Camp X - Ray

Hello!

Today a Swedish newspaper wrote about a prisoner at Guantánamo who had made a phone call to a TV network called al-Jazira. This is the first ever interview made with a person who is still in the prison. He was supposed to call his family but instead he called the TV network. In the interview he said that he was beaten regularly with batons by fully armed guards, and that this has happened after Obama became the new president. 

What struck me the most is that this prisoner by the name Mohammad al-Gharani, was brought to the camp at the age of 14. According to the UN-convention on the Rights of the Child this is not legal. Today Mohammad is 21, which means that he has spent 7 years at Guantánamo. 

The American Government claim that this boy was living with al-Qaida in Afghanistan, had been fighting in Tora Bora 2001, and that he was a courier for some important al-Qaida members. Though, keep in mind, today the district attorney Richard Leon says that these accusations came from two other Guantánamo prisoners, and no real evidence has ever found been found. 

The court has now decided that he is going to be released and sent back home to his family in Saudi Arabia or Tchad. 

There are two things about this story I would like to point out. 

1) As I mentioned it is not legal to inprison children according to the UN-convention on the Rights of the Child. The reson why the US believe they can do this is because they are one of the two nations in the world that has not signed and ratified the convention mentioned above. The other nation who has not signed the convention in Somalia. 

2) What does this kind of captivity do to a boy (a young man)? Seven years at Guantánamo probably have some kind of impact on how you turn out as a person. I can think of two possible options. A) You get so frightened by your previous experience you decide never to participate in any illegal activity in the future. B) You have lost so many years of your life based on false accusations which makes you feel angry and hopeless, and in desperation you look for revenge and eventually turn to terrorist related activities. 

I can be wrong. Maybe he starts fighting for Human Rights, starts school, or both, or....