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Tag Archives: extrajudicial detention

Mother & Three Children Abducted in Mecca by KSA ‘Security’ Forces

Adulrahman, Jana and Nammur, three Saudi children aged 4, 8 and 13 years old, are currently detained along with their mother in Dhabhan prison, North-West of Jeddah. They were arrested nine months ago after their mother, Hanane Abdurrahman Samkari, protested in front of the Ministry of Interior with other wives of detainees against her husband’s illegal detention. Mohammed Al-Jazairy, the father of the three children and Hanane’s husband has been imprisoned for eight years without any charge.

Saturday 25th of December 2010, in the middle of the night, men in civilian clothes entered Hanane’s appartment in Hay Al-Zaher district, Mecca by force. Without uttering a word, they arrested the mother and her three children, then took all their personal belongings, including laptops, cellular phones and jewellery. Hanane’s family only learned months later that on 17 February they had been transfered to Dhabhan prison, a ‘high security’ detention centre where political prisoners and persons accused of ‘terrorism’ are detained.

Cells continuously illuminated, surveillance cameras watching the family without interruption, psychological pressure and torture of the mother and the children by the female prison guards, the screams and sounds of the torture of other prisoners piercing the cell walls… Their detention conditions are dire. Their family managed to get a permit to visit Hanane in prison, who explained to her family that the female guards, seeking to exert psychological pressure on her, would come into the cell, take her children one by one and bring them back hours or days later in very weak psychological states.

As thousands of other Saudi families, Hanane and her children are deprived of a husband, a father who have been languishing in the Kingdom’s jails for years without any legal proceedings. Alongside only a few wives of detainees who share the same plight, Hanane dared to protest against the conditions of detention of her husband, asking the Saudi authorities to judge or release him. Dedicated to her fight against this injustice, this mother helped other wives of detainees and coordinated their actions throughout the country by organising sit-ins in front of the Ministeries of Interior and Justice. The 38 year-old mother still does not know what accusations – if any – have been officially brought against her. It appears however that it was her activism and her fight to obtain the release of her husband and other prisoners which led her and her children to share the same plight as her husband.

Today, Alkarama submitted to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on Torture an urgent appeal regarding the situation of Hanane and her three children, asking them to intervene with the Saudi authorities to obtain the release of the entire families. Alkarama calls upon the authorities to release all prisoners arbitrarily detained in the country and in particular the Kingdom’s youngest prisoner 4 year-old Abdulrahman Al Jazairy. Not only Alkarama is extremely concerned by Hanane’s detention but also wishes to shed light upon her children’s situation.

Currently detained in disastrous conditions, their very detention in this prison is unacceptable and contrary to International Human Rights Conventions ratified by Saudi Arabia, especially the Convention on the right to the child. Whereas they should – as set forth in the international convention – « grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding » and benefit from « special care and assistance », Abdulrahman, Jana and Nammur are currently locked in a tiny cell amongst criminals and subjected to physical and psychological mistreatment.

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Posted by aseerun on October 17, 2011 in News Items

Tags: arbitrary detention, child prisoners, collective punishment, extrajudicial detention, Hanane Abdurrahman Samkari, http://en.alkarama.org, Mohammed Al-Jazairy, Saudi Arabia, sleep deprivation, torture, War on Family

Action Alert: Victim of Five Years US Abduction & Torture Needs Donations

16 Oct

Suleiman Abdallah Salim is a Tanzanian national who was abducted in Somalia in April 2003 by a notorious Somali warlord known as Mohammed Deere, well-known for being in the pay of the CIA. During his capture at the hands of Deere’s henchmen, Suleiman was so badly injured that he had to be taken to hospital. However, after less than 24 hours he was dragged from his hospital bed by Deere, and delivered to some Americans who were waiting at an airstrip just outside Mogadishu.

