In London, at Amnesty International’s Global Struggle Against Torture Conference
I have just spent two days listening to heartbreaking testimony from men who were unlawfully detained and tortured by U.S. officials at Guantanamo Bay. I am at and to bring together men who have been released, human rights advocates who continue to work for the release of other prisoners, and family members of men still locked up in the black hole of Guantanamo.
These men are from multiple countries – England, Russia, Bosnia, Pakistan. All of them are innocent, but were locked up for years without charges. They ended up in Guantanamo because they were in Afghanistan at the wrong time, or because they were kidnapped in other countries at the direction of the U.S. government. Seeing them close up immediately breaks the Mohammed Atta stereotype of the so-called “terrorism detainee.” They were black, brown, white. Some spoke clipped British English, some perfect German.
These men say that words are incapable of describing what it is like to be tortured, how it feels to live day after day in 2x2 cages. I am now struggling to capture the power of their personal testimony in words. I’ll try.
The first speaker was Moazzam Begg, a British citizen. He is a slight man, with wire-rimmed glasses and a professorial air. Moazzam described in stark language how U.S. forces – in the name of fighting terrorism – engaged in acts of terror against him and other human beings. “It is terrifying to be interrogated repeatedly with cocked guns pointed at your head. It is terrifying to sit in a cage day after day and believe that you will never see your children again. It is terrifying to watch and hear others humiliated by guards all around you.”
Jamal al Harith, a soft-spoken British national of Jamaican descent, spent two years, three weeks, and six days in Guantanamo before his release. He was beaten, stripped naked, and interrogated repeatedly. He spent weeks in solitary confinement, where he was exposed to extreme temperatures and bright lights day and night. Jamal, who was captured by the Taliban while in Afghanistan, noted with irony that when the Americans arrived in Afghanistan, he was relieved -- he thought they would treat him fairly and help him get home.
Tarek Dergoul spoke from behind a curtain. He told us how he was beaten with baseball bats and left in a freezing cage. When military forces refused to treat his frostbite, one of his toes and part of his arm had to be amputated.
Feroz Abbasi spent one year and seven months in solitary confinement at Guantanamo. Yet Feroz and several other men said the most painful experience for them was witnessing the abuse of other prisoners, and listening to their screams night after night.
Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal look like shy, scared kids. They were two of the named plaintiffs in the lawsuit brought by the to challenge the unlawful detention of Guantanamo detainees. In one of the few victories in the ongoing legal struggle, the Supreme Court held last year that they had a limited right to challenge their detention. While still in Afghanistan, Shafiq and Asif were both packed into containers for transport. When the containers were opened, most of the people inside had suffocated to death. Some of the guards shot bullets into the containers to provide air holes, and one of those bullets struck Shafiq.
Rustam Akhmarov, a Russian, was sold by Pakistani police to U.S. forces for $5000. Rustam said that he and other men at Guantanamo were given injections by force, and were later diagnosed with Hepatitis B. Though a number of Russian detainees have been released and cleared, Russian officials keep them and their family members under constant surveillance. They can’t get work because employers fear they will be tainted by the stigma of hiring former Guantanamo detainees.
Though it was painful to hear the former prisoners speak of their ordeals, these men realize they are among the fortunate few who are now free. It was even more devastating to hear the pleas of the family members of those still locked up.
Rabiye Kurnaz is the mother of Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish citizen who was a long-time resident of Germany. Murat is twenty-three years old and has been in Guantanamo for four years. The German government won’t help secure Murat’s release because he is not a citizen, and the Turkish government refuses to help. Rabiye said that she tries to keep news about Guantanamo from her other children, but that they hear about it on the news and on the Internet.
Nadja Dizdarevic is the wife of ElHadj Doudellaa of Bosnia. A small woman in full hijab, Nadja is the mother of four children. One son, now four years old, has never seen his father. Nadja said the children are suffering because both of their parents are absent – she must spend hours and hours each day advocating for the release of her husband. Nadja ended with a poignant thank you to “all of you who have sacrificed precious time with your own families to be here to listen to my testimony.”
Yet anger and horror were not the only emotions provoked by this gathering.
It was incredible to hear several former prisoners insist that others had it far worse than they. Martin Mubanga, another British citizen, talked about the strong spirit of Yusef El Gharani, who was sent to Guantanamo when he was just 14 years old. Shafiq Rasul talked about Jamil el-Banna, who remains at Guantanamo because the British government won’t negotiate the release of non-citizens. Shafiq said, “I have no children and yet they finally let me go. Jamil has five children who desperately need him – he deserves to be released more than I did.”
Meeting other people who had been detained was a powerful experience for many of the men present. Moazzam realized that he had spent six weeks in Kandahar lying face down in a freezing cell next to a Russian man who he never saw face to face until this weekend.
Several of the former prisoners were asked how they coped. Martin Mubanga found relief in poetry and rap. Moazzam memorized everything he could remember from school. Jamal learned not to think about his family.
A filmmaker in the audience asked whether any of the guards expressed kindness towards the prisoners. Several said they formed powerful bonds with some guards, especially while in solitary confinement. Moazzam and Tariq came to realize that many of the guards had no real choice but to join the army, and were putting in their time because they had to. There are different forms of imprisonment, they implied.
These moving testimonies are not isolated instances but part of a widespread and systemic policy of abuse. And yet one rarely sees these victims or hears their stories in mainstream media or anywhere else in the United States. Worse, our government officials continue to dismiss the overwhelming evidence of torture. When two courageous Iraqi men who are suing Rumsfeld for torture were in the U.S. last week, Rumsfeld's sick response to their testimony was that "terrorists are trained to lie about their treatment, and they do it consistently, and it always works."
As Moazzam pointed out, the iguana is a protected species at Guantanamo. Human beings are not. What have we become in America?
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.