The Sin of Torture & Guantanamo Bay
The opening principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have stood strong as the human race has faced evolving challenges: "Recognition of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world." These words
are beyond an aspiration, they are foundation of a just world - and indeed, have been etched in binding treaties such as Convention against Torture, which recently celebrated its 30th anniversary.
We cannot celebrate all anniversaries. On January 11, 2015, the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay will complete its thirteenth year of operation. Through my experiences as a U.S. military officer and lawyer, I learned first-hand that Guantanamo Bay was not built on a foundation of
justice - but on the original sin of torture.
Seven hundred and seventy-nine Muslim men and boys have, at one point, been imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay. Many of them were wrong place, wrong time detainees who were captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere based on false intelligence and cash payments to secret informants. Realizing that
innocent men had been caught up in this bounty system, both the Bush and Obama Administrations have released nearly 650 prisoners - yet 127 men remain imprisoned on this remote penal colony. There are 59 current prisoners who have been cleared for release for years - yet they remain. Another
36 have been designated for indefinite detention. While there is not enough information to try them, the U.S. believes they are too dangerous to release. The remaining prisoners are subject to trial by a crumbling military commissions process.
On September 11, 2001, I was a first-year law student at George Mason University School of Law in Arlington, Virginia, just a short distance from the Pentagon. We could see the smoke rising in the distance from the Pentagon after the plane crash. In 2005, after graduating from law school, I
was commissioned into the U.S. Army as a lawyer or JAG (judge advocate) to serve my country. As a military lawyer, I served two tours in Germany and one tour in northern Iraq during the surge as part of the war on terror. During these years, I performed several roles - from advising commanders
and their units on the laws of war to representing soldiers facing criminal charges before military courts. In 2011, the Pentagon assigned me to serve as a court-appointed lawyer for Guantanamo Bay prisoners before the military commissions as the military's version of a public defender.
For three years, my assigned duty was to help two of these prisoners should they ever be brought to trial. This included the investigation and pursuit of any and all facts that could mitigate the death penalty, should there be a conviction in a capital case. Even though I served as a military
officer and received a paycheck from the U.S. government, court-appointed defense attorneys in the U.S. legal system represent their clients, not the prosecuting government. This was my duty - not only as a defense lawyer, but also as a military officer who had taken an oath to defend the
Constitution against all enemies, be they foreign or domestic.
I learned that both men I represented suffered from extreme abuse at the hands of the U.S. government. One, Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, is being tried in Guantanamo for complicity in the 9/11 attacks, and is facing the death penalty. Under current policy, anything about his treatment at so-called
black sites is to be treated as Top Secret with the exception of those facts that have been officially declassified to date, these include the 183 sessions of waterboarding, 180 hours of sleep deprivation, and the threats to kill his family. Most recently, the world learned in the Senate
Torture Report that Mr. Mohammad and some other high value detainees had also been sodomized - or sexually assaulted - through a technique called "rectal hydration."
Another detainee, Obaidullah, a young Afghan villager, arrested in 2002 by coalition forces on a paid informant's tip, was beaten and forced to confess at knifepoint that some buried land mines (from the Soviet era) near his family's home were his. This "confession" landed him in Guantanamo
Bay. Amnesty International has issued a report into his case and noted that " Obaidullah's experience exemplifies the multiple violations of human rights perpetrated by the US." He has now spent his 12 th year in prison without charges, without trial, without any hope of returning to his wife
and 12-year-old daughter. Obaidullah has never held his daughter. She was born just days before he was arrested. Like her father, she is smart, witty, and compassionate. She can read his poems and look at his picture - but she too has lost hope of ever meeting him.
With this original sin of torture, symbolized at Guantanamo Bay, we are witnessing an assault on our universal values and the rule of law. At the start of my assignment, I learned that the U.S. government had silenced its torture victims through a simple means: by making everything they say
classified. To my knowledge, there is no country in the world, aside from the United States, where a government has declared that every word, every utterance, and every breath of a prisoner is classified. For Obaidullah, the U.S. government requires his defense counsel to hold "secret" level
security clearances. But for Khalid Sheikh Mohammad and the other "high value detainees," every word that passed from their lips was "presumptively classified" at the Top Secret level.
Beyond silencing torture victims, this torture has also poisoned the Guantanamo military commissions, which have become internationally decried as unfair, unjust, and illegitimate. Take the ongoing 9/11 death penalty case, which has been in active litigation since May 2012. There have been
public reports and legal challenges to several due process violations: listening devices disguised as smoke detectors in the attorney-client meeting rooms; an FBI attempt to recruit a confidential informant on a defense trial team; the prison warden's seizure and review of privileged defense
attorney-client communications; missing defense team computer files and emails; the discovery of the CIA's ability unilaterally to interrupt the audio and video feed to public observers of the proceedings; and the discovery of the CIA's ability to monitor confidential communications in the
Commission hearing room by use of microphones on counsel's table.
These attempts to conceal torture have corroded the entire process, and have resulted in unprecedented invasions on the attorney-client privilege, due process, and the right to a fair trial - and these are just for those prisoners who actually have trials. Many others, like Obaidullah, have
remained indefinitely detained with no charges and no court date in sight for 13 years.
We, the citizens of the world, must not commit the sin of silence. A great American leader and humanitarian, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., proclaimed, "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." On this 13th anniversary of Guantanamo, celebrate your voice, challenge
injustice.
Disclaimer
The article reflects the opinions of Jason Wright and not Amnesty International.
Jason D. Wright, Esq., @jasonwrightesq, a U.S. Army veteran and human rights advocate. In August 2014, the U.S. Army placed then-Major Wright into an ethical dilemma that forced his resignation from the U.S. Army and the case. For more information, please see the New York Times short-film
documentary, " A Case Against Torture ."