After a short time in Somalia, Suleiman was taken to Nairobi, where he was held near the airport for eight days, and interrogated by members of the CIA and FBI. It appears that initially Suleiman’s interrogators thought that he was someone else – a Yemeni – but even so, they did not release him. After eight days in Nairobi, Suleiman was taken on a CIA plane to Bossasso in Somalia, and then to Djibouti. From Djibouti, Suleiman was taken to Afghanistan, where he spent over five punishing years in secret US prisons, including the notorious Dark Prison, the Saltpit, and finally Bagram Airforce Base.

During his entire time in US custody, Suleiman never saw a lawyer, nor was he allowed any contact with family members. Indeed, Suleiman’s family had absolutely no idea where he was until he reappeared over five years after his disappearance.

Ultimately, Suleiman was released back to Tanzania in July 2008, with a piece of paper from Bagram saying that he was not considered a threat to the United States. To this day, Suleiman has been given no assistance at all by any of the governments or individuals complicit in his abduction, secret detention and torture, and there is no court in the world where he could bring a case with any hope of getting through the doors of the court, let alone an award to help him get on with his life.

Undeterred, since his release, Suleiman has worked to rebuild his life again, and has done remarkably well so far. Last year Suleiman married a local woman, who has recently given birth to a baby girl. However, Suleiman is struggling to provide for his new family, and he cannot find work in his already, economically depressed island home. Suleiman is looking for funds to travel to Japan where he has been offered a job loading containers in a dock, and to provide for his new family whilst he gets himself on his feet.

Donate:

You can donate to Suleiman at the following bank account details below:

Account name: Suleiman A Salim

Account number: 5391729998

Swift Code: EXTNTZTZ

Chips UID 370780

Bank Address: Exim Bank (T) Ltd, Dar-Es-Salam, Tanzania

IBAN: GB85DEUT40508130585400

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Posted by aseerun on October 16, 2011 in Campaigns

Tags: abduction, Action Alert, Afghanistan, Bagram, black sites, CIA, Dark Prison, extrajudicial detention, FBI, http://www.cageprisoners.com, incommunicado, Mohammed Deere, Rendetion, Salt Pit, Somalia, Suleiman Abdallah Salim, Tanzania, the Saltpit, torture

Djamel Beghal: Date Unknown (My Story)

13 Oct

In summary, it is the same again and again …

If you are Muslim, more or less young, bearded, attending a mosque, who has childhood friends, neighbours or co workers sharing the same convictions, if you communicate between each other – like everyone else – by phone … This, then, becomes an ideal “terrorist” cell, a network of “sleepers” to perfection, which, tomorrow might need to make one of JT and the press’s headlines. This cell can then be yet another addition to the hunt bag of French terrorist hunters. These hunters, who in reality are the antiterrorist judges, specialise in this field. In the legal domain, they are specialists only in the morbid arts of burying the living in the graveyards of solitary confinement and legal torture, as well as in the arts of making false records, resemblances of cases and fantastical accusations.

As for the sentences, they distribute the maximum possible on those who are culturally educated and well instructed to make them seem like the heads. They make the rest look like a bunch of blunt knives and give them just under the maximum sentence, which holds the same torments of destroying their familial, professional and social lives.

Recent revelations in Wikileaks, relayed by the daily Le Monde, 1 December 2010, written by Piotr Smolar, whose courage I salute (it is rare to see such evidence from a journalist when it comes to judicial French injustice committed with impunity against, what is meant by term, Islamists), finally gave credible evidence and a voice to the somewhat muffled cries that I have been consistently pushing from the abyssal areas of `total isolation and legal torture’ of the French prisons for the past ten years! Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by aseerun on October 13, 2011 in Letters from Djamel Beghal, Risala

