Sunday, April 13, 2008

Banned pictures of a tortured journalist

I have reported in the past about Sami al-Haj, the al-jazeera journalist who has been held at guantanamo for more than 5 years and who has been engaged in a hunger strike for the past 2 years. As I noted a week or so ago Sami drew some pictures to give us a visual look at his suffering but those drawings are being held soviet style for "national security reasons" (the reason given for withholding everything that is embarrassing to the administration)....however, political cartoonist Lewis Peake has made original renditions of those drawings based on descriptions by Sami. Click on the title and you can read the latest article (and view the pictures) by historian Andy Worthington about those pictures and also information that was recently "declassified" about Sami's medical care. Note how nearly identical some of the information relayed by Sami about the hospital and medical care at the base are to accounts by Al-Ghizzawi (Sami and Al-Ghizzawi have never met and are in separate areas of the base).... notice how a doctor casually told Sami that he probably had cancer... notice how they refuse to give him the results of tests... notice the total lack of competent medical care.... and then remember that Al-Ghizzawi has been blamed for his own ill health by the federal judge in his case.