Suicide or Killings in Gitmo?

[Aseerun]

as-Salaamu 'alaykum wa rahmatullaah wa barakaatuh

1 - I will never, nor should any Muslim, believe news that comes from a kaafir/evil source.

2 - If one reads about the torture/interrogation methods the guards use on the prisoners on gitmo, you'd realise that killing a prisoner wouldn't be any different for them.

3 - They've killed prisoners in Bagram and other secret prisons, so why should Gitmo be any different? Stats show that a lot of prisoners have died in U.S. custody - in '05, about 108 prisoners in Iraq, afghanistan etc have been reported dead.

4 - Why aren't any officials looking into the so called 'suicides' that have taken place. A news report about 'it' happening is just rubbish.

5 - They claim that brother Yassar Talal al-Zahrani is one of those who committed 'suicide'. This brother (rahimahullaah) was described as a strong willed by released Saudi detainees. Also, it was said that he used to give the US MPs guarding him lessons about Islam. Plus, he became a hafidh in Gitmo - may Allaah accept from him, ameen.

So, who will believe them now?

Their torture methods is enough to tell us that they are prepared to kill our brothers.

May Allaah accept brother Yassar and the rest of our brothers who were killed as martyrs, ameen.

[Aseerun]

How Many Times Will Guantanamo Kill?

Moazzam Begg - 07/06/2009

“From Allah we come and to him is the return.” How many times will we have to utter these Quranic words of condolence for prisoners who die after being incarcerated without charge or trial for years on end? It began with the deaths of Manei al-Otaibi, Yasser al-Zahrani (Saudi Arabia) and Ali Abdullah Ahmed Al Salami (Yemen) in June 2006. That was followed the deaths of Abdul Rahman al-Amri (Saudi Arabia) in May 2007 followed by Abdur-Razzaq (Afghanistan) in 2008. All but the latter are said to have committed suicide. That version of events is highly contested by their families and former prisoners who knew them. A few weeks ago the alleged suicide of Ibn al-Sheikh al-Libi in a Libyan desert-prison elicited a similar response. This week, it was the turn of Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih, one of the hundred or so Yemenis, the single largest group still held at Guantanamo Bay.

He had survived the horrific Qala-i-Jangi massacre carried out by the Afghan Northern Alliance and the US military in December 2001. From there he was moved to the Sherberghan prison where British former Guantanamo prisoner, Shafiq Rasul, saw him. “He was a very quiet, thoughtful and uncomplaining person. He’d been through unimaginable hardship but, other than looking very thin and weak, you wouldn’t have known it.”

He was still very emaciated and weak-looking by the time I met him in the US occupied detention centre at Kandahar airport in January 2002. He described to me the terrifying events at Qala-i-Jangi which were almost beyond belief. To have seen him being held with us in that place, knowing that he spent another eight years in a tiny cage is still difficult to comprehend. I didn't see him in Guantanamo but former British prisoner, Omar Deghayes did: "He [Muhammad] was a well-known brother. He was noted for being patient, calm and steadfast and I believe, certainly not the sort to commit suicide." Jarallah al-Marri, another former prisoner recalls, "We knew him [Muhammad] to be an amazingly patient man who opposed suicide as an unlawful practice in Islam. He taught us patience and virtue. That is why I believe he was sent to the 'psyche' unit. He didn't kill himself, Guantanamo killed him."

That he had survived the carnage of the Qala-i-Jangi and the ensuing barbaric detention at the hands of the Northern Alliance in Sherberghan and then, in Kandahar and seven years of Guantanamo, only to die in his cell the very year Obama has promised to close Guantanamo makes no sense. Muhammad was amongst the first people to arrive in the notorious Camp X-Ray. He is the sixth prisoner that Guantanamo has killed.

