It’s sometimes easy — too easy — to think, talk or write about the assault on civil liberties in the United States, and related injustices, and conceive of them as abstractions. Two weeks ago, the Editorial Page Editor of The New York Times, Andrew Rosenthal, wrote that ever since the 9/11 attacks, the United States has created ‘what’s essentially a separate justice system for Muslims.’ That should be an extraordinary observation: creating a radically different — and more oppressive — set of rules, laws and punishments for a class of people in the United States based on their religious affiliation is a disgrace of historic proportion. Yet here we have someone occupying one of the most established media positions in the country matter-of-factly observing that this is exactly the state of affairs that exists on American soil, and it prompts little notice, let alone protest.
There are many factors accounting for the willingness to tolerate, or even approve of, this systematic persecution, most of which I’ve written about before. But one important reason I want to highlight here is that — as is true of America’s related posture of endless wars — its victims, by design, are so rarely heard from. As is true for most groups of humans who remain hidden, they are therefore easily demonized. This invisibility also means that even those who object in principle to what is being done have difficulty apprehending in a visceral way the devastation that is wreaked in the lives of these human beings who have done nothing wrong. Their absence from our discourse can confine one’s understanding of these issues to the theoretical realm, and thus limit one’s ability to truly care.
I spent the last week traveling to several cities where, without planning to do so, I met dozens of people whose lives have been seriously impeded or fully wrecked by the abuses carried out in the name of the War on Terror. This happens whenever I travel to speak at events, and it’s one of the reasons I do it. Meeting such people isn’t the reason for my travel. These meetings usually are unplanned. But the decade-long abuses carried out in the post-9/11 era are so pervasive, so systematized, that no matter what city I visit, it’s very common for me to end up meeting people — usually though not always Muslims — whose lives have been unjustly and severely harmed by these state actions.
And it’s not only the targeted individuals themselves, but entire communities of people, whose lives are substantially damaged. Being able to meet and speak with people directly affected personalizes the issues for me that are most frequently written about here, and so I want to describe several of those encounters I had just in the last week.
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Tags: Extraordinary Rendition, fabricating terrorism, Glenn Greenwald, Gulet Mohamed, http://www.salon.com, James Yee, Kalifah Al-Akili, Maher Arar, Patriot Act, rendition, Sami Al-Arian, Tariq Ramadan, War on Islam
Special report: Rendition ordeal that raises new questions about secret trials
In 2004, Fatima Bouchar and her husband, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, were detained en route to the UK, and rendered to Libya. This is the story of their imprisonment, and the trail of evidence that reveals the involvement of the British government.
Just when Fatima Bouchar thought it couldn’t get any worse, the Americans forced her to lie on a stretcher and began wrapping tape around her feet. They moved upwards, she says, along her legs, winding the tape around and around, binding her to the stretcher. They taped her stomach, her arms and then her chest. She was bound tight, unable to move.
Bouchar says there were three Americans: two tall, thin men and an equally tall woman. Mostly they were silent. She never saw their faces: they dressed in black and always wore black balaclavas. Bouchar was terrified. They didn’t stop at her chest – she says they also wound the tape around her head, covering her eyes. Then they put a hood and earmuffs on her. She was unable to move, to hear or to see. “My left eye was closed when the tape was applied,” she says, speaking about her ordeal for the first time. “But my right eye was open, and it stayed open throughout the journey. It was agony.” The journey would last around 17 hours.
Bouchar, then aged 30, had become a victim of the process known as extraordinary rendition. She and her husband, Abdel Hakim Belhaj, a Libyan Islamist militant fighting Muammar Gaddafi, had been abducted in Bangkok and were being flown to one of Gaddafi’s prisons in Libya, a country where she had never before set foot. However, Bouchar’s case is different from the countless other renditions that the world has learned about over the past few years, and not just because she was one of the few female victims.
Documents discovered in Tripoli show that the operation was initiated by British intelligence officers, rather than the masked Americans or their superiors in the US. There is also some evidence that the operation may have been linked to a second British-initiated operation, which saw two men detained in Iraq and rendered to Afghanistan. Furthermore, the timing of the operation, and the questions that Bouchar’s husband and a second rendition victim say were subsequently put to them under torture, raise disturbing new questions about the secret court system that considers immigration appeals in terrorist cases in the UK – a system that the government has pledged to extend to civil trials in which the government itself is the defendant.
