Despite the cold rain, the First Trinity Lutheran Church in downtown Washington DC was full of supporters for the Less Than Human: Guantanamo Bay, Guantanamo North and the Criminalization of Muslims in the War on Terror panel. The January 9, 2016 event was organized by the Witness Against Torture, whose members have been fasting in protest against Guantanamo Bay. The fasters were in attendance, along with U.S. military veterans, church members and activists.
The panel was moderated by Darakshan Raja, a community organizer and founder of the Muslim American Women's Policy Forum. In the words of the organizers, it examined the physical confinement and conditions under which the Muslim body has been held in the War on Terror. Using specific examples, panelists spoke about Guantanamo Bay, and Communication Management Units, two prisons that are notorious for their treatment of Muslim prisoners.
The discussion aimed to focus on the ways in which Muslims have been criminalized by virtue of their religious and racialized identity and subjected to a separate system of justice.
Dr. Maha Hilal, Executive Director of the National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms, spoke about the dehumanization of Muslims and the civilizational rehab of target communities as a motive behind anti-Muslim bigotry. She explained the term Islamophobia using the University of California Berkeley's Center of Race and Gender very comprehensive definition which explains the reasons behind the fear: Islamophobia is a contrived fear or prejudice fomented by the existing Eurocentric and Orientalist global power structure. It is directed at a perceived or real Muslim threat through the maintenance and extension of existing disparities in economic, political, social and cultural relations, while rationalizing the necessity to deploy violence as a tool to achieve "civilizational rehab" of the target communities (Muslim or otherwise). Islamophobia reintroduces and reaffirms a global racial structure through which resource distribution disparities are maintained and extended.
Based on her research, Dr Hilal said it is easier to eradicate a people when you dehumanize them. It is not easy to corral support to inflict violence at this level without massive support, she said referring to the countless Muslims killed worldwide. She listed ways the Muslims are treated as less than human: Muslims are not allowed to be victims or to be angry, use of drones where the carnage is not seen, usage of hunting language in headlines about Muslim perpetrators and the notion that all people linked to terrorist organizations cannot be rehabilitated.
Muslims are also dehumanized in way that their anger is interpreted, said Dr Hilal. Anger is not viewed in the context of foreign intervention and the devastation caused, she said. We say things like [Muslims] are against modernism and secularism as concepts, she said, and do not look at what these concepts have led to in practice. She ended with a call to an end to this systematic repression.
Following Dr Hilal, Major Raashid Williams, counsel for the U.S. Department of Defense, spoke on behalf of Ammar Al-Baluchi. Born Ali Abdul Aziz Ali, Al-Baluchi was arrested in 2003 and held at the Salt Pit secret black site near Kabul, Afghanistan, before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay in 2006.
There have been large number of transfers out of Guantanamo in the past couple of weeks. Two people were transferred this January to Ghana which has accepted 17 transfers [as of publication, 10 more detainees were moved to Oman]. 146 prisoners have been cleared to release but had not been transferred for the past 5 years, he noted. Of the current 104 detainees, the number of convictions after a decade are in the single digits, said Williams, reminding the audience that these are human beings that are being discussed. If this was a prosecutor's conviction rate anywhere in the country, the prosecutor would be fired, he said. He sourced newspaper articles that President Obamas attempts to close the military base have been thwarted by the Pentagon.
Speaking about his client, Williams said that his treatment has gone through cycles depending on the command structure that changes every 2-3 years. You never know what you are going to get, said Williams about the treatment from the guard force which changes every 8 months. He shared how it is extremely hard to meet with his client.
Guantanamo is legal outer space. The protections of the Geneva Conventions do not apply. The constitution does not apply to these men; they are not allowed to talk to another. The [prisoners] cant pray together, they cant eat communally.
These are human beings, fathers, brothers, sons, detained for decades, he said. The scandal of the collaboration of the American Psychology Association with the government in relation to the torture at Guantanamo has affected mental health care there. The trauma my client, who still doesnt have a set trial date, suffered in this pre-trial punishment is not treated, shared Williams.
Speaking on the incarceration of American citizens in special jails like the condemned Terre Haute death row unit, was Imam Abdul-'Aliyy (Avon Twitty) of Dar At-Tawheed Masjid in Washington DC, A former Communication Management Unit (CMU) prisoner, he was released from prison in 2011. CMUs are US-based prisons, militarized to use Guantanamo-style torture techniques against prisoners. Communication management units house a disproportionate number of Muslims. They reopened a condemned unit and filled it up with Muslims, he said. Abdul-'Aliyy says he was placed in a CMU for a disciplinary act and put in restrictive housing for filing two legal complaints regarding prison record keeping that may have lengthened the amount of time he spent behind bars.
In almost 28 years of imprisonment he had one disciplinary report. I was sleeping on my bed and failed the 4 o'clock count [due to medication given by the medical staff] and was sent to the [Terre Haute] terrorism unit [for three years], he says.
The federal penitentiary at Terre Haute, Indiana had the reputation of being the most racist and brutal prison in the federal prison system where many guards were Ku Klux Klan members and supporters, according to writer and former prisoner Lorenzo Komboa Ervin. The ACLU has accused the penitentiary where Imam Abdul-'Aliyy was held of having "grossly inadequate" conditions, saying that those on death row were routinely denied basic medical care, mental health services, and were subject to incessant noise that causes sleep deprivation. Imam Abdul-'Aliyy shared how diabetic prisoners were denied medication as a way to torture and punish them.
Imam Abdul-'Aliyy shared the conditions of the cells where black sludge inches down the walls and when it rained the cells flood until the calves of a standing man are deep in slimy water.
In the words of Imam Abdul-'Aliyy, he was not an armed combative nor had he ever set foot outside the country or made an international phone call in his life. He was in prison for a street murder since the 1980s.
Dont think that they will grab someone in Afghanistan running their mouth, and you are safe running your mouth here! Its not happening. he said. He spoke about how any American citizen can end up in a CMU. Once the law is on the books it affects everyone no matter who it was put in there for, said Imam Abdul-'Aliyy.
Its not the American people that we are tired off; its the American government [harming us] the American people. Have you read the Patriot Act? asked Imam Abdul-'Aliyy said to applause.
The "War on Terror" has targeted exclusively Muslims, and activists in the anti-war and pro-civil liberties movement need to partner with Muslims and include them in the discussions, said Dr Hilal, advising the many people in the audience, as organizers collected money to send books to the prisoners at Guantanamo.
Artwork was available for purchase by Mohammed Shnewer, a Muslim prisoner of the Fort Dix Five Case. Loved the panel, the panelists and everyone that made it through. [I] have benefited greatly indeed. Keep on fighting for justice! We will stand by you by the will of Allah.....side by side, said attendee Mona Mahmoud.
Dr Hilal ended the event by reading a letter that she had written to the brothers in Guantanamo.
There is a current petition online asking the White House to close Guantanamo.
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