Tags: 9/11, Algeria, CIA, DGSE, Djamel Beghal, extrajudicial detention, fabricating terrorism, france, http://www.djamel-beghal.com, isolation, Jean-Francois Ricard, Jean-Louis Bruguière, Judge Jean-Francois Ricard, Judge Jean-Louis Bruguière, Judge Philippe Vandingenen, MI6, Murat Prison, Nizar Trabelsi, Philippe Vandingenen, pretrial detention, Rendetion, SDAT, solitary confinement, Sub-Directorate Anti-Terrorism, torture

Eastern Europe: Accommodating America’s Illegal Extraordinary Rendition

02 Oct

On 7 March 2003 a CIA Gulfstream Jet landed at a remote airstrip in north-eastern Poland. Human rights officials and campaigners are convinced that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, one of the most senior al-Qaeda suspects, was on board.

American agents took him to a secret facility where, he says, he was tortured before being eventually transferred to Guantanamo Bay.

The secret transfer of CIA prisoners is said to have taken place in both Poland and Lithuania – a region where,
only a generation ago, people were subject to arbitrary detention and torture at the hands of Communist secret police. Now, seven years on, the full story of Poland’s secret detention site is emerging.

Dick Marty, the Council of Europe’s former Rapporteur on Torture, told the BBC: “If I use the judicial standard of proof – and I used to be a magistrate – then I say ‘Yes, Mohammed was in Poland. Yes, he was tortured.‘ Thomas Hammarberg, the Council of Europe’s Commissioner on Human Rights, said he now believed detainees had been subjected to “intense torture” and called for prosecutions. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by aseerun on October 2, 2011 in News Items

Tags: Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, abduction, Abu Zubaidah, Abu Zubaydah, Adb al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Amnesty International, CIA, Enforced Disappearance, extrajudicial detention, Extraordinary Rendition, Greystone, Guantanamo, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Lithuania, Poland, rendition, Reprieve, Rolandas Paksas, Romania, SSD, Stare Kiejkuty, torture, Valdas Adamkus, waterboarding

Pakistani Security Forces ‘Disappear’ Opponents in Balochistan

28 Jul

Government Fails to Confront Military, Intelligence Agencies on Abuses

Demonstration in front of Pakistan's Supreme Court by relatives of "disappeared" persons from Balochistan province, January 5, 2010.

Pakistan’s security forces are engaging in an abusive free-for-all in Balochistan as Baloch nationalists and suspected militants ‘disappear,’ and in many cases are executed. The national government has done little to end the carnage in Balochistan, calling into question its willingness or ability to control the military and intelligence agencies.”Pakistan’s government should immediately end widespread disappearances of suspected militants and activists by the military, intelligence agencies, and the paramilitary Frontier Corps in the southwestern province of Balochistan, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Several of those “disappeared” were among the dozens of people extrajudicially executed in recent months in the resource-rich and violence-wracked province.

The 132-page report, “‘We Can Torture, Kill, or Keep You for Years’: Enforced Disappearances by Pakistan Security Forces in Balochistan,” documents dozens of enforced disappearances,in which the authorities take people into custody and then deny all responsibility or knowledge of their fate or whereabouts. The report details 45 alleged cases of enforced disappearances, the majority in 2009 and 2010. While hundreds of people have been forcibly disappeared in Balochistan since 2005, dozens of new enforced disappearances have occurred since Pakistan returned to civilian rule in 2008. Brad Adams reports:

“Pakistan’s security forces are engaging in an abusive free-for-all in Balochistan as Baloch nationalists and suspected militants ‘disappear,’ and in many cases are executed, The national government has done little to end the carnage in Balochistan, calling into question its willingness or ability to control the military and intelligence agencies.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by aseerun on July 28, 2011 in News Items

Tags: abduction, Abdul Rasool, abuse, Balochistan, BRP, Enforced Disappearance, extrajudicial detention, extrajudicial killing, Frontier Corps, Human Rights Watch, ISI, Kuli, Mazar Khan, Mir Abdul Waheed Resani Baloch, Pakistan, torture

Amina Masood Janjua speaks of her plight

19 Jul

As the fight for release of my illegally detained husband grew tougher and tougher so was my pocket becoming emptier and emptier. Maybe it was created deliberately by the government to squeeze me financially. It was in the the last 5 years 2 months 8 days, to be exact, that my life had taken 180 degree turn on the 30th of July 2005, when my husband disappeared. These days were based on tireless struggles non-stop running from pillar to post, sleepless nights and heart piercing grief.

