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Wali Khan Amin Shah: January 4, 2012

04 Jan

As-salamu alykum,

I still have four more days before my phone restriction ends, I don’t know why things still very slow here, but I hope soon things will change and I will get some news from my family, I finally got some batteries for the hearing aid, and it is good to hear again!!

The weather is alternating between cold and warm, but doesn’t stay one way or the other for long, our brothers in the SHU are not requesting recreation at all!! It is some times easier to just go to sleep in the morning and miss the recreation while in the Hole, I didn’t have outside recreation from 1996 to early 2001 and then again from 2002 to late 2004, after that I was able to get few hours of fresh air a week.

I didn’t turn down any opportunity to get any fresh air, here alhmdulliah we can walk out and get as much as we want of fresh air, I am worried that the brothers in the SHU will be there for some time and it is extremely important to keep high morale in the Hole, without fresh air and some sun I think it will take its toll on them, may Allah help us all.

I just fixed myself a cup of coffee and am heading out to walk a little. My younger neighbor injured his wrist and we didn’t play any volleyball for five days, even the walk we used to have outside is hurting him because of the cold, I will give him a week or so and he will be back asking for a match.

I will write tomorrow by the will of Allah, so far I got no e-mails or snail-mail, salamu alykum.

 
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Posted by on January 4, 2012 in Letters from Wali Khan Amin Shah, Risala

 

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Morocco condemns Ali Aarrass to fifteen years imprisonment on torture evidence

18 Dec

On 24 November 2011, the trial of Ali Aarrass (a Belgian citizen) finally took place before three judges of the Rabat (Morocco) court sitting at Salé. But despite the absence of any objective evidence,[1] including statements from his alleged accusers, Ali Aarrass was convicted and sentenced to fifteen years’ imprisonment, solely on evidence obtained by torture.

Without addressing any of the legal and factual arguments which the defence team mounted over three hours of oral submissions and in writing, the judges reached their decision in barely an hour. Worse still, although the hearing was scheduled to resume at 4pm, the magistrates didn’t wait but pronounced their sentence in the absence of the defence lawyers, Ali Aarrass’s family and many supporters. Ali Aarrass found himself facing the judges alone to hear their iniquitous verdict. Even the interpreter had not been brought back to court, so Ali Aarrass did not understand the judgment, which had to be translated for him by his lawyers in the cells of the court. The defence team could only interpret this as another way of putting pressure on Ali Aarrass. After suffering torture, punitive conditions of detention and then extreme isolation, Ali Aarrass is not permitted any confidential interview with his lawyers.

It’s worth recalling that at the same time, the Moroccan authorities have refused to investigate Ali Aarrass’ complaint of being tortured during his police detention. Elementary measures should have been taken before rejecting the complaint as unfounded; Ali Aarrass should have had a proper hearing, he should have been allowed to confront all the officers who were involved with him during his police detention, expert medical evidence should have been sought and his medical condition compared with his Spanish medical records … but nothing was done. Is this surprising? Not really. The same judges presided in the ‘Belliraj affair’ and handed down extremely heavy sentences despite persistent allegations of torture and numerous violations of fair trial processes, recorded both by NGOs[2] and official observers.[3]

Shamefully for Morocco, its judges persist in practices which violate the most fundamental human rights. The judges have even been disowned by King Mohamed VI, who has pardoned several of those sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment in the ‘Belliraj’ case.

Will justice ever prevail in Morocco? Whether or not, the fight continues for Ali Aarrass, who has already lodged a complaint with the UN Committee Against Torture and the Committee on Human Rights.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

[1] The Moroccan file contains nothing: no search warrant of Ali’s home, no phone intercepts, no forensic evidence …

[2] In particular the Arab Commission on Human Rights, ‘Report on the trial of six political prisoners in Morocco – the Belliraj affair’, 10 December 2009. 

[3] Such as the Belgian consul, and see the wikileaks document from the US ambassador in Rabat, ‘Landmark terrorism case raises human rights’.

Source

 
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Posted by on December 18, 2011 in News Items

 

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Enseveli dans l’Oubliette des terroristes français

20 Oct

Few months ago, the European Court of human rights confirmed the admissibility of a complaint made by Babar Ahmad, Haroon Rashid Aswat and Syed Talha Ahsan. Their extradition to the US was prevented since the stringency of the conditions at ADX Florence (a “supermax” prison) for what might be the rest of their lives, inhumane or degrading treatment. The plight of Bradley Manning, the alleged wikileaks “leaker”, has also shed light upon the infamous treatment of detainees placed in solitary confinement in US custody.

