- 6 minutes ago
Mohamedou Ould Slahi was imprisoned without charge at Guantánamo Bay for nearly 15 years.
Ould Slahi speaks to Business Insider about the prison layout, the facilities, the food and what yard time was like. He reveals what torture methods were, and how guards interacted with detained persons.
Arrested in 2001 and transferred through various prisons before arriving at Guantánamo, Slahi endured years of torture and harsh interrogation under the U.S. government's post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts. He was detained on suspicion of terrorism, but no charges were ever filed against him.
His memoir Guantánamo Diary was released in 2015. His memoir was adapted into a feature film, "The Mauritanian," featuring Jodie Foster and Tahar Rahim. Slahi now writes and speaks about human rights, justice, and reconciliation.
For more:
https://www.instagram.com/mohamedououldsalahi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohamedou-ould-slahi-houbeini-4834a1136/
Ould Slahi speaks to Business Insider about the prison layout, the facilities, the food and what yard time was like. He reveals what torture methods were, and how guards interacted with detained persons.
Arrested in 2001 and transferred through various prisons before arriving at Guantánamo, Slahi endured years of torture and harsh interrogation under the U.S. government's post-9/11 counterterrorism efforts. He was detained on suspicion of terrorism, but no charges were ever filed against him.
His memoir Guantánamo Diary was released in 2015. His memoir was adapted into a feature film, "The Mauritanian," featuring Jodie Foster and Tahar Rahim. Slahi now writes and speaks about human rights, justice, and reconciliation.
For more:
https://www.instagram.com/mohamedououldsalahi/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohamedou-ould-slahi-houbeini-4834a1136/
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FunTranscript
00:00My name is Mohamed Walsillahi.
00:02I was held and detained in Guantanamo Bay for 15 years.
00:06I was never charged or convicted of any crime.
00:10And this is everything I'm authorized to tell you.
00:15Guantanamo Bay was designed from the beginning to undercut the rule of law.
00:22Escaping was impossible.
00:25There are so many gates and so many levels of security.
00:29Even if you miraculously get out of everything and survive the shot of the towers,
00:35and survive the mines outside, you find yourself in the water.
00:40If you are under interrogation, like in my case, you are inside a cell.
00:45You can shout all you want. No one is going to hear you.
00:54I will never forget my first night in Guantanamo Bay.
00:58August the 5th of 2002.
01:02Before that flight, I never heard of the place.
01:06I was kidnapped right after 9-11.
01:09And I was held incommunicado.
01:12And I remember being dragged out of the plane.
01:16I was walking dead.
01:18I was under constant punishment for, I think, 37 hours.
01:24The only thing I was feeling was total and utter terror, confusion, and disorientation.
01:34And still feel to this day the beating.
01:37We were taken to a place, and I stayed the best part of the day under the baking sun.
01:45If you remember the photo that they showed, those people kneeling with goggles, blindfold.
01:54First of all, I was one of those people.
01:57They put me in those red, infamous uniforms.
02:02They took my pictures, my fingerprints, and it was almost real.
02:08They asked what languages you speak.
02:10So back then I told them I spoke Arabic, German, and French.
02:15So my English was not functional.
02:18They started to interrogate me.
02:20I don't know how long they took me to Oscar block.
02:26Oscar block is one of those torture block.
02:31There was India block.
02:32I went also to India block, but my first torture block was Oscar.
02:36And Oscar was like divided to small, what we call them, fridges.
02:43Very small cell, six by eight.
02:46And I never forget my first night.
02:49When the door slammed shut, there was nothing in there.
02:55And I am claustrophobic.
02:58I started to panic. I couldn't breathe.
03:01There was only this bin hole, a very small hole, through which they give you food, and they talk to you.
03:08They also do the head count.
03:10When they count the detainers, they do it every 15 minutes or so.
03:14Because this way you cannot sleep, because they will open it.
03:18You know, it's very heavy metal.
03:20This is when it hit me.
03:22I knew there was no one to save me.