Masood my loving husband is a famous educator and businessman in Rawalpindi and Islamabad .He was honest, hardworking, enthusiastic, charismatic,competent and extremely loving and caring .We got married in 1989 and life was heavenly happy for us .We were blessed with two boys and an adorable daughter. For his children, Masood was extraordinary friendly ,loving and caring . He would play wrestling with the boys and dolls with the little doll of ours. Life unfolded beautifully before us and we realized that we were more and more in love with each other.

There was hardly any spare time with Masood as he was running three institutions and a social welfare hospital for the poor. The rest of the time was dedicated to his aging parents and family he loved dearly. Masood made it a point to spend some time, every now and then, relaxing in hilly scenic areas where we enjoyed barbeques, fishing and camping at our leisure.

I remember the time of Masood’s disappearance with a shudder, recalling how I was helplessly lying on bed for 3 months crying in a deep shock and depression. All the while my innocent children Muhammad (14), Ali (12) and Aishah (8), were sunk in a sea of shock, lost in a world of their own, their eyes desperately searching for Abbu (father) and Ammi (mother) both. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by aseerun on July 19, 2011 in Collateral Damage

Tags: Amina Masood Janjua, extrajudicial detention, ISI, Masood Janjua, Pakistan

Mubarak bin Sa’eed Aal-Zua’ir: March 25, 2011

25 Mar

Assalamu ‘alaikum wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakaatuh,

I raise this case to you, imploring your urgent intervention and immediate support due to the severity and enormity of the offences I face and the blatant violation of a broad range of rights guaranteed by both the basic system of governance and the law of criminal procedures. In the following, I provide a brief summary of my ongoing situation:

I was stopped on King Fahd road (west of the Interior Ministry of Interior), as I was driving my car at around 10 am on Sunday morning 15/4/1432AH (20 March 2011), as I was heading to the Ministry of Interior, where a number of the families of detainees had gone to request a meeting with those in charge. The purpose of the meeting was to request the application of Article 114 of the code of criminal procedures, which specifies a maximum period of detention of six months, after which detainees must either be referred to a court for trial or released.

A number of the families of detainees had previously paid a visit to the Ministry of Interior for this purpose on Sunday 8/4/1432AH (13 March 2011), however they were denied entry and were forced to remain outside the Ministry awaiting permission to enter, which in the end was not granted. We remained until the evening, at which point I received a phone call from (Deputy Interior Minister) Prince Muhammad bin Nayef, in which he set an appointment to meet him the following Friday and requested the dispersion of the crowd. I passed his message on and the crowd dispersed. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by aseerun on March 25, 2011 in Letters from Mubarak bin Sa’eed Aal-Zua’ir, Risala

Tags: abuse, Al-Malaz Police Detention Centre, Dr Mubarak bin Sa’eed Aal-Zua’ir, extrajudicial detention, Mubarak bin Sa’eed Aal-Zua’ir, Saudi Arabia

Detainee Y: January 17, 2011

17 Jan

The media, politicians, security services and security analysts in England keep debating control orders. The current argument is just window dressing for something darker and more sinister behind closed doors. Aaah! There are only eight individuals under this controversial and inefficient order that breaches the human rights of those individuals – all British citizens (humans) of course.

But what they are not discussing are the other eight individuals who are under SIAC bail restrictions – a more horrendous and draconian form of control. What about them? Why is no one discussing them or their basic human rights? Can it be because those eight individuals are refugees therefore, by consequence, are not human beings? Is this not two tier justice?

