Sami al-Haj: the banned torture pictures of a journalist in Guantánamo

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.

For the first four years of his imprisonment, Sami, like all the prisoners processed through the US-run prisons in Kandahar and Bagram and then transferred to Guantánamo, had no voice. Until October 2004, when the first lawyers arrived at the prison following a momentous Supreme Court decision, three months earlier, that the prisoners had the right to challenge the basis of their detention, the only voices that emerged from Guantánamo were those of the few released prisoners — of the 200 released between 2002 and 2004 — who dared to speak out about their treatment.

Mostly these were the Europeans: the British, French, Danish, Swedish and Spanish prisoners released in 2004. Others — like the handful of Saudis released during this period — were explicitly prevented from speaking out, and others were advised not to do so. When 17 Afghans were released in April 2005, Chief Justice Fazel Shinwari told them at a press conference, “Don’t tell these people the stories of your time in prison because the government is trying to secure the release of others, and it may harm the chances of winning the release of your friends.” Others had been terrified into acquiescence. Yuksel Celik Gogus, a Turk released in November 2003, said after being freed, “They will come and take me away if I say what happened in Guantánamo.”

Sami’s opportunity to speak out came in early 2005, when he met his lawyer, Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve, the legal action charity that currently represents 31 Guantánamo prisoners. The stories that Sami told him were shocking, as were those of many other prisoners. Echoing each other, despite cultural and linguistic differences, the prisoners reported extraordinary violence in the US-run prisons in Afghanistan. In describing their experiences at Guantánamo, they complained about the psychological torment of indefinite detention without charge or trial, the indiscriminate brutality of the teams of guards unleashed on prisoners for the most minor infringement of the rules, and the regime of torture — influenced by CIA counter interrogation techniques, and including prolonged isolation, the use of extreme heat and cold, the prolonged use of agonizingly painful stress positions, and the exploitation of phobias — that was prevalent in Guantánamo in 2003 and 2004.

As Stafford Smith listened to Sami’s story, he was appalled to discover — beyond the tales of torture in Kandahar, Bagram and Guantánamo, and disturbingly unsubstantiated claims that he had “arranged for the transport of a Stinger anti-aircraft system from Afghanistan to Chechnya” — that every one of the hundred-plus interrogations to which he had been subjected in Guantánamo had 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 did not exist. As Stafford Smith noted bluntly and accurately in his book, The 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.”

Later events and disclosures only served to reveal more of the administration’s dark machinations. A reporter was killed in a US bomb attack on al-Jazeera’s headquarters in Baghdad in April 2003, and in 2006 it was reported that President Bush had, as Stafford Smith again described it in his book, “mooted the idea of bombing the al-Jazeera headquarters in Qatar.” As for Sami, it transpired that the US authorities had probably seized him because they had confused him with another man who had interviewed Osama bin Laden (although as Stafford Smith also noted, “name me a journalist who would turn down a bin Laden scoop”), and that, while Sami was on assignment in Afghanistan, his calls to his wife had been monitored by the CIA. “Extrapolating from the experience of a lowly cameraman like Sami,” Stafford Smith added, “it did not seem implausible that the phone of every al-Jazeera journalist was being tapped.”

The prisoners’ testimony was an enormous step forward in the wider understanding of the torture and abuse that was endemic in the administration’s “War on Terror” prisons, when their accounts, which were all subjected to a censorship process instigated by the Pentagon, often, and bewilderingly, emerged at the other end more or less intact.

In Sami’s case, his background in journalism added another dimension to these reports. In his book, Clive Stafford Smith recalled 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.” He added, “Sami wrote reports about his treatment, the conditions at the prison and the pattern of his interminable interrogations. Perhaps two-thirds of these eventually made it through the censors, the others being held up for reasons that seemed little related to US security.”

These first-hand reports from behind the wire included reports on the religious abuse — primarily of the Qu’ran — that led to a series of hunger strikes and suicide attempts, and an assessment of the number of prisoners who were under 18 at the time of their capture (forty-five in total) which, as Stafford Smith wrote, sounded doubtful but was, in the end, probably something of an understatement. When the Pentagon finally released a prisoner list in 2006 — following a successful lawsuit pursued by the Associated Press — an analysis by Reprieve concluded that as many as sixty-four prisoners had been under 18 at the time of their capture (although it was difficult to state this with certainty, as many knew only the year of their birth, and not the day or the month).

