Diary of Despair.

SOS 'Was Written In Blood'

AN SOS written in blood on a prison cell wall spelled out the desperation of Bahraini Guantanamo detainee Juma Al Dossary.

It was his last resort after being continuously denied medical treatment as he grew increasingly ill in appalling conditions, he says in his handwritten diary of despair.

He claims he has been savagely beaten, tortured, sexually humiliated, fed bug-infested, rotten food and denied medical treatment, in a systematic campaign of abuse meted out for over three years.

His weight has dropped 30kg to 55kg and he is so weak he can barely stand, he says in the diary, written in July and just released to his lawyers by US authorities.

Mr Al Dossary says he regularly vomits blood, has heart and blood pressure problems, has fainting fits and suffers pains in his head, stomach and left arm - but has been persistently denied proper medical treatment.

The abuse has gone on since his arrest on the

Afghanistan/Pakistan border in December 2001, but took a new form after he complained about the conditions to his lawyer during a visit in March this year.

"In March this year I met my lawyer to discuss my case and I told him about all the torture and abuse that I went through here, but I didn't know that they were spying on us," he says in the diary.

"After the lawyer had left, a military man came to me and told me to forget about all that had happened to me and not to remember it or mention it again to anyone, otherwise I will not live in peace.

"After he left me, I was given spoiled food three times and when I complained I was told that this was what was provided for me. "Since then I have been sick." Mr Al Dossary says he sent his lawyer several letters to tell him about what happened, "but I don't know if he had received any of them".

At the end of March, two American interrogators and an agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) questioned him.

"They were threatening me and yelling at me in the interrogation room, where they also took from me my belongings and letters from my family," he says.

The interrogators also allegedly spoke to the camp doctor to stop the special diet prescribed for Mr Al Dossary because of his stomach pain.

"They even stopped some of the treatment.

It has been sent by lawyers to the now dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, which has been co-ordinating a campaign for the release of six Bahrainis detained at Guantanamo.

Extracts detailing the allegations of abuse and Mr Al Dossary's despair were first published in the GDN yesterday. Bug-infested and rotten food became the specials of the day, making his health worse, says the 30-year-old, who has an 11-year-old daughter.

He describes how one evening in June this year he was given a plate of dinner, in which he found a dead scorpion.

"Since then I find bugs and cockroaches in my food," writes Mr Al Dossary.

At the end of June, Mr Al Dossary says he was bitten by a scorpion in his cell.

"I asked one of the soldiers to call the clinic, but no-one came until the morning, hours after I was bitten," he says.

"I had to squeeze out the poison myself and my leg became swollen and turned red.

"When the nurse finally came, I was given a painkiller and a tablet for the itch on my leg. "Now my health condition is worse. I vomit blood.

"Once I even vomited blood in a bucket and spilled it outside the cell and in front of a soldier, to explain to him that I was sick.

"He said he would talk to the clinic but, as usual, without any results.

"When I do complain to the clinic, they give painkillers only called Motrin, which has side effects that cause ulcers and harms the liver, kidney and stomach." Mr Al Dossary says he could hardly stand due to his weakness and dizziness.

In one incident, after vomiting blood, he says he used the blood to write on the wall of his cell: "I am sick and I need treatment."

Mr Al Dossary said his blood pressure fell to 90/50 and his heart beat rate was also low.

Mr Al Dossary tells how his condition worsened after he took part in a hunger strike in June this year, which ended the following month.

The prisoners were protesting conditions in the camp and demanding immediate trials or release.

Some have since launched a second hunger strike, saying nothing was done. Mr Al Dossary is listed by US authorities as an "enemy combatant".

They claim he went to Afghanistan in November 2001 as a member of Al Qaeda and that he was at Tora Bora, where Osama bin Laden was thought to be in hiding.

Mr Al Dossary allegedly crossed the border into Pakistan in December 2001 without any documentation and surrendered to Pakistani authorities.

Lawyers representing the Bahraini six say their best hope for freedom is if Bahrain reaches a deal with the US, as other countries have done.

Bahrain says it is "making progress" in talks aimed at bringing home the detainees.

The other five Bahraini detainees are Essa Al Murbati, Salah Abdul Rasool Al Blooshi, Adel Kamel Hajee, Shaikh Salman bin Ebrahim Al Khalifa and Abdulla Majid Al Naimi.