These eight indefinitely detained individuals, who live under SIAC (Special Immigration Appeals Commission) restrictions, haven’t been charged or tried for any crime but have been detained since 2005. They live in complete anonymity because they are bound by SIAC to be referred only by the letters of the alphabet (A, B, X, Y etc.).

They are under house arrest with up to 20 hours daily curfew with a Judge permitted to impose a 24 hour curfew as in total house arrest. These men are tagged with no visitors or friends permitted to enter their homes unless by prior consent of the Home Office. They are sent to live in remote areas (exiled in England), with no mobile phone, no computer, not even a play station (to kill time), no job, no education – basically no life as a human being or animal (because animals do have rights and their rights are protected), living in limbo in a boundary of less than a mile for the past five years. Not only are the detainees themselves affected, but also their wives and children who are, as they like to call it, collateral damage. The list of restrictions is long and the amount of suffering is huge. Detainees and their families are broken; ruined; psychologically affected (depression, epilepsy, suicide attempts, PTSD, paranoia); physically weak; socially excluded; deprived of freedom and simple, normal life’s necessities and instincts as a human being. It is a collective, slow and premeditated torture.

The media, politicians, security services and even the English judicial system want to keep quiet about them, want to keep them hidden anonymously behind closed doors and closed sessions held in SIAC (a kangaroo court) where the evidence is secret and the Judge needs security clearance to hear the evidence. The Home Office and security services are the prosecution and the defence is a security vetted special advocate who is appointed by the Home Office to stand on behalf of the detainee. The special advocate and the detainee are not allowed, by SIAC rules, to discuss the case or the secret evidence.

So what kind of process is this where the defendant can’t speak to his legal representative? Is this the land where law rules? Is this democracy, liberty and justice? Is this a judicial system to be proud of?
In the meantime, the detainees and their families suffer in silence in the shadows, hoping for justice to prevail but deep down they don’t see any justice in the near future and to this dilemma, this humanitarian calamity, the detainees are wishing and seeking a fair process, law bounded treatment, open court and real justice.

The detainees are living between a rock and a hard place. Their choice either to live under these restrictions or as a category A prisoner in a high security prison or drop the legal challenge against the Home Office and go back to their country of origin to face ill treatment, torture and indefinite incarceration. What a choice. Can you believe it? It’s happening here in England?

So who will speak for these detainees, their wives and their children? Who will talk about them? Who will argue their case for the sake of justice and humanity? Who?

I appeal and plead to your consciences, your human souls and compassionate hearts. I leave it to you. May God bless you all.

In hope and anticipation,
Detainee Y

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Posted by aseerun on January 17, 2011 in Letters from Detainee Y, Risala

Tags: bail restrictions, Control Order, Detainee Y, extrajudicial detention, House arrest, SIAC, solitary, Special Immigration Appeals Commission, torture

Aafia Siddiqui: February 15, 2010 (My Dead Nation)

15 Feb

My name is Dr. Afia educated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA) with three children and aim of helping my nation with my high class education is very pleased from your help.

I was kidnapped from my own country by my brothers and sold to America. I was brutally treated, raped, tortured, again and again given name prisoner 650. I prayed for my Muhammad Bin Qasim for every second of my years in prison in a Muslim country Afghanistan.

I am sister of 1/5 world’s Muslim population . My nation is historically famous in defending and protecting their citizens right from the beginning. Hazrat Omar (RA) Said, if a dog dies near river Arafat, Omar will be responsible on day of judgment.

At the moment I can’t walk on my own, one kidney is removed, bullet wound in my chest, denied any medical and legal aid and not sure whether I will be alive or not.

I would like to revoke my status of sister. I am a proud Muslim, follower of Hazrat Muhammad SAW, daughter of Hazrat Abubakar, Hazrat Umar, Hazrat Usman and Hazrat Ali and Companions and their true followers. I don’t want to be your sister.