As the years wore on, however, the irrepressible spirit recalled by all those who had met Sami before his imprisonment, and which also impressed Stafford Smith, was ground down by a particular despair that is perhaps unknowable to those who are not imprisoned without charge, without trial, with no contact with family or friends, and with no way of knowing when, if ever, this regime of almost total isolation will come to an end.

On January 7, 2007, the fifth anniversary of his detention without trial by the US, Sami embarked on a hunger strike, which continues to this day. In common with the small number of other persistent hunger strikers, he is strapped into a restraint chair twice a day and force-fed against his will. Clive Stafford Smith explained the brutality of the procedure, the reason the authorities are doing it, and also why it is illegal to do so, in an article last October.

“Medical ethics tell us that you cannot force-feed a mentally competent hunger striker, as he has the right to complain about his mistreatment, even unto death,” he wrote in the Los Angeles Times. “But the Pentagon knows that a prisoner starving himself to death would be abysmal PR, so they force-feed Sami. As if that were not enough, when Gen. Bantz J. Craddock headed up the US Southern Command, he announced that soldiers had started making hunger strikes less ‘convenient.’ Rather than leave a feeding tube in place, they insert and remove it twice a day. Have you ever pushed a 43-inch tube up your nostril and down into your throat? Tonight, Sami will suffer that for the 479th time.”

Even as he endured this twice-daily ordeal, Sami found the strength to put together a report on all the other hunger strikers in the prison — another extraordinary piece of frontline reporting that was published last March by the human rights group Cageprisoners. As the months passed, however, Stafford Smith noted a decline in his physical and mental health. Although he made an appeal for the BBC journalist Alan Johnston, who was kidnapped and imprisoned in Gaza for four months, and noted, “While the United States has kidnapped me and held me for years on end, this is not a lesson that Muslims should copy,” Clive Stafford Smith also noted in October, “Sami looked very thin. His memory is disintegrating, and I worry that he won’t survive if he keeps this up. He already wrote a message for his seven-year-old son, Mohammed, in case he dies here.”

Although Alan Johnston wrote a public letter to Sami after his own ordeal came to an end, Sami’s story has failed to permeate the Western media the way that it has in the Muslim world where, with the help of al-Jazeera, he has become Guantánamo’s most celebrated prisoner. Unfortunately, in the world of 24-hour rolling news, Johnston’s appeal on behalf of his fellow journalist was soon forgotten in the West, even though his words were both apt and heartfelt.

“While I was kidnapped recently in the Gaza Strip,” Johnston wrote, “fellow journalists from around the world joined the campaign mounted to try to secure my release, and of course you were among them. I was particularly grateful for your contribution given your own very difficult circumstances. In the light of my own experience of incarceration I am aware of how hard it must be for you and your family to endure your detention, and I very much hope that your case might be resolved soon. I understand that after some five years in Guantánamo you are calling to be allowed to answer any allegations that are being made against you. And of course I would always support any prisoner’s right to a fair trial.”

Despite Sami’s suffering, he 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.

Sami’s second sketch is his take on the familiar JTF-GTMO sign outside the prison. “This time,” he explained, “the hooded skeleton is in a three-piece suit [the prisoners’ term for being shackled at the wrists, ankles and waist]. The head is totally blacked out. The wrists are shackled at the back, with chains running down the legs. There are very elaborate arm bones, leg bones and the spine. And again the flag, the Jolly Roger of JTF-GTMO with a diabolical smile on the skull.”

For his next sketch, Sami shifted his attention to the prison hospital. “There is a third sketch, which is about the Hospital,” he said. “Again it is a skeleton, but with a face this time. The top of the skull is dotted with tracks, tracks of pain. This is the hospital gurney prisoner. He sits completely still, his hands and feet shackled to the side of the bed.”

In his testimony, recently released, Sami has elaborated on his experiences of the hospital:

I am very concerned about having cancer. I have had blood in my urine for a long time. They refused to believe me until I showed them urine in a container that had red in it. Since then they have had seven positive tests for blood in my urine.

I have a pain all across my chest and stomach, and in both kidneys. To begin with they thought it might be a kidney stone, but I had a scan for that. They did not give me the results for two weeks, and I worried all that time. It was negative.