ABDULRAHMAN FAKHRI
10/29/05 "Gulf Daily News"
Copyright © 2004, Gulf Daily News

Goes All the Way to The Top

Col. Janis Karpinski, the Former Head of Abu Ghraib, Admits She Broke the
Geneva Conventions But Says the Blame "Goes All the Way to The Top² *

Karpinski, the highest-ranking officer demoted in connection with the
torture scandal, speaks out about what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison.
She discusses:

* How the military hid "ghost detainees" from the International Red Cross in
violation of international law;

* Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller calling for the Gitmoization of Abu Ghraib and
for prisoners to be "treated like dogs";

* Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's secret memos on interrogation policies
that hung on the prison¹s walls;

* The military¹s use of private (and possibly Israeli) interrogators;

* Her dealings with the International Red Cross;

* Why she feels, as a female general, she has been scapegoated for a scandal
that has left the military and political leadership unscathed; and

* Calls for Donald Rumsfeld, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, Alberto Gonzalez and
Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller to be held accountable for what happened.

Listen/Watch/Read
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/10/26/1423248

Vice President for Torture

VICE PRESIDENT Cheney is aggressively pursuing an initiative that may be unprecedented for an elected official of the executive branch: He is proposing that Congress legally authorize human rights abuses by Americans. "Cruel, inhuman and degrading" treatment of prisoners is banned by an international treaty negotiated by the Reagan administration and ratified by the United States. The State Department annually issues a report criticizing other governments for violating it. Now Mr. Cheney is asking Congress to approve legal language that would allow the CIA to commit such abuses against foreign prisoners it is holding abroad. In other words, this vice president has become an open advocate of torture.

His position is not just some abstract defense of presidential power. The CIA is holding an unknown number of prisoners in secret detention centers abroad. In violation of the Geneva Conventions, it has refused to register those detainees with the International Red Cross or to allow visits by its inspectors. Its prisoners have "disappeared," like the victims of some dictatorships. The Justice Department and the White House are known to have approved harsh interrogation techniques for some of these people, including "waterboarding," or simulated drowning; mock execution; and the deliberate withholding of pain medication. CIA personnel have been implicated in the deaths during interrogation of at least four Afghan and Iraqi detainees. Official investigations have indicated that some aberrant practices by Army personnel in Iraq originated with the CIA. Yet no CIA personnel have been held accountable for this record, and there has never been a public report on the agency's performance.

It's not surprising that Mr. Cheney would be at the forefront of an attempt to ratify and legalize this shameful record. The vice president has been a prime mover behind the Bush administration's decision to violate the Geneva Conventions and the U.N. Convention Against Torture and to break with decades of past practice by the U.S. military. These decisions at the top have led to hundreds of documented cases of abuse, torture and homicide in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr. Cheney's counsel, David S. Addington, was reportedly one of the principal authors of a legal memo justifying the torture of suspects. This summer Mr. Cheney told several Republican senators that President Bush would veto the annual defense spending bill if it contained language prohibiting the use of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment by any U.S. personnel.

The senators ignored Mr. Cheney's threats, and the amendment, sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), passed this month by a vote of 90 to 9. So now Mr. Cheney is trying to persuade members of a House-Senate conference committee to adopt language that would not just nullify the McCain amendment but would formally adopt cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as a legal instrument of U.S. policy. The Senate's earlier vote suggests that it will not allow such a betrayal of American values. As for Mr. Cheney: He will be remembered as the vice president who campaigned for torture.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/25/AR2005102501388.html?referrer=email

Extraordinary Rendition Flights

Police To Probe US ‘Torture Flights’ Landing In Scotland

SCOTTISH police are to launch an investigation into CIA “torture flights” which fly in and out of Glasgow and Prestwick airports, ferrying kidnapped war on terror suspects around the world.

The police action is a result of last week’s disturbing investigation by the Sunday Herald into the so-called “extraordinary rendition flights”, which see suspects kidnapped overseas by the CIA, drugged and then flown to “friendly” states, such as Egypt, Uzbekistan and Morocco, where they are tortured on behalf of British and American intelligence.

Following our reports , the Green Party wrote to the chief constable of Strathclyde Police, Sir William Rae, asking for a full inquiry into the torture flights. A police spokesperson confirmed that the force would now launch an investigation.

Last week, we revealed that the British government was to be sued by human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith for complicity in the torture of his client Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi.

