father and still continues to wonder what such a relationship means to this very day. In this exclusive letter CagePrisoners, Zinnera Aamer writes of the pain and suffering her family have been forced endure.

On Monday, 29 October, CagePrisoners attended a parliamentary meeting for the Save Shaker Aamer Campaign.  

Moazzam Begg speaks candidly on Canadian Radio CBC about Omar Khadr who he first met as a severely wounded child in Bagram prison

CagePrisoners welcomes the news of Omar Khadr's return to Canada after evelen years of Guantanamo but his ordeal will only be over when he is freed from prison

The film Innoncence of Muslims exposes US attitudes and abuses against Islam and Muslims carried out over the past decade

Despite being the eleventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks the US legacy of secret prisons and torture won't be forgotten by simply handing over the prison facilities to others

When he arrived at Guantanamo in 2005 as chief prosecutor, Colonel Morris Davis thought that he would be dealing exclusively with fanatical terrorists. But he soon realized that many prisoners shouldn't have been imprisoned at all.

What do Harry Potter, the Fresh Prince of Bel Air and pet cats have in common with tortured terrorism suspects in Cuba?

If you don't know who he is by now you should be ashamed.

Live on-line conversation on the question of Guantanamo and why the abuses there seem to have been forgotten.

Racial profiling, torture, solitary confinement and decades in prison fighting for justice. These may be signatures of the US-led war on terror but such practices have been in motion for a long time. Robert King, one of the 'Angola 3', knows first-hand what it meant then as much as it does now and discusses his thoughts with CagePrisoners.

On 1 June 2012, Belgian newspapers reported the arrest of Stéphanie Djato, a young lady wearing a niqab (face veil) after an identity check. It was added that she assaulted police officers and injured two of them before being released. A few days ago, she gave her own version of the story and described what happened in the police station’s storage room where she was held (here). A statement allegedly made by one of the policemen especially resonates: “We will show you things worse than Guantanamo! Here it is worse than Guantanamo!”

Omar Khadr is the youngest and only Westerner remaining in Guantanamo Bay. At the time of his capture and illegal detention by the US army in Afghanistan, Omar was only fifteen years old. The United Nations recognizes Omar as a “child soldier” who deserves rehabilitation, not retribution. Nonetheless, despite a worldwide outcry at the US and Canada for exercising  child abuse and illegal detention, ten years of incessant torture later, Omar still languishes in Guantanamo Bay.

In 2010, after eight years of imprisonment in which he maintained his innocence throughout, Omar was offered a plea deal by Guantanamo Bay military tribunal – commonly acknowledged as a kangaroo court – in which he was asked to plead guilty to war crimes in 2002 related to a firefight in Afghanistan which killed a U.S. Sgt. The choice given to Omar was the following: for not pleading guilty, he would be sentenced forty years of imprisonment; for pleading guilty, he would spend eight years of incarceration in Canada out of which one was to be served in Guantanamo. Canada agreed to repatriate Omar by October 2011, and, trusting that she would honour her deal, Omar took the risk of pleading guilty.

The US and Canada both remained silent long after October 2011, until April 16 2012, when the US Defence Secretary approved Omar’s transfer and turned to Canada to keep her part of the bargain. Omar’s lawyers announced his repatriation would be in effect by the end of May once Public Safety minister Victor Toews signs the required document. However, despite the fact that both the UN and Canada’s Supreme Court acknowledge Omar has been gravely mistreated, the Canadian government has never objected its young citizen’s maltreatment, let alone recognize its duty to allow Omar to return home. 

Alas, it comes as no surprise that over a month has passed while Toews delays in signing the document – perhaps in questionable hopes of letting Omar complete his detention in Guantanamo Bay as opposed to Canada – and Canadian PM Stephen Harper remains notoriously silent on the entire matter. Meantime, Canadians worldwide feel shame and disappointment for a country they once recognized as an advocate for human rights and justice. As the clock ticks and the world carries on playing its political games, Omar Khadr suffers in a windowless cell in solitary confinement, which he has been in since July 2011, shackled to the floor by an obsessively paranoid US government and a deafeningly silent Canadian government.

Nâzım Hikmet (1902 – 1963) was a Turkish poet and writer, who was described as a “romantic revolutionary”. Because of his political beliefs, he was sent to prison for ten years during Ataturk’s regime. During his incarceration, Hikmet wrote the following poem, which I dedicate to Omar Khadr who has suffered ten years in Guantanamo Bay.

Since I Was Thrown Inside
Since I was thrown inside,
the earth has orbited the sun ten times.
If you ask it:
“Not even worth mentioning,
a microscopic time.”
If you ask me:
“Ten years of my life.”

I had a pencil
the year I was thrown inside.
I used it all up in a week.
If you ask it:
“A whole life.”
If you ask me:
“Come on now, just one week.”

Since I was thrown inside,
Osman, doing time for murder,
finished his seven and a half years and left,
drifted around for a while,
was thrown back inside for smuggling,
did six months and was rereleased,
his letter came yesterday, he’s married,
his child will be born in the spring.

They’re ten years old now,
the children who were conceived
the year I was thrown inside.
And that year’s trembling, long-legged colts
have long turned into confident, wide-rumped mares.
But the olive seeds are still olive seeds,
they’re still children.

New squares have cropped up in my faraway city
since I was thrown inside.
And my loved ones
are living on a street I don’t know
in a house I’ve never seen.

Bread was white and fluffy as cotton
the year I was thrown inside.
Then it was rationed
and here, inside, the people beat each other
for a pitch-black, fist-size piece.
Now it flows freely again,
but dark and tasteless.

The year I was thrown inside,
the second war hadn’t started yet,
the ovens at Dachau weren’t lit,
the atom bomb hadn’t dropped on Hiroshima.

Time flowed like the blood of a child whose throat’s been slit.
Then that chapter officially ended,
and now the U.S. dollar speaks of a third.

Yet, in spite of everything, the days have shone
since I was thrown inside,
and from the edges of darkness,
the people, pressing their heavy hands to the pavement,
have begun to rise.

Since I was thrown inside
the earth has orbited the sun ten times
and just as passionately I repeat
what I wrote
the year I was thrown inside:
“The people, who are plentiful as ants on the ground
as fish in the sea
as birds in the sky,
who are cowardly, courageous,
ignorant, supreme
and childlike,
it is they who crush
and create,
it is but their exploits sung in songs."
And as for the rest,
my ten-year incarceration, for instance,
it’s all meaningless words."

Translated from the Turkish by Deniz Perin
 

Please write to Canadian Public Safety minister Victor Toews, to ask him to repatriate Omar Khadr as soon as possible. You may contact him by email, fax, telephone or postmail:
 
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
 
Hill Office:
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
Telephone: 613-992-3128
Fax: 613-995-1049
 
 
Constituency Office(s):
227 Main Street, Suite 8 (Main Office)
Steinbach, Manitoba
R5G 1Y7
Telephone: 204-326-9889
Fax: 204-346-9874

It is safe to say that the War on Terror is a war like no other. As we have witnessed in the last decade or so, this is not a conventional war where there are frontlines nor is it a war between two armies, confined to a geographical boundary. As Bush and Blair reassured the public by vowing to bring justice and freedom, their female counterparts were simultaneously beating the drums of war.

In this episode Moazzam discusses America's increasing use of drones. Leading human rights lawyer and Director of Reprieve, Clive Stafford Smith, joins him in the studio. 

They were written to teach children colours and strange words but distorted versions of bouncy Sesame Street songs have been used to torture Guantanamo Bay prisons for days, it has been claimed.