Many international instruments have affirmed that prisoners have the right to be dealt with in a way compatible with human dignity and that they should be safe from any form of degrading treatment. The UN Human Rights Committee, the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and the European Commission on Human rights have stated that isolation, in certain conditions, can constitute a cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. Different factors need to be taken into account such as the stringency of the measure, its duration, the objective pursued and the effects it has on the person. We sometimes stay focused on the American carceral system due to its reputation. However, a text written by Djamel Beghal in the darkness of his cell shows us the ignominy of solitary confinement in French prisons.

Djamel Beghal has spent nine years under this regime. He has been transferred from cell to cell, from prison to prison, always living under the same harsh conditions. His account is shameful and horrendous.

Djamel spends 22 or 23 hours alone in his cell. He is allowed a recreation time in a minuscule space, always alone and indoors. He can never see another inmate. When he is displaced for any reason, the floor or the whole prison is blocked. Only the senior guard is permitted to talk to him or even to open the door of his cell. The shower and the recreational space are situated just in front of his dungeon and going there allows no more than five steps across the corridor. He is taken there by three to five guards.

The vastest room in which Djamel was incarcerated barely reached 9 meters square. He measured one of his cells in a Parisian prison with a small ruler. Result: 5 meters square. His cell is composed of an iron bed with an uncomfortable fireproof mattress. Bed sheets are torn and blankets have a strong and unpleasant smell, giving rise to skin allergies. Every single furniture is fixed in the wall. The table is as high as his chest. Even eating or writing becomes a painful exercise.  Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 20, 2011 in News Items

 

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Western ‘Justice’: Civil Secular Democratic Destruction of Family

13 Oct

A united family, despite everything

The 15th of July will mark the tenth year of our family’s separation. Hamza was 9 years old, Mahdi 6 years old and Zeynab 3 years old. Since the terrible event, they forever keep in their hearts the memory of the life of freedom, protection, joy and adventure that their father provided them with. They never stop asking for his return, in their own ways. Sometimes it is through heavy silences that speak louder than words, other times; it is through never ending talks, or through tears that remain unshed, due to modesty. But the faith in which they are growing up has permitted them to endure the situation and remain hopeful, despite everything.

They are now 18, 15 and 12 years of age, respectively.

After our return to France in March 2002, six months after the incarceration of my husband, we decided – my husband and I – that I would go back with the children to the United Kingdom due to the difficulties encountered in France regarding their education. There, I would be able to stay closer to them; which was vital, given the family predicament. It is my right, no matter what others want to make me believe, to dedicate my life to my house and children, before all else. It is a long term investment, and a decision which we do not regret today.

At first, we visited Djamel three to four times per year, for one, two or three weeks depending on the school holidays, without being allowed more than three visits per week. We were offered a lodging here and there, by relatives or friends, depending on the availability of our hosts. The journey is long, and by car, most of the time. The visits themselves required a lot of organisation. Firstly, the size of the room reserved for the visits had to be taken into account. This would determine whether we were going to be able to visit Djamel all together, or whether we had to leave someone behind; which left a bitter taste. To add to this, there was the sheer difficulty of holding a whole family in this cell, due to its size and the children’s age.  Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 13, 2011 in Collateral Damage

 

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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 on October 13, 2011 in Letters from Djamel Beghal, Risala

 

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Palestinian Prisoners’ hunger strike enters 9th day

06 Oct

Hundreds of Palestinian and Arab prisoners in Israeli jails on Wednesday continued their hunger strike for the eighth day as the Israeli prison administration continues to reject all the prisoners’ demands, Palestinian media reported.

Palestinian Minster of Prisoners, Issa Qaraqa, said that a meeting held at the Rimonim Jail between the prisoners’ representatives and Israeli intelligence officers failed because the Israeli Prisons Authorities did not want to respond to the detainees’ demands. Prisoners representative Jamal al Rjoub said the meeting was fruitless because the Israeli side rejected all the prisoners’ demands, which he said are considered ’normal absolute rights.’

According to the Palestine News Network (PNN), the Israeli prison administration is allegedly attempting to end the strike by isolating a number of prisoners into cells and stopping family visits as a punishment. Several prisoners have warned that the strike will expand if their demands are not met.

The main demands of the prisoners are to end the policy of isolation and of collective punishment. They also want that Israeli authorities allow their families to visit them without restrictions and shackles.  Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 6, 2011 in News Items

 

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Action Alert: Support Palestinian Political Prisoners

06 Oct

Call to Action: Support Palestinian Prisoners on Hunger Strike!