Undoubtedly there will be people saying he deserved what he got, that we should all have died like that – and worse. That anyone in Guantanamo is there for a justified reason and, consequently, people who die there have only themselves to blame. What such people don’t realise is that, whether you like or agree with it or not, many people on the other side of the world will regard Muhammad as a shaheed – a martyr-witness. They believe that he will be rewarded abundantly in the Hereafter for every hardship that befell him and every wound and humiliation he suffered and every second of his torturous detention without trial. I learned this when I called the father of one of the men who died in Guantanamo in 2006. The man was a retired General in the Saudi army. When I told him I was calling with condolences for the death of his son he replied: “My brother, we don’t need condolences. My son is a martyr.” I wonder if that is what they intended when they started so many years ago to detain people in Guantanamo Bay, the world’s most infamous prison. Only three people have been released since Obama came into office – Muhammad is one of them.


Moazzam Begg is a former Guantanamo detainee and director of Cageprisoners.
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[Aseerun]

Interesting Let's see how far this goes... insha Allah khayr.

04/06/2009

NEW YORK - June 3 - The American Civil Liberties Union [late Tuesday] called for a full and transparent investigation into the death of a Yemeni national held at Guantánamo Bay. Military officials have described the death as an “apparent suicide.”

The following can be attributed to Ben Wizner, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project:

"Tragic deaths like this one have become all too common in a system that locks up detainees indefinitely without charge or trial. There must be an immediate, independent and transparent investigation into the circumstances surrounding this apparent suicide and the conditions of confinement at Guantánamo.

“There is no room for a system of indefinite detention without charge or trial under our Constitution. Detainees against whom there is legitimate evidence should be tried in our federal courts – not in the reconstituted military commissions now being proposed. Those against whom there is no legitimate evidence must not be given a de-facto life sentence by being locked up forever.”

In January, the ACLU and other leading human rights groups sent a letter to President Obama asking him to grant them full access to the Guantánamo detention center so that they can review the conditions of confinement and make recommendations for revising U.S. detention policies.

The letter to President Obama is available online at: American Civil Liberties Union : Coalition Letter to President Obama Requesting Access to Guantánamo Bay Detention Camps

###

The ACLU conserves America's original civic values working in courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in the United States by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

SOURCE: ACLU.org

[Mujahida_fi_sabilillah]

The tragedy of brother Masha'al al Harbi in the year 2002

After the Eid al Fitr, the Saudi brother Masha'al Al Harbi was locked up in solitary confinement in the India section. In the night period that is after the Maghrib prayer, one of the soldiers mocked the Islamic religion and the Holy Quran, then he started touching the Quran and making fun of it. The detainees grew furious and started screaming and beating the cages of the prisons, but this time the new General of the detention center wanted to break the spirit of the detainees by force, so one or two groups of the military riot forces were called, then they switched off the lights in the prisons and the outer areas of the detention center, until the India section was in complete darkness, then the riot forces entered on the detainees in the prisons and in the solitary confinement cells one after the other, wearing strong searchlights directed to the eyes of the detainees, then they beat the detainees collectively, until blood started flowing from the bodies of the boys and from their mouth and face and nose then suddenly we heard some hums and whispers between the soldiers and the riot forces and the lights were bought back.. The window of the solitary confinement in which one of the brothers were kept was not closed properly and near that was the solitary
prison in which the Saudi brother Mash'al Harbi was kept. This brother and another witness form amongst the brothers who was being brought from the interrogation room that they had seen the riot forces removing Mash'al form his prison and blood was dripping from his mouth and nose then they took him to the clinic. And the blood was all over the passage and in the solitary prison in which Mash'al was kept. The prison officials came for investigating the incident and to see the blood and closed the prison, then some of the experts who were wearing white clothes came the next day and took the finger prints and took the sample of the blood in the prison and in the passage and the detection and investigation continued for 2 days then they washed off the blood from the passage and from the prison then they locked it and projected it with red light and restricted entry to it. The detainees started pressing in asking about Mash'al and the voices were raised to know about his medical condition. It was rumored amongst the detainees that Mash'al died under torture. We asked the officials to reveal the truth. The superintendent of the prison and the soldiers got nervous and denied that Mash'al has died, and assured us that he is in the hospital and that they would update us of his news promptly. After 1 week some of the doctors came to tell us one of the many lies of the Americans that don't end and that is that Mash'al had tried to commit suicide in the solitary prison by hanging himself by the small handkerchief that they give us which isn't even enough even to tie round the waist leave alone tying to the ceiling and around the neck. And since we knew that this is impossible we accused them of lies and creation of accusations against us and against our brother Mash’al who used to brim with high spiritedness and patience, and he always used to instruct us to be patient and hope of reward from Allah. So how could he try to commit suicide? The reality was that Mash'al had faced beating at the incident of the switched off lights, and the goal behind harming Mash'al in this monstrous manner was to frighten the other detainees to restrain them from being disobedient and objecting against the orders. The Red Cross used to defend the interrogators who attacked Mash'al and create lies against him, and they used to assure us that Mash'al tried to commit suicide, but when they saw our persistence on defending him and accusing them that they are liars and that they are cooperating with the Americans to transgress the rights granted to us internationally, some of the red cross employees investigated in the story of suicide and assured us that he had faced beating. Also they informed us that Masha'al might have faced a brain death due to a severe hurt on his head and because he suffered beatings from behind on the spinal cord, and they said that he was suffering from total paralysis. And when we asked them to raise a report on that, they excused that they were just following orders that they receive from their leaders and they could not exceed their officials.

