I am proud to have known Mr. Bassiouni- having spoken along side him at several speaking engagements in regards to Guantanamo and other illegal activities in my country. The cause of justice has lost a dear friend.
As was noted in a recent World Can't
Wait email, M. Cherif Bassiouni passed away on Sept 25. I have copied below
what they wrote.
His memorial will be held on Sunday,
Oct. 29. The details are here, please share with friends who will want to know:
We
were saddened to hear of the death of M. Cherif Bassiouni on Sept. 25. He was
everything the obituaries in newspapers across the country said he was: war
crimes jurist, the “godfather of international human rights law,” human rights
champion. What U.S. media failed to mention was that Cherif was a tireless and
eloquent opponent of the whole legal premise of the “war on terrorism” and its
use as a justification of U.S. aggression and crimes of cruel and degrading
treatment, torture and indefinite detention without trial. He raised his
powerful voice to demand an end to those crimes on the part of the U.S.
government, whether under Bush or Obama. Cherif was an advisor to World
Can’t Wait whose counsel and support we valued deeply.
 |
The Close Guantanamo Ad that
Bassiouni helped organize
|
He titled his 2010
book The Institutionalization
of Torture by the Bush Administration. Is Anyone Responsible? and
he dedicated it to "the victims of torture and other forms of cruel,
inhuman, and degrading treatment…at the hands of U.S. public agents…” The
answer of the Obama administration would prove to be “no," it would not
hold any of those U.S. public agents responsible for their well-documented war
crimes and crimes against humanity. Cherif, however, held the Obama
administration just as accountable as its predecessor.
When dozens of prisoners at
Guantanamo went on hunger strike in 2013, desperate as it became clear that
Obama was not moving to close that torture camp, they forced the horror of
their plight back into the spotlight. Cherif was instrumental to the
success of our efforts to publish in The New York Times a full-page
statement demanding “Stop the Torture! Close Guantanamo NOW!” on May 23, 2013.
His letter to colleagues urging
them to sign it and donate to its publication remains a powerful indictment of
the legal premise and horrific practices of the war of terror. In 2015, he lent
his voice to the efforts of students at DePaul, the university where he had
taught for 45 years, when they demanded the firing of a dean involved
in covering up the role of psychologists in facilitating torture at Guantanamo.
His
sharp analysis, passion for justice and sense of humor will be missed.
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