Also exposed was the fact that international human rights experts and lawyers believe the UK is breaking the Geneva Conventions by collaborating with the USA on the transit of the flights through Britain.

Further, the UK allows British airports to be used for refuelling by the CIA’s jets ferrying suspects around the world. Glasgow and Prestwick airports are the two most favoured CIA stop-overs.

Chris Ballance, the Green Party MSP who represents the Prestwick area, said he lodged the complaint with Strathclyde Police after reading the Sunday Herald’s investigation because it appeared that “Scotland is complicit in these gross acts of torture”.

Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan, said : “Once these planes land on British soil, they have no immunity. If they touch down at a civilian airport they are under civilian jurisdiction. This would allow the police to do their job fully and to board the plane and question those on board.”

Beyond saying that an investigation would take place, Strathclyde Police said it could not comment on how the inquiry would proceed.

The CIA refused categorically to comment. One CIA official merely laughed when told that Scottish police were to investigate.

23 October 2005
By Neil Mackay, Investigations Editor
http://www.sundayherald.com/52461

Orhan Pamuk

'I stand by my words. And even more, I stand by my right to say them...'

When the acclaimed Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk recalled his country's mass killing of Armenians, he was forced to flee abroad. As he prepares to accept a peace award in Frankfurt, he tells Maureen Freely why he had to break his nation's biggest taboo

Five years ago, Orhan Pamuk wrote a novel about a poet who is snared in a political intrigue from which there is no escape. Nine months ago, Turkey's most famous novelist was pulled into just such an intrigue.
It began with an off-the-cuff remark in an interview with a Swiss newspaper. While discussing curbs on freedom of expression in Turkey, Pamuk said that 'a million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in this country and I'm the only one who dares to talk about it'.

He was soon to be reminded why. Although most of the world acknowledges the genocide as historical fact, the official Turkish line has been that 'only' a few hundred thousand died during the internecine conflicts of the First World War. To suggest otherwise - or even to use the word genocide - is to insult the nation's founding myth and therefore Turkey's honour.

So the day after his interview appeared, the Turkish press launched a fierce attack on Pamuk, branding him a traitor, accusing him of having used the virtually illegal word genocide (although he had not) and inviting 'civil society' to 'silence' him. Following several death threats, he went into hiding abroad. He returned to Turkey late last spring, hoping it had all blown over. It had not. Last August, an Istanbul public prosecutor charged him with the 'public denigration of Turkish identity'. The trial is set for 16 December. If convicted, Pamuk faces three years in prison.

When the story broke in early September, it made headlines all over the world, with writers, politicians, academics and human rights groups joining the writers' organisation PEN to condemn the prosecution. The governments of Europe were aghast, with the case raising serious questions about Turkey's attempt to join the EU. As his translator, I was only too aware that this was a bitterly ironic twist for Pamuk, who has long been a supporter of Turkey in Europe and European-style social democracy in Turkey.

Like many of his friends, I suspected that his prosecution was the work of nationalists in the judiciary who want neither. Thanks to another law, Pamuk was obliged to keep his own views on the matter private. He faces an even longer prison sentence if he talks about his case before it comes to trial.

Meanwhile, all of Turkey is arguing about the Armenians. Last month a group of Turkish scholars broke 90 years of official silence, braving court orders, death threats and fierce condemnation in the right-wing press to hold a conference in Istanbul. For the first time, Turks dared to ask Turks what happened to the Ottoman Armenians. This had a huge impact on public opinion. Although many maintain that the genocide was a fiction created by the nation's enemies, it is at least no longer dangerous to question the official line.

It was in this context that Pamuk decided a week ago to give his first interview on Turkish television since his life became a novel. It provoked strong and varied responses, with many applauding his defiance and others wishing he had been more defiant still. In one right-wing newspaper, selected quotes were rearranged to suggest that Pamuk had retracted his original statement, although in fact he reiterated it.

In some reports, there was also the suggestion that he had softened his statement in the hope it might lead the authorities to drop his case. A similarly worded article that had no byline found its way into the Guardian and other newspapers across Europe last Monday.

And so the noose tightens. What to do? Speak out and risk a longer sentence? Or stay silent and let parties unknown feed the world lies? When I met Pamuk yesterday in Frankfurt, where he is to be awarded the German Peace Prize, he was in no doubt the time had come to speak out - about the Armenians, about the law under which he has been charged, about curbs on free expression in Turkey and, last but not least, about his case.

