Murat Kurnaz, about whom I have written many times on Dialog International, has published a book in Germany about his captivity at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp: Fünf Jahre meines Leben. Ein Bericht aus Guantanamo. I have ordered the book, but am not looking forward to reading it. A foretaste was made available in Die Welt, which published an interview with Murat Kurnaz: So wurde ich in Guantanamo gefoltert (How I was tortured in Guantanamo). It is painful to read this interview, I only have time to translate an excerpt. Here Kurnaz describes his worst punishment:
Kurnaz: You can’t say that being struck by a fist is worse than being stepped on. But there were situations in which I went through more pain than otherwise. For example, when they hung me from the ceiling with my arms in chains. The handcuffs cut off the circulation, your shoulders feel as if someone is continuously ripping at your arms. I hung there for hours, with interruptions only for visits from a doctor who took my pulse, and for questioning. Then I was hung back up. Five days long I was hung up like that.
And then he talks about the American prison guards:
Interviewer: You describe the guards in your book as unbelievably sadistic. Can you explain to yourself today why they’re like that?
Kurnaz: There were people without hearts. They beat up people older than my grandfather in the same way as the younger prisoners. They simply acted inhumanely. Above all the IRF-teams, Immediate Response-Force – these were guards who, when someone had to be punished or interrogated, would storm our cells in groups, wearing helmets, body-armor, faceguards. First they sprayed pepperspray in the cells, then they let loose with their clubs. There were a few guards who resisted, who didn’t want to treat us like this. But they were replaced.
But more painful to read than the interview itself are the comments by readers. I read about 100 of them; 90% express hatred and ridicule for the young man. No doubt many of these are fans of the hate blog Politically Incorrect, which mocked Kurnaz in a post this weekend. To those readers who say that Kurnaz is simply lying about the torture, I refer them to the reports by the FBI, who documented the abuse, and confessions by former guards who were later ashamed by what they had done.
Some people have questioned whether I am needlessly "obsessed" by Guantanamo. Here i can only agree with Naomi Wolf, who wrote recently in the Guardian:
Most Americans don’t understand yet that the destruction of the rule of law at Guantánamo set a dangerous precedent for them, too.
