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The folks at WITNESS, with whom Boing Boing Video partnered to bring you the story of Guantanamo detainee and torture survivor Binyam Ahmed Mohamed, above, tell us he is finally being freed and going back to the UK. Here is the initial the BBC News report about his release, here's the WaPo item. The NYT and others report that he has today arrived in the UK, and that the UK will allow him to remain there. Rebecca Lichtenfeld of WITNESS says,
We are all beyond ecstatic about the news. After meeting Binyam's family and seeing how much pain Binyam's illegal detention has caused them, this news could not come a moment too soon. I head from Binyam's brother when Obama was elected and he expressed gratitude to WITNESS for paying attention when hardly anyone else was willing to. Binyam's family are reportedly heading to the UK to meet him when he arrives.
In related and less optimistic news: Obama Upholds Detainee Policy in Afghanistan (NYT). Snip:
The Obama administration has told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team. In a two-sentence filing late Friday, the Justice Department said that the new administration had reviewed its position in a case brought by prisoners at the United States Air Force base at Bagram, just north of the Afghan capital. The Obama team determined that the Bush policy was correct: such prisoners cannot sue for their release.
And below, snip from the prepared statement released today from Mr. Mohamed:
I hope you will understand that after everything I have been through I am neither physically nor mentally capable of facing the media on the moment of my arrival back to Britain. Please forgive me if I make a simple statement through my lawyer. I hope to be able to do better in days to come, when I am on the road to recovery.
I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares. Before this ordeal, "torture" was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim.
It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways – all orchestrated by the United States government.
While I want to recover, and put it all as far in my past as I can, I also know I have an obligation to the people who still remain in those torture chambers.
My own despair was greatest when I thought that everyone had abandoned me. I have a duty to make sure that nobody else is forgotten.
Statement from ex-Guantanamo detainee Mohamed (Associated Press)
Update: Matisse from WITNESS says in the comments on this blog post,
If you are interested in learning more about extraordinary rendition and how to take action to support the call for closing Guantanamo (there are active campaigns by both the ACLU and Amnesty International) please visit this short blog post by my colleague on our Hub blog: hub.witness.org.
(Special thanks to Boing Boing Video's hosting and publishing provider Episodic.)
