"On Friday night, three prisoners in Guantánamo Bay committed suicide. Two Saudis and one Yemeni hanged themselves. In a desperate attempt at spin, the US claims this was an act of war or a public relations exercise. The truth is quite different. Islam says it goes against God to kill yourself. So what would drive a man to take his own life, despite his religious beliefs? The answer shames the US and its allies, Britain prominently included."
The words of Zachary Katneslon, senior counsel at Reprieve [which represents 36 Guantanamo Bay detainees] writing in The Guardian.
Meanwhile, as The Monthly reports in this month's cover story [do get hold of a copy]:
"In “The Outcast of Camp Echo”, Alfred W McCoy, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of A Question of Torture, examines the punishment of David Hicks at Guantanamo Bay, the key US base in the War on Terror. Hicks, an Australian citizen, has survived years of sensory deprivation and torture, yet the Howard government steadfastly refuses to request his release.
Stripped of all rights as an “unlawful combatant”, isolated inside a concrete cell, abandoned by his homeland and pushed to the brink of suicide, David Hicks has somehow managed to defy the world’s most powerful person, George W Bush … he has denied the White House a potent confession that would legitimate its regime of inhumane interrogation and extralegal incarceration."
The words of Zachary Katneslon, senior counsel at Reprieve [which represents 36 Guantanamo Bay detainees] writing in The Guardian.
There can now be few - ignoring the John Howards and Alexander Downers of this world - who doubt that an injustice of monumental proportions is being perpetrated in the continued detention of people like David Hicks. For an insight into the real situation at this now infamous detention-facility read The Guardian article here.
Meanwhile, as The Monthly reports in this month's cover story [do get hold of a copy]:
"In “The Outcast of Camp Echo”, Alfred W McCoy, a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of A Question of Torture, examines the punishment of David Hicks at Guantanamo Bay, the key US base in the War on Terror. Hicks, an Australian citizen, has survived years of sensory deprivation and torture, yet the Howard government steadfastly refuses to request his release.
Stripped of all rights as an “unlawful combatant”, isolated inside a concrete cell, abandoned by his homeland and pushed to the brink of suicide, David Hicks has somehow managed to defy the world’s most powerful person, George W Bush … he has denied the White House a potent confession that would legitimate its regime of inhumane interrogation and extralegal incarceration."
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