03:25I knew I was on my own against the most powerful country in the world.
03:32Arguably, the most powerful country ever.
03:37They can do anything they want.
03:41For nine months, my whole time, I was with the general population.
03:49I was very happy. I could talk to other detainees.
03:53My neighbors were very, some were very famous.
03:57David Hicks from Australia, and another detainee, Bish al-Rawi.
04:03I was with the general population, but I was in a cell.
04:07So we were not like, I was not sitting with them or anything.
04:11One of the British guys and the Australian guys, he started to teach me English.
04:15You know, I just hear and then memorize.
04:19I wasn't allowed to have papers. I wasn't allowed to have pens.
04:23In that social order, in a prison, leaders emerge.
04:28People who want to be leaders with religious authority or age authority.
04:35People with knowledge, especially of the English language.
04:38If you know the English language, that's a privilege.
04:41Because the guard used you to translate between them and other detainees.
04:46And that gives you like a special place where you can like expect detainees to give you special respect.
04:55The guard were completely aware of everything that was going on.
05:01They used to their advantage.
05:03When they see leaders, they want to talk to the leaders to keep control of the prison population.
05:12What also they do, they spread the rumors.
05:15They put a rumor in one block and they see how it develops in the other blocks.
05:21Because they want to see the communication between the blocks, how information flows.
05:26They relay messages, but mostly fake news that was spread by interrogators.
05:34In general population in Guantanamo Bay, I was taken to interrogation every single day.
05:49Let me tell you about enhanced interrogation technique.
05:53After 9-11, American public, and rightly so, was putting a lot of pressure on the government to hold people accountable who killed 3,000 people.
06:04But American government, after two years, was none the wiser.
06:09Instead of being honest with the public, saying we screwed up, they said we think those people who were already arrested are bad people.
06:21But how can we make them bad people?
06:23How could we bump them from detainees to real criminals who are responsible?
06:28We want full-fledged confessions.
06:32Full-fledged confessions they did not get.
06:34So they want to use torture.
06:37What was applied on me started with sleep deprivation.
06:41The interrogation was 24 hours.
06:45I remained in that 70 days.
06:48And then they threatened me with, like, sexual assault.
06:58They did to me sexual assault three times.
07:02What was done was stripping and then touching you.
07:09There was no penetration.
07:11I was waterboarded once.
07:14I almost died.
07:16And you know the problem.
07:18Enhanced interrogation technique, even if they apply them, you know, 100% the way it was written is torture.
07:28But they went beyond them because it's a Pandora box.
07:34I give you two examples.
07:37One time they took me to the fridge, a place where they put you.
07:44They keep you very cold.
07:46And then they would come to me and then they would pour water on me.
07:52The water would get cold.
07:55And then they told me they would keep doing this until I decide to speak.
08:01I was so cold and hypothermia start to set in.
08:05I couldn't speak.
08:07And then this sergeant, I never forget it.
08:11Her name is Mary, Sergeant Mary.
08:13She asked him to stop.
08:15I don't know whether she saw that I was dying.
08:19And the other one is when they took me for the waterboarding and beating.
08:27I was beating everywhere.
08:28I couldn't breathe.
08:30But I survived.
08:32And if you survived, you have certain strength.
08:36But there are people who did not survive.
08:39That's why they did not allow journalists to Guantanamo be.
08:42They allow now the highly orchestrated visit where they show you only what they want to show you.
08:48When Barack Obama came that he stopped torture, torture was already illegal.
08:55It was illegal during George W. Bush's time and after his time and today.
09:02But if you are powerful enough, you can torture people.
09:06And you can get away with it.
09:08You know what really kept me going?
09:10My saving grace, I contend, was the teaching of my grandma.
09:15My grandma always told me Muhammadu, Allah wants you always to be a kind person.
09:21So to protest my detention, there are two things I personally did.
09:28None of them worked.
09:30So I started with a hunger strike.
09:35And I did five days.
09:38And I stopped.
09:40Because I knew I couldn't continue.