Palestinian prisoners in Israeli occupation prisons issued a statement on Sunday, September 25, 2011, stating that they plan to begin an open-ended hunger strike on September 27, 2011, demanding an end to the isolation of Ahmad Sa’adat, an end to isolation for all Palestinian political prisoners, and an end to the policies of repression and humiliation against visitors to the prisoners, including denial of family visits and visitors being stopped, searched and impeded at Israeli occupation checkpoints. The prisoners are also demanding an end to abuse and humiliation of prisoners while they are transferred from one prison to another.

The Campaign to Free Ahmad Sa’adat stands in solidarity with the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike and calls for people around the world to join their voices to the prisoners’ call for justice.

Ahmad Sa’adat, the imprisoned General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and a Palestinian national leader, has been imprisoned by Israeli occupation forces since his kidnapping in March 13, 2006. He was abducted in a violent Israeli military raid from a Palestinian Authority prison where he had been unjustly held without charge or trial for over four years under U.S. and British guard. He has been in isolation for over two years following his calls for resistance to the Israeli assault on Gaza in winter 2009.

The prisoners’ statement follows:

We, the comrades of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the Zionist prisons and detention centers, declare to the steadfast, struggling brave masses of the Palestinian people and to all free people in the world:

We announce that we will begin an open-ended hunger strike on Tuesday morning, September 27, 2011, in response to the official policies of the Zionist government and its fascist prison administration. We demand our rights and our dignity, as we struggle for the victory of our values and ideals.

Our goals for this hunger strike:

  • End the solitary confinement and isolation of our comrade, General Secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and the PLO Central Council, Ahmad Sa’adat, Abu Ghassan.
  • End the policy of isolation for all prisoners;
  • End the policy of systematic humiliation by the occupation army against the Palestinian people at checkpoints and crossings, particularly targeting visitors to prisons, and end the arbitrary denial of visits to the prisoners, especially the prisoners from the Gaza Strip.
  • End the humiliation and abuse of prisoners during transfer.  Read the rest of this entry »
 
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Posted by on October 6, 2011 in Campaigns

 

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Action Alert: Administrative Abuse in Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines, Quebec (SHU)

04 Oct

Perpetual Solitary Confinement & Administrative Misconduct in Special Handling Unit (Sainte-Anne-des-Plaines,Quebec)

Five years since their arrest Fahim Ahmad, Momin Khawaja, Said Namouh, Shareef Abdelhaleem and Zakaria Amara still suffer discriminatory and unwarranted penalization in the custody of the Correctional Service of Canada.

Denied the basic human privileges afforded to all inmates, continued harassment and antagonisation by prison staff, and ongoing punishment without provocation are undeniable indications that this abuse is religiously and racially motivated.  Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on October 4, 2011 in Campaigns

 

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Omar Ahmad (Abdur) Rahman: July 20, 2011

20 Jul

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, The Most Merciful, All praise is due to Allah, lord of everything that exists, and peace and blessings be upon the head of the Prophets, our Messenger, Mohammad Peace be upon him, his family, his companions and those who follow him until the day of Judgement:

The conditions of the prison I am in are very bad, and are as low as it can get, and you might be able to get a glimpse of it from the following:

The claim that they make of freedom of religion and freedom of worship, is a pure lie, I haven’t been allowed to pray Friday Prayers, or Congregational prayers ever since I got here in October, 1995.

And there is racism here, and bias towards the interaction with the prisoners. When one of the other prisoners calls the guard, they rush to answer him. But Me, I stay hours knocking on the door of my cell and no one does anything. In Fact, I stay months without cutting my hair and nails.

And I have stayed in solitary Confinement despite my condition (Old age, blind, diabetes, and more) no one helps me with setting my things up, I have no one to talk to day after day, night after night. And it’s not allowed for me to mix with anyone who speaks arabic, because everyone around me is not Muslim or they don’t’ speak Arabic.

I stay upon this state day and night (since october 95!)

How lonely is this! How cruel is this! With these actions they want me sick forever to seek revenge from me, for no other reason except that I am a Muslim.

Are these the “human rights” that they always brag about everywhere and in their media?

And they tried me so I dont bark a word or make a peep?

Have you heard of searches after you are completely naked exposing your most private parts?
Taking off your outer and inner clothes for everyone to see, so you are as naked as the day your mother gave birth to you!

