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New York,
August 24, 2007—The
Committee to Protect Journalists is alarmed by
reports that an Al-Jazeera cameraman held at the
U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for
more than five years without charge is in
failing health.
Sami al-Haj,
an assistant cameraman for Al-Jazeera who has
been on hunger strike since January, has lost
nearly 40 pounds, suffers from intestinal, and
other ailments, and his mental health is
deteriorating, according to recently
declassified information provided by his lawyer
Clive Stafford Smith.
The
information, released by Stafford Smith on
August 21, is based on the lawyer’s notes from
an early July meeting with al-Haj at Guantanamo
Bay, his last visit with the cameraman.
“Sami is
40 pounds lighter than he was before his hunger
strike began,” Stafford Smith said in an e-mail.
“His mental health is deteriorating. He is
unable to speak English as well as he used to
and he is losing his ability to concentrate.
Sami is getting increasingly worried, even
paranoid, about his suffering.” Stafford Smith
said that al-Haj complained that prison guards
were punishing him “all the time” and said that
he might be the next to die in the camp.
Al-Haj
began his hunger strike on January 7 to protest
five years of detention without trial and prison
conditions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. He has
demanded that he be set free or given a fair
trial in a U.S. civilian court. Since January
29, he has been force-fed through a tube
inserted through his nose connecting to his
stomach, according to his lawyer. Al-Haj, one of
nearly 70 men on hunger strike at Guantanamo
Bay, according to Stafford Smith, has gone from
205 lbs. to 168 lbs.
“We
remain alarmed about the health of Sami al-Haj
and the fact that more than five years on he has
not been charged with a crime,” said CPJ
Executive Director Joel Simon. “We are calling
for the U.S. government to charge al-Haj or
release him. This open-ended detention must end
immediately.”
“Sami
continues with one simple demand—that he be
given a fair trial, or freedom,” said Stafford
Smith. “But as much as he is determined to
secure justice, the U.S. military is intent on
denying it. When I saw him recently, he was
deteriorating both physically and mentally, and
he was talking about dying. Ensuring his
liberation has never been more urgent.”
Pentagon
spokesman commander Jeffrey D. Gordon rejected
al-Haj’s claims. “Sami al-Haj’s allegations…were
false,” Gordon told CPJ. “He is currently more
than a 100 percent of his ideal body weight and
he continually makes false allegations, so this
should not be a surprise that he is saying such
things.”
Al-Haj, the
only known journalist imprisoned at Guantanamo
Bay, was detained by Pakistani authorities at
the Pakistan-Afghan border on December 15, 2001,
while covering the U.S.-led fight to oust the
Taliban. He was transferred to U.S. custody and
then transported to Guantanamo Bay in June 2002,
where he has remained without charge. U.S.
military authorities have accused him of working
as a financial courier for armed groups and
assisting al-Qaeda and extremist figures.
Stafford Smith has called the accusations
baseless and contends that U.S. interrogators
have focused almost exclusively on obtaining
intelligence on Al-Jazeera and its staff. At one
point, he said, military officials told al-Haj
that he would be released if he agreed to inform
U.S. intelligence authorities about the
satellite network’s activities. Al-Haj refused,
he said.
For more background on Sami al-Haj, read CPJ’s
special report,
“The Enemy?”
At least
one other journalist remains in U.S. custody.
Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi photojournalist for
The Associated Press, has been held in a U.S.
prison in Iraq for over a year without charge.
Hussein, a Pulitzer Prize winner, was taken by
U.S. forces on April 12 in the western city of
Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar province,
and held in a U.S. prison in Iraq for
“imperative reasons of security.”
CPJ is a New York–based,
independent, nonprofit organization that works
to safeguard press freedom worldwide. For more
information, visit
www.cpj.org.
330 Seventh Avenue, New York, NY 10001 USA
Phone:
(212) 4651004
Fax:
(212) 4659568
Web:
www.cpj.org
E-Mail:
media@cpj.org
http://www.cpj.org
Contact: Abi Wright
e-mail:
info@cpj.org
Telephone: (212) 465-1004 ext. 105
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