Time Running Out for Sami Al-Haj

Al Jazeera cameraman and Guantanamo detainee Sami Al-Haj is feared to be in critical condition on the 250th day of his hunger strike, as pressure mounts for his release. Recent reports warn of a severe deterioration in the physical and mental health of Sami Al-Haj, the Al Jazeera cameraman who has been held at Guantanamo Bay for more than five years. Al-Haj has been on a hunger strike for 250 days and is being force-fed.

According to a September 10 statement by his lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, Al-Haj is losing his memory and his grip on reality, has intestinal disorders and is in immediate need of external medical intervention. On September 11, a medical report written by American and British psychiatrists warned that recent statements by Al-Haj indicate a mental state of “major depression with psychotic features” and are consistent with sufferers of trauma seeking “passive suicide.” The reports suggest that Al-Haj may soon become the fifth detainee to die at Guantanamo.

Al-Haj was seized by Pakistani and U.S. forces in December 2001 while on assignment with Al Jazeera covering the U.S. air strikes in Afghanistan. He was sent to Guantanamo in June 2002. As with most Guantanamo detainees, he has not been charged with any crime. Assertions by the U.S. military that Al-Haj was involved with al-Qaeda have not been substantiated.

According to Stafford Smith, the military's interrogations of Sami have focused almost exclusively on obtaining intelligence on Al Jazeera and its staff, rather than on his purported al-Qaeda associations. This seems to validate the widespread belief outside the United States, where an international campaign to demand the release of Sami Al-Haj is building momentum, that his incarceration is part of a U.S. campaign to punish Al Jazeera for its critical coverage of the Bush Administration and its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The movement to free Sami Al-Haj has been much slower to build in the United States than internationally, due partly to its low media coverage here. On September 12, the American Committee to Free Sami Al-Haj demanded the immediate release of Al-Haj from Guantanamo. The group is also calling on the U.S. Congress to investigate reports that the military has held Sami Al-Haj at Guantanamo in order to obtain intelligence on the Arab television network and/or to punish it for its news coverage.

According to Sara Pursley, a member of the group: “The U.S. Congress has the authority and the responsibility to investigate possible violations of U.S. and international law by the Bush Administration in its campaign against Al Jazeera, including its 6-year incarceration of Sami Al-Haj. Congress should also be interested in the Bush Administration’s mockery of democratic principles such as freedom of expression and freedom of the press, even while claiming to foster such principles in the Arab world as part of its justification for war.”

The American Committee to Free Sami Al-Haj has just launched an online version of its petition to the U.S. Congress at the following URL: http://www.petitiononline.com/freesami/petition.html

RESOURCES AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
-September 10 report from Al-Haj’s lawyer Clive Stafford Smith: http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=6&storycode=38719&c=1
-Web site of the international campaign to free Sami Al-Haj: http://www.prisoner345.net/