Video: Justice Denied: Voices From Guantanamo

Released Detainees Talk About Torture and Re-Entry Into Life In New ACLU Video

NEW YORK, Nov. 2 /PRNewswire/ -- Most Americans have only seen Guantanamo
detainees as one-dimensional caricatures. But a new American Civil Liberties
Union video shows the full range of their lives before, during and after their
captivity. The video, "Justice Denied: Voices from Guantanamo," is part of an
ACLU initiative against the practice of detention without due process that
violates fundamental principles of American justice. Despite plans to close
Guantanamo, the Obama administration has continued this unconstitutional
practice.

To view the Multimedia News Release, go to:
http://multivu.prnewswire.com/mnr/aclu/39477/

The five men featured in the video were all held at Guantanamo for years
without any meaningful opportunity to challenge their detention. They were
denied their due process rights, which might have established the lack of
evidence against them much earlier and spared them years of torture, abuse and
imprisonment. The men were eventually released, and as they explain in the
video, are now attempting to put their lives back together.

"I experienced sadness in a state that I have never had, cruelty in a depth
that I'd never seen in my life," Omar Deghayes tells the camera. He had
graduated from law school in England and was studying the legal system in
Afghanistan when he was captured and sent to Guantanamo for nearly six years.
"You will not leave a similar person anymore. You will leave as broken,
physically broken, psychologically broken."

Ruhal Ahmed and Shafiq Rasul grew up together in England. They went to
Pakistan for a friend's wedding and took a short trip to neighboring
Afghanistan where they were captured. It would be two and a half years before
they could go home.

"Guantanamo Bay was hell for us," Shafiq says. But Ruhal says their friendship
helped them survive the brutal experience: "Anything that happened to me I
could relate to somebody that was very close to me. Being friends from a young
age - who else would you want in that kind of situation?"

Back home in England, Shafiq and Ruhal say the American leaders who allowed
the injustices of Guantanamo should be held accountable. But they do not hold
a grudge against the American people.

"The drinks we drink, Coca Cola - it's American. We still drink it," Ruhal
says. "We still go to the movies. So we don't hate Americans as American
people."

Omar says he feels the same way, but he wants Americans to know exactly what
happened at Guantanamo: "I want the people themselves, the people in America,
the good people - which I met many of - to realize what ugly things were done
to others in their names."

For more information on the ACLU's efforts to fight indefinite detention
without charge or trial, see: www.aclu.org

SOURCE American Civil Liberties Union

Pamela Bradshaw, +1-212-549-2666, media@aclu.org