[Dar Al Murabiteen Publications - "Adil Kamil remembers"]

[Aseerun]

Interesting info:

Human Rights Activists Raise Doubts About Gitmo Detainees' Death

08/06/2009

Sahar Al-Sharjabi

The death of the Yemeni detainee, Mohammed Saleh Al-Hanashi, who, according to U.S. military officials' delegations, committed an "apparently suicide" in his cell at Guantanamo, caused many questions to be raised by human rights activists inside and outside Yemen.

The Executive Director of Hood Organization, Mr. Khaled Al-Anesi, said that the Yemeni government is a partner in what he described to be a murder crime against the Yemeni detainee Mohammad Al-hanashi. "It seems that our authorities, by refusing to receive Yemenis alive, are insisting on receiving them dead." Al-Anesi said.

Al-Anesi pointed out that the Yemeni authorities refused to receive detainees unless it receives an estimated $100 million, as confirmed by the media outlets and the American officials, to establish rehabilitation center. On this regard Al-Anesi expressed his amazement that the Yemeni government, which has always talked about refusing external conditions, those are inconsistent with its sovereignty and security, is now asking for external support to receive its citizens.

Al-Anesi added that Al-Hanashi's death raised even more suspicions, that the U.S. authorities have not yet investigated the death of Salah Al-Salami, who was also said that he committed suicide at Guantánamo Bay earlier. However, Al-Anesi said that the American authorities are still responsible for prisoners' lives and safety pointing out that, American authorities either kill detainees or lead them to commit suicide. He also wondered that how could it be possible for prisoners to commit suicide in such a tight control and supervision by the authorities at Gitmo.

According to Shayana Kadidal, an attorney with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, Al-Hanashi, 31, had been held without charge at Guantánamo Bay for over seven years, and had never met with a lawyer.

Human rights groups, similarly, blamed the U.S. indefinite detention regime that has evolved in the war on terror.

Many Yemeni detainees have been caught in an international standoff. Both the Bush and Obama administrations have been reluctant to return them to Yemen because of security concerns.Of the remaining 239 detainees, 96 are Yemeni.

[hussain]

I for one do not believe that they are "suicides", and that the latest brother to die there was killed, deliberately or otherwise, by the cowardly arrogant kuffar.

One more reason - among so many hundreds of thousands - to hate the the kuffar and their ways, and one more reason to make dua to Allah azza wa jal for the humiliation of the kuffar by victory of the Mujahideen.

May Allah azza wa jal reward our brother Muhammad Ahmad Abdallah Salih with the best of rewards.