They are my protectors and I will seek Allah’s help not yours.

I don’t want to be Pakistani who has 600,000 troops and special force SSG but fail to protect me, they sworn to protect me but refused when I was looking at them for help.

My so called Muslim Ummah having millions of soldiers, guns, tanks. Automatic weapons, fighter plans, submarines and yet they failed to save me.

Don’t worry about day of judgment you won’t be answerable as you are not my brothers in Islam. You are Arabic, Persian, Palestinians, African, Malaysian, Indonesian, South Asian but not Muslims.

I am sorry if hurts you but you can’t imagine how hurt I am.

Aafia Siddiqui …..

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Posted by aseerun on February 15, 2010 in Letters from Aafia Siddiqui

Tags: 650, Aafia Siddiqui, abuse, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, extrajudicial detention, pretrial detention, Prisoner 650, rape, The Grey Lady, torture

Muhammad Larbi: January 1, 2010 (Regarding the ‘Titanic’ Terrorism case in Italy)

01 Jan

In the Name of Allah, the Most Beneficent, Most Merciful

All Praise is due to Allah and peace be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family, companions and followers, as to what follows:

Peace and blessings be upon you

My name is Muhammad Larbi (’Abdul Kareem), charged with terrorism together with Khaled Serai and Amine Bouhrama. I write this letter because I know that brothers and sisters want to know what is going on with the muslims in this country ( Italy) I am writing to you my story not to complain but to expose these gangsters who boast about justice and human rights.

I am an Algerian who was living in the city of Brescia. I was arrested on the 14th of November 2005, at 2pm at the city centre and accused of International terrorism. The arrest warrant ran to 268 pages, present to the judge in the morning of the 14th, and by 11am he had ordered our arrest. How could he read such a voluminous document in two hours? I have never before or since seen such speed in decision making and execution!

When I was taken to the interrogation centre, I saw that I was not the only one who had been arrested but also two other brothers, Khaled Serai and Amine Bouhrama. Khaled was arrested in Brescia in a café whilst sitting with friends. Amine was in Napoli, asleep in his home. After approximately three hours they presented me with the arrest warrant, 268 pages long. Initially I did not understand why I was arrested when I arrived at the Immigration centre, at the beginning I didn’t understand why I was arrested and why they took me to the barracks but when I started reading the warrant I realised the disaster I fell in.

I started reading al-Qaeda, the London bombings, Madrid bombings, Sharm el-Sheikh bombings, and other related matters. And inside the room there were two officers, I said to them: ‘You forgot to add something else to this warrant‘, one of them said: ‘what did we forget?’ I said: ‘You forgot the Tsunami, we did that as well.’

At the time of our arrest there was a group of officers heading to search our homes, and after they searched us and our homes and found nothing, they started collecting everything that came their way in the house, pictures, paper, notes, anything that they can twist and turn into an accusation, as they did not find any materials to substantiate what they accused of us. No weapons, no money, no forged documents, and no chemicals.
And despite everything that happened, they did not stop nor were they embarrassed. Instead, they intiated a huge multi-media campaign of character assassination and falsehood againt us. TV, Radio, News, both international and national. We were in headlines all over the world, and in Italy on the frontpage. The headlines?, ‘Warning: Terrorism knocks the doors of Italy!!!’ ‘Three Algerians ready to hit Italy with a ship the size of the Titanic loaded with explosives’. Read the rest of this entry »

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Posted by aseerun on January 1, 2010 in Letters from Muhammad Larbi, Risala

Tags: Abdul Kareem, Al-Qaeda, Algeria, Amine Bouhrama, Benevento prison, Brescia, deception through media, deportation, extrajudicial detention, incommunicado, Italy, Khaled Serai, Macomer prison, Muhammad Larbi, Rabeh Achour, rendition, Samir Tartag, Secondegliano prison, solitary, solitary confinement, Sulmona prison, Titanic