09:43Because my plan was not to die.
09:46And it's painful.
09:48And the other thing I did, I refused to talk to my interrogators.
09:53They would ask me questions.
09:55Your name? No answer.
09:57Where are you from? No answer.
09:59I always would tell them in the beginning.
10:03You need to tell me why you kidnapped me.
10:07And I will talk to you.
10:09As long as you don't answer this question, I will not talk to you.
10:14And this was broken with torture.
10:18When they tortured me, I was talking like a bird, like a singing bird.
10:24I'm going to talk about the difference between my treatment through the FBI, CIA and the military intelligence.
10:36I'm tempted to say they are working together very closely.
10:41CIA, people who interrogated me in Guantanamo Bay, they did not present themselves.
10:46I only assumed they are CIA.
10:49But FBI would present themselves, this is my name and I'm FBI.
10:54But they give you fake name as it turned out.
10:57So Rob Seidler and Chris were my interrogators.
11:01Later on I learned that those are fake names.
11:04They never tortured me.
11:06But they told me if I don't talk to them, there is another team that would come and torture me.
11:12And I was so stupid.
11:14And I told them, bring it on.
11:16This is when Richard Zouli teams.
11:19Richard Zouli is a contractor.
11:21He started to bring his team and they started to torture me.
11:24And they brought me a letter from the Department of Defense.
11:31A letter said that they would kidnap my mother.
11:35They insinuate she would be also sexually assaulted.
11:41And they say, because I refused to confess to my crimes.
11:47And I lost it.
11:49I told them, I would confess to anything you want.
11:53I'm sorry, I was not cooperating.
11:57And so, early 2004 I wrote my confession.
12:01They told me to write my confession.
12:04And after I did that, two things happened.
12:08First, the good guys of the CIA with the necktie who don't torture people came to collect the fruits.
12:18Second thing what happened, I was designated for death penalty.
12:24And I remember the same guy who helped me write the confession.
12:29He came to me and said, you are now a death penalty case.
12:34I'm not a brave guy.
12:36But I wasn't scared.
12:40I had no feeling.
12:42I just was looking at him with his lips moving, explaining to me what death penalty means.
12:48Everybody will die.
12:50Everybody will die.
12:51I, you, your neighbor, everybody will die.
12:56But the fact that someone comes to you and looks into your eyes and says, I am going to kill you.
13:04And I'm starting the process to kill you.
13:07That's another level of dealing with our mortality.
13:13I wasn't thinking about death.
13:16I was thinking about all the things I regretted in my life.
13:22The thing unraveled in early 2005.
13:26In mid 2005, I received for the first time my American lawyers.
13:32And along with them, I was also assigned to a new prosecutor, Air Force Colonel Moe Davis.
13:40The government did not want me to go to any court.
13:43They did not allow me to go to their periodic review.
13:47And they made this kangaroo court, what they call CSRT, Combat Review Tribunal, something like that.
13:56And then nothing.
13:58In 2009, my lawyer succeeded to get a hearing.
14:04And I testified in the hearing.
14:06I wasn't allowed to go to court.
14:08I could only do through computer connection, video call, because I was not allowed to go to the U.S.
14:15In 2010, I received the decision of the judge.
14:20He said there is no evidence to hold Mohamedou.
14:24And he ordered my release.
14:27And then I was stuck in the system.
14:29Four years after that, they allowed me to go to a PRB.
14:35This is a periodic review board set up by Obama administration.
14:39I stayed seven long years in prison after I was declared innocent.
14:46The dilemma of Guantanamo Bay, the only way out is if you had committed crime.
14:53Because they could say, he did commit this.
14:55We can convict him.
14:57And then he can get out.
14:59But you didn't commit anything.
15:01You've seen too much.
15:03You know.
15:04And then you are unreleasable.
15:06It's later when my government told me, when they asked the U.S. government for my release,
15:11they told them he's unreleasable.
15:16When you come to the prison, as soon as you enter the door, you are mine.
15:25I will explain to you.
