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Reports about the
inhuman treatment in Guantanamo are still coming out. (Reuters) |
SAN JUAN, Puerto
Rico, January 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - Twenty-three
Guantanamo Bay inmates carried out a coordinated attempt to kill
themselves in 2003 during a week-long protest in the secretive camp in
Cuba, according to the US military.
Inmates of the
notorious detention camp are Muslims and according to the Islamic faith,
it is strictly prohibited to commit suicide. The reported mass suicide
attempts make one wonder what sort of treatment might push a Muslim to
prefer “Hell after death” to “life under US detention”.
The US Southern
Command admitted Monday, January 24, that between 18 and 26 August 2003,
the detainees tried to hang or strangle themselves with pieces of
clothing and other items in their cells,
The Independent reported Tuesday, January 25.
The
military, which had not previously reported the protest, called the
actions “self-injurious behavior” aimed at getting attention rather than
serious suicide attempts, The Associated Press (AP) reported.
Some
558 prisoners are at Guantanamo Bay, many held for more than three years
without charge or access to attorneys amid reports of torture taking
place in the overseas US-run prison.
The coordinated attempts were among 350
“self-harm” incidents that year, including 120 so-called “hanging
gestures,” Lt. Col. Leon Sumpter, a spokesman for the detention mission,
said Monday.
In
the suicide protest of August 18-26, 2003, nearly two dozen prisoners
tried to hang or strangle themselves with clothing and other items in
their cells, demonstrating “self-injurious behavior,” the US Southern
Command in Miami said in a statement. Ten detainees made a mass attempt
on Aug. 22 alone, according to the AP report.
In
2004, there were 110 self-harm incidents, Sumpter said.
The
military has reported 34 suicide attempts since the camp opened in
January 2002, including one prisoner who went into a coma and sustained
memory loss from brain damage, AP said.
The
2003 protests came as the camp suffered a rash of suicide attempts after
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller took command with a mandate to “get more
information” from prisoners.
Extreme Measures
Critics linked the two and criticized the delay in reporting the
incidents, according to the AP.
“When you have suicide attempts or so-called self-harm incidents, it
shows the type of impact indefinite detention can have, but it also
points to the extreme measures the Pentagon is taking to cover up things
that have happened in Guantanamo,” Alistair Hodgett, a spokesman for
Amnesty International in Washington, D.C., told AP.
“What we've seen is that it wasn't simply a rotation of forces (guards)
but an attempt to toughen up the interrogation techniques and
processes.”
Dr.
Daryl Matthews, a forensic psychiatrist at the University of Hawaii,
told AP he believed he was misled during a visit to Guantanamo in June
2003 to investigate and make recommendations about detainees' mental
health care, at the request of the Army surgeon general.
“There were many things I wanted to see that I was precluded from
seeing, particularly with the interrogation issues,” Matthews told The
Associated Press in a telephone interview.
“In
no way did I get honest or accurate information. I feel like I was being
systematically misled.”
He
criticized some practices, and said it was “appalling” that medical
professionals shared detainees' medical records with interrogators.
Islamic Stand
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|
“I know for sure
that people in those conditions for only a few months go out of
their minds,” Begg said. (Reuters) |
According to Islam,
committing suicide is
haram; it is prohibited by the consensus of Muslim scholars.
Though the majority
of Muslim scholars permit offering Funeral Prayer for a person who
committed suicide, some of them hold the opinion that leading scholars
and Imam (ruler) of the state are recommended not to attend this Prayer;
i.e. common people are to offer it (in showing repugnance to the
conduct).
Bearing all this in
mind, the conduct of Guantanamo inmates makes it hard to imagine the
sort of torture and abuse that pushed them to try to take their own
lives, knowing they were risking being deprived of Paradise.
The
father of Moazzam Begg, 37, a Briton Guantanamo inmate released Tuesday,
told
The Independent he was neither excited, nor overjoyed, simply
apprehensive that the man he sees tomorrow (Wednesday) will be the same
son he last saw more than three years ago.
“I have got my own
reservations. I just want to see him first and decide what feelings are
in my head, in my mind,” the former bank manager said, adding that he
feared for his son's mental state.
“My feelings are
concerned. I am not happy or excited, nor am I depressed. I am just in a
level mood. Moazzam was in solitary confinement for three years. They
put in a window that was just eight inches by four inches. That makes me
very sad. I know for sure that people in those conditions for only a few
months go out of their minds.”
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