[Aseerun]

12/06/09

BINYAM MOHAMED (BM1458@gmail.com)

(Mohammed Ahmed Abdullah Saleh - Rahimahullaah)

To the prisoners at Guantánamo, Mohammed Ahmed Abdullah Saleh was simply known as Wadhah al-Abyani (Wadhah meaning ''one who clarifies'' and Abyan the place where he came from in Yemen). Last week, it was announced that he had apparently committed suicide in his cell. After almost eight years in U.S. custody, Wadhah came home to his native Yemen in a coffin. He was no more than a few months older than I. He was born in 1978. Coincidentally, he was numbered 078 by the U.S. military.

At 5'10'' in height, his weakened body weighed no more than 104 pounds the last time I saw him. Wadhah had, like many prisoners still held in Guantánamo, been on a hunger strike before I left, protesting the conditions, abuses and absence of justice we were all subjected to.

Strapped to chair

We were force-fed together, transported to the chair willing or unwilling, strapped to it according to the doctors orders. A sympathetic-looking nurse would ask which nostril we would like to have the tube inserted in. While the 25-inch of hard tube is forced through your nostril down to your stomach, your eyes swell with tears and run down your cheeks. It's always comforting to hear the nurse say, ''Oh don't worry. It's OK, that happens to everyone,'' as she wipes off your tears for you. And as the tube goes through the throat, you get the sensation of choking. Coughing is a norm but some start vomiting blood. With the years of hunger-striking, very few can keep what's being pumped into them down.

Wadhah was always being put into segregation because of his determined insistence in pointing out the realities of what had happened to us all. The fact is U.S. authorities didn't like him talking about words and practices they were only too familiar with: kidnap, rendition, torture, degradation, false imprisonment and injustice. But, while Wadhah opposed the policies and treatment in Guantánamo, he didn't have problems with the guards. He was always very sociable and tried to help resolve issues between the guards and prisoners. He was patient and encouraged others to be the same. He never viewed suicide as a means to end his despair.

According to my personal diary, on Jan. 5, 2009, at around 11:20 a.m., I was taken from my cell to meet the Camp 5 NCOIC [noncommissioned officer in-charge]. I was asked if I wanted to represent the prisoners on camp issues such as hunger strikes and other contentious issues. I declined, as did most. But poor Wadhah agreed, wanting to help his brothers the best he could. Little did he realize that if they didn't get their way he would be the one sacrificed. The following Saturday, on Jan. 17, he was taken outside Camp 5 to meet with the Joint Task Force commander, Adm. David Thomas, and the Joint Detention Group commander, Col. Bruce Vargo.

Unexplained death

Wadhah never returned to his cell, and two weeks later we learned that he was moved to what we called the ''psych'' unit -- the behavioral-health unit (BHU). There has yet to be any explanation as to why he was sent there or even what was the cause of death. The BHU was built as a secure unit to prevent, among other things, potential suicide attempts.

Everything that someone could use to hurt himself has been removed from the cell, and a guard watches each prisoner 24 hours a day, in person and on videotape.

In light of this, I am amazed that the U.S. government has the audacity to describe Wadhah's death categorically as an ``apparent suicide.''

I believe that this was a murder, or unlawful killing, whichever way you look at it. An innocent Muslim man not charged or tried for seven years has lost his life because of illegal incarceration:

• If he did take his life -- after being forced into a BHU -- what put him there? Who takes responsibility for making him lose hope after having held on for so many years, despite the inhumane treatment and conditions?

• If his death occurred by ''natural causes,'' then the years of hunger strikes (since 2005) in protest against unjustified incarceration may well have led to some type of organ failure that caused his death.

• If he was killed by U.S. personnel -- intentionally or otherwise -- then what does this mean for those left behind with no hope of release or a justified solution to their incarceration?

The United States needs to understand how yet another unsatisfactorally explained death in its most infamous prison is going to be interpreted in the Muslim world.

We need answers.

Binyam Mohamed is a former Guantánamo detainee. Charges against him were dropped last October. On Feb. 23, he was repatriated to Britain, the nation that granted him residency as a teen after his family fled his native Ethiopia.