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Tags: Abdel Hakim Belhaj, Abdullah al-Sadiq, Abu Munthir al-Saadi, abuse, Aero Contractors, Amanatullah Ali, CIA, Cori Crider, Extraordinary Rendition, Fatima Bouchar, Gaddafi, Gareth Peirce, Jack Straw, Libya, LIFG, Mark Allen, MI6, Moussa Koussa, N313P, Operation Aston, physical abuse, Reprieve, Sapna Malik, secret prisons, SIAC, Tajoura, torture, Yunus Rahmatullah
When I first read the U.S. government’s complaint against Aafia Siddiqui, who is awaiting trial in a Brooklyn detention center on charges of attempting to murder a group of U.S. Army officers and FBI agents in Afghanistan, the case it described was so impossibly convoluted—and yet so absurdly incriminating—that I simply assumed she was innocent.
According to the complaint, on the evening of July 17, 2008, several local policemen discovered Siddiqui and a young boy loitering about a public square in Ghazni. She was carrying instructions for creating “weapons involving biological material,” descriptions of U.S. “military assets,” and numerous unnamed “chemical substances in gel and liquid form that were sealed in bottles and glass jars.”
Siddiqui, an MIT-trained neuroscientist who lived in the United States for eleven years, had vanished from her hometown in Pakistan in 2003, along with all three of her children, two of whom were U.S. citizens. The complaint does not address where she was those five years or why she suddenly decided to emerge into a public square outside Pakistan and far from the United States, nor does it address why she would do so in the company of her American son.
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Tags: Aafia Siddiqui, Bagram, Binyam Mohamed, CIA, Enforced Disappearance, Extraordinary Rendition, FBI, Fowzia Siddiqui, Ghazni, John Kiriakou, Jose Padilla, kidnap, Maher Arar, Pakistan, rendered, Rendetion, Saud Memon, Taliban, Uzbekistan
February 8, 2012
Mr. Asif Ali Zardari,
President,
Islamic Republic of Pakistan,
Re: Aafia’s Upcoming Appeal Process, the Role of Your Government, and Broken promises.
Dear Sir,
This Friday, February 10, 2012, the world will be watching as court-appointed attorneys (who are paid by the US government, and [who] Aafia has repeatedly attempted to fire) – will argue before a US Court of Appeals and purport to represent my sister’s interests against her will. This mockery of justice is simply yet another example of how Aafia’s conviction of a crime she did not commit is virtually guaranteed in the US “justice” system. Meanwhile, US agents who have perpetrated crimes against her – including kidnapping, torture, assault, and false imprisonment, have not been called to account.
It has now been three and a half years since agents of the US government shot my sister and the beginning of the 10th year since she was abducted – a Pakistani citizen – abducted from Pakistan through a rendition operation locked up in Afghanistan, and forcibly removed from Afghanistan after an implausible shoot out, and illegally transferred her to the United States.
So-called “high-profile” American criminal defense attorneys convinced the government of Pakistan to pay them millions of dollars – and then refused to resign when Aafia did not accept them. Neither did the Pakistani Government intervene. There can no longer be any doubt that Aafia will never receive justice in the US legal system.
I want to remind you today of the promises that you made, your Prime Minister made, Interior Ministry made and Foreign Ministry made. The promises that said Aafia will be back. Raymond Davis and several other mercenaries have walked free from our land, but innocent citizens are languishing due to the negligence and criminal silence of your administration.
Now, more than ever, the fate of this Daughter of the Nation lies in the hands of the Pakistani government to bring her home. We can only but request and protest, How you respond to our plea’s will be your legacy and will define our nation; let it be of Pride, not Shame.
Dr. Fowzia Siddiqui
Tags: US Court of Appeals, rendition, Aafia Siddiqui, Pakistan, Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, Prisoner 650, Extraordinary Rendition, open letter, appeal, Fowzia Siddiqui, Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Asif Ali Zardari, Raymond Davis, http://justiceforaafia.org
The Case of Shaykh Abu Mouadh Nourdine Nafi’a and his wife.
The joint committee received this letter from Shaykh Abu Mouadh Nourdine Nafi’a. He wrote it while he was being held in Kenitra central prison, in which he was subjected to barbaric torture after he was arbitrarily transferred on the 9th of October 2010. He was on hunger strike since the 6th of December 2010 while he was there until he was between life and death. He wrote this letter then speaking about the kidnapping he and his wife have been through and detention and torture in Temera secret detention centre and other secret centers.
He is now is solitary confinement, cut off the world around him in Toulal 2 prison, Meknes. He is one of those accused of being behind the Sala prison clashes (16-17/May/2011) or what is known by “Salé Zaki prison riot”
All praise is due to Allah and peace and blessings be upon his messenger, his family, his companions and those who adhere to him.