So then they did a second scan with a tracer in the blood. This time, they did not tell me the results for two months. Again, I was left to worry about what might be wrong with me. Again, eventually a doctor came to see me, a black male, about 40 years old, clean shaven, in a uniform without rank on it. He saw me for only give minutes. He began decently, but then got rather hostile. He told me the test was negative, meaning that there was no kidney stone. “From my experience,” the doctor said to me, “I think it’s cancer.”

They then said that the next time a doctor would be coming with the appropriate expertise would be in May. Nobody would be coming before that, and he might not come even then. “You will leave me worrying about this for months?” I asked. “I don’t have the necessary equipment,” said the doctor. He apparently thought the prisoners were not as important as the soldiers in his care. “I don’t mind if you suffer or not,” he said. “It’s not my problem. I’m not here for you.” He left.

I worried too much after this. For three days I got barely any sleep. I was worrying that maybe I was dying. Then the brothers around me said, perhaps they are just telling you this, just trying to break your strike. I took some heart from this. But I still worry, as Abdul Razzaq died of cancer here, and it was a very painful death [Abdul Razzaq Hekmati, an Afghan who died on Dec.30].

I have all the other medical problems too. Really, I have pain almost everywhere –- all over. I have pain everywhere. It’s hard to identify one thing as it’s all over. My back, kidneys, chest, stomach, knee, I even have hemorrhoids. When I do get released, I am going to need to be taken to hospital right away.

For his final sketches, Sami focused on the doctors’ role in the force-feeding process. “All they care about is the prisoner’s weight,” he explained. “’Are you sick? Are you in pain?’ Who cares? It is all about the number on the scale. At the top of the drawing there is a skeleton again, but this time without hands or feet. The top of the head, the cranium, even the eyes are gone. Our lives depend on the doctors, but we get nothing from them. So we’re going mad. A man who is mad has no mind, but he still has a heart. We’re all going mad here. The skeleton is strapped to a gurney, there’s a tube and a pump, and the gurney is on a scale. It reads 98 lbs. But that’s with the weight of the gurney, and maybe the soldier’s pushing down on the skeleton a bit also.”

He added, “As they prepare the feeding they don’t use gloves. When they take the tube out, things come out of the nose, but the people are strapped to the chair, and cannot do anything to clean the revolting tube. There are psychological teams all around, all keen to work out what the impact of this is on the prisoner.”

In the fifth sketch, Sami explained the meaning of the bloated body, noting that, even if the prisoner’s weight were to rise due to force-feeding, he would still be losing his mind. “In the second half of this drawing the prisoner is inflated,” he said. “The man is strapped to the gurney, and the weight on the scale reads 250 lbs. He has filled out, there are rolls of fat on his belly, but he is still mad. The pumps are all hooked up, forcing food into him. But the top half of his head is still vacant.”

The last of his declassified notes add a disturbing conclusion to the story of the doctors’ involvement in the force-feeding process, and the horrendous isolation and deprivation that still prevail in Guantánamo:

We met recently with a senior female doctor from the hospital. “Only if you break your strike can we give you medical care,” she told those of us on hunger strike. “Otherwise we cannot help you.” Some have now broken their strike. Four men are very sick, and were suffering too badly. But the truth is that they have given no help even to those who stop.

I am having bone problems. The cold is bad. I am on disciplinary for being on strike, so I get a plastic blanket at 10 pm, at least three hours after our last prayer time. Every other day I hardly get to sleep anyway, as rec [recreation time] is in the middle of the night.

For eight days I had the same clothes. I have not been given proper toothpaste for two years and seven months now. I am allowed a fingerbrush for just five minutes each day, and it doesn’t reach the back of my mouth. I am not allowed a prayer rug. I am not allowed a prayer cap. I am not allowed my prayer beads. I am not allowed any holy book except for the Qur’an. I have no books to read. The last book I was allowed was in December 2006, before I began my strike.

All I have are orange clothes, flip flops, an isomat, a Qur’an, and a bottle of water. I suppose I should think myself lucky. Another of the men here has been disciplined by having even his isomat take away –- for a whole year. Another man has lost his right to a water bottle for a whole year. All this made another man so upset that he tried to hang himself.

Andy is the Communications Officer for Reprieve, and the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison.

A version of this article was published on AlterNet, as The Torture Drawings the Pentagon Doesn’t Want You to See.