Former Guantanamo detainees recall despair (sniff...)

yahoo.com ^ | Sun Jun 11, 2006 | PAISLEY DODDS

[presidio9]

Dispirited and desperate prisoners at Guantanamo Bay look to suicide as a way out of a hopeless situation, and not because they seek martyrdom, say three British Muslims once held there.

"There is no hope in Guantanamo. The only thing that goes through your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill yourself," said Shafiq Rasul, 29, who waged a hunger strike while at the camp to protest alleged beatings. "It is the despair — not the thought of martyrdom — that consumes you there."

In an interview late Saturday with The Associated Press, Rasul and two boyhood friends, Ruhal Ahmed and Asif Iqbal, disputed the charge by U.S. officials that the three suicides by Guantanamo detainees this weekend were political acts.

"Killing yourself is not something that is looked at lightly in Islam, but if you're told day after day by the Americans that you're never going to go home or you're put into isolation, these acts are committed simply out of desperation and loss of hope," Rasul said. "This was not done as an act of martyrdom, warfare or anything else."

The three Britons are the subject of a movie, "The Road to Guantanamo," that traces their steps from a trip to Pakistan for a wedding to the desolate U.S. outpost in Cuba, where they were held for more than two years without charge. The film, which premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February, opens in New York on June 23.

Many of the some 460 Guantanamo detainees accused of links to Afghanistan's Taliban regime or the al-Qaida terror network have been held for more than four years without charge, including the two Saudis and one Yemeni who hanged themselves early Saturday.

There are no scenes of attempted suicides in "The Road to Guantanamo," but the British friends said they saw several at the camp.

"A Saudi detainee in the cell in front of us had had enough," said Ahmed. "We could hear him rip up his sheets and tie it to the wire mesh roof of the cell. He jumped off his sink and tried to hang himself. We shouted to the military police and they came and saved him."

The men said they suffered beatings, saw guards throw Qurans in the toilet, were forced to watch videotapes of prisoners who had allegedly been ordered to sodomize each other and were chained to a hook in the floor while strobe lights flashed and heavy metal music blared.

The allegations, some of which are dramatized in the film, are part of a lawsuit against the United States seeking $10 million each in damages.

The three men, who were released without charge in March 2004, said their lives are still far from easy.

Since they started promoting their film across Europe, they say they are questioned or searched when they land in Britain. After they returned from Spain recently, armed police in Birmingham boarded the plane and searched their seats. Even two actors who play the men in the film were stopped in February and held for questioning under the anti-terror laws.

"It's embarrassing. We feel like outsiders in our own country," Ahmed said.

[presidio9]

Shafiq Rasul, Left, Ruhal Ahmed, Centre, and Asif Iqbal, who are the three former Guantanamo Bay detainees known collectively as the 'Tipton Three', in London Friday June 9, 2006. The first reported suicides at Guantanamo Bay come Sunday June 11, 2006, before the U.S. premier of the 'Road to Guantanamo,' a movie that traces the footsteps of the three British youths known as the 'Tipton Three', whose trip to Pakistan for a wedding ends at the desolate military outpost at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.(AP Photo/Martin Cleaver)

[P-40]

Do they always look like an advertisment for a freak show?

[stylin19a]

There is no hope in Guantanamo. The only thing that goes through your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill yourself," said Shafiq Rasul, 29, who waged a hunger strike while at the camp to protest alleged beatings.

the irony of this sttement is breathtaking.

[Lurking in Kansas]

The only thing that goes through your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill yourself,

I'd like to tell you what I'd like to go through your head, but it'd be deleted by the moderator.

[presidio9]

Oh, the:

+

[areafiftyone]

Jeeze they don't look like they suffered much!

[stylin19a]

so is my spelling
sttement=statement

[RandallFlagg]

The only thing that goes through your mind day after day is how to get justice or how to kill yourself,

Sounds like they've been frequenting DU.

[Lurking in Kansas]

PS

This is so much BS. What is inferred is that they just were going to a wedding, ended up captured, and sent to Gitmo. Innocent all.

*spits*

[pikachu]

We must have the old The Ghost and Mrs. Muir tapes to give them some Hope (Lang)!!

[Kakaze]

I don't see the effects of starvation or a hunger strike on any of the three of them.

In fact they look as if they are ready to continue their jihad.

[Fintan]

PAISLEY DODDS???????????????????

[Hydroshock]

When I heard over the weekend that some had killed themselves out of despair. My first thought was can I go there and pass out rope.

[prairiebreeze]

FOFL!

[quadrant]

Justice is getting what you deserve. Locking these men up at Gitmo was what they deserved.
If Islam is a religion of peace - as is claimed - then these men should have used their incarceration to reflect on the truths to their faith.
Lets remember that many US pilots faced long years of incarceration in Vietcong and North Vietnamese prisons. I don't recall reading that any of them attempted suicide.

[go-ken-go]

I imagine that being in a prison situation would bring out feelings of despair. Too bad for them. We're supposed to feel particularly sorry for them???

[Valin]

There is no hope in Guantanamo

Works for me. Don't go around blowing people up and you don't have to worry about it.

[Valin]

Yes. Next question. :-)

[BenLurkin]

They let those creeps out?

[Einigkeit_Recht_Freiheit]

In the princple of Innocent until proen guilty, I am willing to suspend my capacity to reason and assume one or two of these freaks was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I agree with Bush that it is probably time to start figuring out who can be sent home and who just plane cannot. I am guessing the vast majority fall into the category of the latter, but for the one or two who are just run of the mill islamofacists and not necessarily hell-bent jihadis, I can imagine they haven't been enjoying themselves.