I swear by Allah, The Great, this happens to me every time someone visits me, a friend or relative (even though I have no relatives in the US, I consider all Muslims my relatives.) Every visit means I take my clothes off twice, going and coming back, they order me to take off all my clothes, and if only this was it!

But, the head of the Prison, his name is “kirling” and he has another guy with him named “day” and another group of bodyguards order me to open my legs and thighs, and get completely naked from head to toe. And after that, like animals, and I can’t even mention this out of modesty and embarrassment, but I will say it to decrease the load upon me, and so that the Muslim Ummah can finally get up and carry its load, and obligations towards its religion, they then search me up close, while they stand around me looking and laughing.

Groups of bodyguards challenge each other to looking at my private parts and searching me, and whoever does it the longest is supposedly the best at doing his job. They embarrass and humiliate me in these ways because I am a Muslim, and what they do is Haraam in the Shariah, [and forbidden] with Allah.

And why are they doing this? Have they found their prey and achieved their goals? Why are they looking at my private parts? Are they searching for weapons? Or explosives? Or drugs? The ones I took from my cell to give to my visitor? Or the ones I took from my visitor to bring back to my cell?

They do this twice every visit, and for this I melt out of shame and embarrassment, and I hope that the earth swallows me before they do that to me!

Would anyone who protects his deen and his honor be pleased with this?

O brothers of manhood and brotherhood! O people of sacrifice and honor!  O men of Allah!  Get out of your deep sleep!  Get up with your Thunderous voices!  Go out O men of Allah and make your voices heard everywhere!  And say it with All your strength and bravery!  Get up O men of Allah United as one!  Make clear the Truth, and Destroy Falsehood!  “And do not incline toward those who do wrong, lest you be touched by the Fire,“(quran 11:113)

Have the prisons been built for the scholars or the criminals to sleep in?!! Death has surrounded my Ummah! Say Allahu Akbar! and tell death to come alive!  Who will waken this ummah which is building its nest on thin air, who’s feelings have become so hardened it doesn’t move an inch towards the plots that are happening, it has lost its scholars which have filed the prisons like heards, is there no brave men that fear Allah?  Are there no words that throw truth and destroy falsehood?  Get up and Unite, and do not fear destitution!

 
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Posted by on July 20, 2011 in Letters from Omar Ahmad Rahman, Risala

 

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Fulan al-Rumi: October 27, 2010

27 Oct

A big hello to all of you and to all the oppressed in this world. A special greeting to all those who believe in a fair world and work hard to make this possible. I want to thank you firstly for sending your leaflet, I first read it when I was in Macomer before I was transferred to Bologna then Parma and finally here in Opera. ( I am about to undergo dialysis for health problems).

I have almost no contact with anyone other than my wife and children who come to visit once per month. I am writing from this desolate cell that contains nothing but despair, pain and anger. Today I can put words together to express myself, but it is almost one year since im asking “when will I finally collapse?” I am tired of thinking and rethinking about this question and hearing my monologues. I pray that soon I will be free from this monotony.

Im the only Muslim inmate here and I am kept away from all the others. Its almost a year I have lived like this. I don’t socialise with anyone, and I only get an hour a day to go for exercise, other than that nothing. Just the colour of the walls (excrement colour ) that I see is slowly becoming a real tomb. There are two inmates here with me in cells nearby, who suffer serious problems. They scream all day and sometimes one of them screams all night as well. As if that were not enough, sometimes others copy the noise!

The conditions here are really indecent. I asked for a copy of my medical records to make an application for release from prison for health reasons, and I have been waiting for months.

I had intended to go to university in the prison, but they told me that if I do not pay the first installment can not study. No need to submit a request or I SEE or anything. The assistant volunteer who acts as an intermediary with the university is a person who looks like a piece of cold iron, and did not give me any time to discuss. I guess I just have to read until this injustice ends.

I say injustice because I and others are detained without having done anything. I was sentenced to 5 years, as the law says, 270-bis, an alleged danger. I hope that clarifies anything during the appeal in the coming months, even though I no longer believe in the sincerity of the Judges and all the justice of this beloved country. How does a country that is unable to ensure justice at home, claim to be able to export justice to others. Just see and follow the Italian television to find out the conditions by the elite.

Its a shame and it’s even more shameful to hear people who still believe in them. When I see this though, I feel good because even though they are outside, they are caged by their desires whilst I believe freedom is freedom of the soul and the minds thoughts, and Im still resisting!

Hope to read a response from you soon, thank you sincerely.

 
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Posted by on October 27, 2010 in Letters from Fulan, Risala

 

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