'It goes without saying that I stand by my words,' he told me. 'And even more, I stand by my right to say them.' He went on to point out that the right to free speech was guaranteed by the Turkish constitution and that more and more people in Turkey were keen to exercise that right. 'I am very encouraged by this conference. I'm very grateful to courageous scholars such as Halil Berktay, Murat Belge and Taner Akcam who have been researching this subject thoroughly and honestly for so many years and who spoke the unsayable truth. Most of all, I'm pleased that the taboo - what happened to the Ottoman Armenians - is beginning to crack.'

It was, he warned, going to be a long and painful process. 'We are confronted with an immense human tragedy and immense human suffering we did not learn about at school. So it is a fragile subject.'

Which brings us to the word genocide. It is, he reminded me, a contentious subject even among the Turkish historians who believe there was planned and systematic slaughter. Those whose primary aim is to educate the Turkish public point out that to use the word is to shut down any possibility of a national debate.

'I said loud and clear that one million Armenians and 30,000 Kurds were killed in Turkey, and I stand by that. For me, these are scholarly issues,' said Pamuk. 'I am a novelist. I address human suffering and pain and it is obvious, even in Turkey, that there was an immense hidden pain which we now have to face.' He went on to remind me that the biggest obstacle right now was Article 301. This is a new law and how it found its way into Turkey's new and supposedly EU-friendly penal code is a subject of heated speculation.

Earlier this month, Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was tried under the same article by the same public prosecutor who brought the case against Pamuk. He was found guilty and given a suspended sentence.

'Dink is the most prominent representative of Istanbul's Armenians and after his case and mine it is obvious that if we are going to enjoy freedom of expression in Turkey, Article 301 should be reconsidered,' said Pamuk. 'This law and another law about "general national interests" were put into the new penal code as secret guns. They were not displayed to the international community but nicely kept in a drawer, ready for action in case they decided to hit someone in the head. These laws should be changed, and changed fast, before the EU and the international community puts pressure on Turkey to do so. We have to learn to reform before others warn us.'

But what has Pamuk himself learned from the last nine months? 'In the beginning I felt very isolated,' he admitted. 'But I've seen so many people back me, in Turkey and in the international community. I am flattered and honoured to be the focus of all this concern. It is thanks to their support that I can defend freedom of speech.'

This, he said, was the burning issue in Turkey, and it was, and would continue to be, a subject dear to his heart. In his speech today he will be arguing that the novelist's most important political act is the imaginative exploration of the 'other', the 'stranger', the 'enemy who resides in all our minds'. Politics in the art of the novel is the author's identification with the downtrodden and the marginalised. The Kurd in Turkey and the Turk in Germany.

And the prize? 'I hope it is not just a political gesture but also a celebration of my years of humble and devoted service to the novel. I have been writing novels for 30 years, like a clerk. Though, unfortunately, not in the last month. I hope I can return to my desk soon.' But Pamuk is not looking for a pardon: 'I'm going to face this case.'

In this regard, at least, he hopes to part ways with Kar, the poet in his novel Snow. Pulled into a political intrigue and feeling 'trapped on all sides', Kar's response was to try to run away. 'He was an unhappy person who was forced to be cynical,' Pamuk said. 'But I am a happier person. I embrace the responsibility that has fallen on me and will pursue this to the end.'

Pamuk: a life in writing

Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul on 7 June 1952 and, apart from two years in New York, he has spent his life in the same district of the city and now lives in the building where he was brought up.

His first novel to appear in English was called The White Castle, about an Ottoman astrologer who buys a Venetian astronomer as a slave.

His novel My Name is Red, set in the 16th century, tells of murder and artistic intrigues among the Islamic miniaturists in the Ottoman court. Its success, by Turkish standards, was astronomic and his publishers opened a court action against a newspaper which refused to believe published sales figures of 100,000 copies. The book sold half as many again.

His sveventh and most critically acclaimed novel is Snow. It deals with what happens in the margins of the Western world.The Canadian author Margaret Atwood called Snow 'an engrossing feat of tale-spinning and essential reading for our times'.

His books have been burned at a nationalist demonstration, and his photograph was shredded at a rally. Hürriyet, Turkey's largest newspaper, called Pamuk an 'abject creature'.

Sunday October 23, 2005
The Observer

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1598633,00.html