Freedom from Guantanamo

On Friday 2 May I was so happy to read that Al Jazeera cameraman, Sami al Hajj, had been freed from Guantanamo Bay where he has been held for more than six years without charge.

Late last year I came across the below banner on the Al Jazeera web site. If you clicked on the picture it took you to a website dedicated to Al Jazeera's campaign to free him where people had posted prayers and messages of support.

Sami al Hajj was arrested in Pakistan while he was travelling near the Afghan border in 2001. At that time, he was employed with Al Jazeera as a cameraman and was on assignment with them and had with him the the relevant visas.

I guess I wanted to write this post because of the extreme injustice that is Guantanamo Bay. Sami was never charged with any crime and faced no court while in Guantanamo. Still today 275 people remain there. His American captors alleged that he had run a website that supported terrorism, and that he was somehow involved in terrorism because he worked for Al Jazeera and America believed that Al Jazeera was a front for al Qaeda.

Regardless of that and any other claims made against him, he was never charged with any offence in nearly six and a half years. To think that six and a half years of this mans life was needlessly wasted absolutely shocks me. He has not seen his son since he was a small toddler and his wife had no idea where he was until she received a letter from him telling her he was in Cuba. He now suffers from severe medical ailments; depression and the like and the throat cancer that was in remission in 1999 has returned due to him not having access to the drugs he was to take daily for the rest of his life.

I am sure I don't need to mention the abuses that have taken place against him either. Not only the physical, sexual and mental abuse, but abuses of his human rights in every form.

Clearly the six years in detention has taken a toll on him as the 38 year old is described as looking like someone of 80 years of age.

The horrible truth is that Guantanamo Bay is and will remain one of the worst products of the war on terror.

Nobody deserves this fate.