Posted on 11/20/2002 12:22:10 PM PST by mhking
"Torture" by air conditioning.
Leave it to ABC's Peter Jennings to highlight the plight of a Pakistani who survived being detained at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. After Jennings on Tuesday night helpfully noted how "human rights organizations have complained the U.S. is violating the prisoners' rights and acting without regard for international law," reporter Bob Woodruff narrated a story about the prisoner's claims of mistreatment, including the "torture" of air conditioning.
Woodruff empathized with how the man, who is now back in Pakistan, was "swept up in the chaos of the war, he was handed over to the U.S. and flown to Cuba, blind-folded and tied." The Pakistani charged that "once gave a call for prayer, and after that, we were punished...They beat us, they hit us on the head, grabbed us by the neck."
The man, "who had never seen air conditioning before, thought it was a kind of torture," Woodruff related before the man complained about how "they pumped cold air from a hole in the ceiling. This was the punishment. The air was very cold."
Most of the residents of Cuba outside the U.S. naval base dream of such a "punishment."
Woodruff concluded by noting that the man never got the $2,000 the U.S. promised "in compensation for his ordeal" and worse, "no one...has even apologized."
Hey, he's alive and well.
Jennings introduced the piece on the November 19 World News Tonight, as transcribed by MRC analyst Brad Wilmouth: "In Pakistan, one of the first and only prisoners released from the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has been talking about his experience. For more than a year, the U.S. has kept the prisoners completely isolated from the world. Human rights organizations have complained the U.S. is violating the prisoners' rights and acting without regard for international law. Tonight, what it was like inside Guantanamo. Here's ABC's Bob Woodruff."
Woodruff began, over video of the man in Pakistan: "In Guantanamo Bay, Mohammed Sageer (spelling a guess) was known simply as 'Prisoner 143.' But in Pakistan, he had been a lumber cutter with two wives and nine children. He says he had only gone to Afghanistan last year as part of an Islamic teaching group. But swept up in the chaos of the war, he was handed over to the U.S. and flown to Cuba, blind-folded and tied. [over video from a distance of two soldiers carrying a prisoner in chains] Twice a month, he was bound in chains, he said, and questioned by U.S. intelligence about his ties to terrorists."
Mohammed Sageer, through translator: "They asked me how I went to Afghanistan, where is Osama, are there any al-Qaeda people here or not? They showed me photos and asked me, 'Who are these men? Do you recognize them?' I said I'd never seen any of them."Woodruff: "In the beginning, his jailers were strict. Prisoners got just ten minutes for meals and could not talk to each other or even pray."Woodruff, over video of a prisoner in orange jump suit being pushed on a wheeled gurney by soldiers: "He says those who defied the rules were placed in solitary confinement -- small, air- conditioned cells. Sageer, who had never seen air conditioning before, thought it was a kind of torture."
Sageer: "We once gave a call for prayer, and after that, we were punished. This was a difficult time. They beat us, they hit us on the head, grabbed us by the neck. Some people were unconscious, and they were taken to the hospital."Sageer: "There was a small window in the roof and a light, and they pumped cold air from a hole in the ceiling. This was the punishment. The air was very cold."Woodruff concluded: "Sageer and his family are now heavily in debt. He claims the Americans promised him $2,000 in compensation for his ordeal, but all he has received is $100 from the government of Pakistan. And no one, he says, has even apologized. Bob Woodruff, ABC News."
Woodruff: "In the final months, he says, his American jailers became friendlier, moving prisoners from cages into proper cells. But for nearly a year, he had been completely cut off from the world. His family thought he was dead. Then, suddenly the Americans let him go."
Sageer: "The translator was holding a bag. He told me, 'Please take the bag, change your clothes, and be ready to go back to Pakistan.' I did not believe it. I thought he was joking."
Sageer missed the presidency of a President who might have apologized.
You just can't make this stuff up!
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Not to mention bathing.
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