To proceed:
I am shaykh Abu Mouadh Nourdine Nafi’a, who is currently held in Kenitra central prison. Prisoner number: 26512, I am the one signed below, Nourdine Nafi’a who is sentenced to 20 years based on fabricated evidence under the guise of “combating terror”. I reiterate that I am innocent of all charges against me. I am a victim of American policies in the region. To clarify this I will outline what I and my wife have been through of suffering and violations in the dungeons of the secret services.
I am a Moroccan citizen, a member of the Islamic movement since the 80s. A Muslim, Sunni, following the Quran and the noble traditions of the prophet, according to the understanding of our pious predecessors such as Imam Malik, Shafi’i, Ahmed, Abu Hanifa may Allah have mercy upon them. I migrated from my homeland in 1988 to Afghanistan for the intention of joining the “Jihad”. It was not possible to go to Palestine, between me and it were thousands of barriers because of the “Arab cordon states”. My first stop was Europe and after repeated attempts I managed to travel to Pakistan in 1991, then to Afghanistan after the fall of the communist government. I made that country my homeland. In 1998 I left Afghanistan for Syria, Damascus, where I married the sister of Yassine al-Shaqori who is held is Guantanamo may Allah hasten his release. I began to trade to support my family, travelling between Syria and Turkey for trade. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 16 May, abduction, Abu Mouadh, Afghanistan, Casablanca Bombings, Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, DST, electroshocks, Extraordinary Rendition, forced confession, hunger strike, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, Kenitra, Marrakech, Mauritania, Meknes, Morocco, Nouakchott, Nourdine Nafi’a, Pakistan, Rabat, rape by instrumentality, Rendetion, ruqiyah, Sala, Sala Rabat, Sale, Sale Prison, sexual abuse, Shaykh Abu Mouadh Nourdine Nafi’a, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, sonic torture, sorcery, suicide attempt, Syria, Temera, The Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group, torture, Toulal Prison 2, Yassine al-Shaqori
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 »
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
All praise is due to Allah and peace and blessings be upon his messenger, his family, his companions and those who adhere to him.
To proceed:
I am shaykh Abu Mouadh Nourdine Nafi’a, who is currently held in Kenitra central prison. Prisoner number: 26512, I am the one signed below, Nourdine Nafi’a who is sentenced to 20 years based on fabricated evidence under the guise of “combating terror”. I reiterate that I am innocent of all charges against me. I am a victim of American policies in the region. To clarify this I will outline what I and my wife have been through of suffering and violations in the dungeons of the secret services.
I am a Moroccan citizen, a member of the Islamic movement since the 80s. A Muslim, Sunni, following the Quran and the noble traditions of the prophet, according to the understanding of our pious predecessors such as Imam Malik, Shafi’i, Ahmed, Abu Hanifa may Allah have mercy upon them. I migrated from my homeland in 1988 to Afghanistan for the intention of joining the “Jihad”. It was not possible to go to Palestine, between me and it were thousands of barriers because of the “Arab cordon states”. My first stop was Europe and after repeated attempts I managed to travel to Pakistan in 1991, then to Afghanistan after the fall of the communist government. I made that country my homeland. In 1998 I left Afghanistan for Syria, Damascus, where I married the sister of Yassine Al-Shaqori who is held is Guantanamo may Allah hasten his release. I began to trade to support my family, travelling between Syria and Turkey for trade.
In the very same year we found out that my wife had a tumor in her head. Hence I used to travel from one hospital to another and from country to another. I increased in my trade transactions and interaction to be able to pay off treatment and travel costs. This continued until I managed with the help of other business men to set up an import and export office. In (Year not mentioned) a doctor advised that it was necessary for my wife to have laser treatment to remove the tumor or she would be in danger of losing her sight. They advised me to travel to Jeddah to carry out the operation. We tried but we couldn’t get a visa for Umrah for Ramadhan 1423 AH, November 2002CE. Some tradesmen advised us to travel to Mauritania where citizenship is relatively easy to get and then to travel to Saudi during the hajj season.
That is what we did. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: 16 May, abduction, Abu Mouadh, Afghanistan, Casablanca Bombings, Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire, DST, electroshocks, Extraordinary Rendition, forced confession, hunger strike, Justice and Reconciliation Commission, Kenitra, Marrakech, Mauritania, Meknes, Morocco, Nouakchott, Nourdine Nafi’a, Pakistan, Rabat, rape by instrumentality, Rendetion, ruqiyah, Sala, Sala Rabat, Sale, Sale Prison, sexual abuse, Shaykh Abu Mouadh Nourdine Nafi’a, sleep deprivation, solitary confinement, sonic torture, sorcery, suicide attempt, Syria, Temera, The Moroccan Islamic Fighting Group, torture, Toulal Prison 2, Yassine al-Shaqori
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