15:26Of course, you are escorted and you go inside.
15:29And then you will go to the next gate.
15:31At least you have to go through fourth gate in order to get to my area.
15:36And then after that, you have to go inside a building.
15:39That's a door.
15:40And then inside that building, there is a cell inside that building.
15:44So it's like a maze.
15:48The cell, where six by eight, there is a metal bed, which is part of the cell.
15:56There is a hole and a sink.
15:59In the middle of the door, there is a bean hole through which they give you food.
16:05In the beginning, during the torture program, there is no, you don't leave the cell.
16:10The interrogation is inside.
16:12But when the torture program died down, I had the right to go outside, outside the cell, of course.
16:21The rec yard was five meters by five.
16:27There is like a perimeter, very long wall, snap screen, they call it.
16:33It's 15 years.
16:34I never saw the sun rise or sun goes down.
16:39Never.
16:4015 years.
16:41Sometime I climb, try to climb a little bit, but I never made it to see the sun rise or the sunset.
16:49Cross-talk, meaning talking to a detainee, you are not allowed to talk to.
16:54That happened actually.
16:56It was not allowed to talk to a detainee from another block.
17:01When the detainee is with you, you can talk to them because he's next to you.
17:06But when a detainee is another block, you cannot shout and communicate with them.
17:11If you are under interrogation, like in my case, there is no way for you to talk to anyone anyway.
17:18You are inside the cell.
17:25Do you know how much it costs to operate Guantanamo?
17:28Like how much it costs to keep somebody there?
17:30The information I got consistently from the people who spoke to me in Guantanamo Bay,
17:36either interrogators or guards, is about $1 million per month.
17:42It's crazy because this is a very big business.
17:45If you have good contract with the government, they send it to Guantanamo Bay,
17:50let's say to provide clothes.
17:54We have no clothes, just a uniform.
17:56And then they bring like almost slave labor, like they call them TCN,
18:02third country national, mostly from the Philippines and Jamaica.
18:08Those are the people who do the heavy lifting of cooking, cleaning and driving stuff around.
18:16They also are the builders.
18:17So those big companies, prison companies, very big establishment in the U.S.,
18:23they come, get very fat contracts in Guantanamo Bay,
18:27and then employ like Jamaicans and Filipinos.
18:31This is something I saw with my eyes.
18:33Of course, I did not ask them what they paid them,
18:36but the guards, they joke about them.
18:39They call them one buck a day because of their names.
18:42A guard is paid the same thing whether he was in Guantanamo or in Iraq.
18:50It's very public because you are paid based on your rank,
18:54and that's very known, something you can go online and see it.
18:59I think this is only like a shot in the dark.
19:03I think most money goes to intelligence contractors,
19:09like psychologists who can sit with you and tell them how to break a detainee,
19:15not even the FBI or the CIA, like contractors.
19:19They call it the sliding door.
19:22So it's a very corrupt system.
19:25So if you are an FBI agent, you are 15, you work 10 years, 15 years,
19:30you say goodbye, I'm leaving.
19:34You come back knocking, you say now I want to be a contractor.
19:38And then there when you make the real money,
19:41and that's where the money in Guantanamo Bay is.
19:44The guard's job is to keep you imprisoned safely.
19:49If you are sick, they call the medics.
19:51They serve your food because you cannot serve yourself.
19:55And they keep you incarcerated.
19:57If you try to run away, they force you inside yourself.
20:02If you become irate, they will put you in chains.
20:07I remember this guard, they told me to clean their room.
20:11I want to clean their room because I want to spy to see what they are doing.
20:16So they were lazy.
20:18His name is Edmund.
20:20How do I know his name?
20:22Even though they were like hiding their names,
20:25they told me, come clean our space.
20:28I said, this is my opportunity.
20:30After I'm done, he gave me one Pepsi.
20:34So then we started like the relationship.
20:39You know, I'm like the slave.
20:41This is the privilege of to be nobody.
20:47You know, I was important in my family, important in my country.
20:52But now I was nobody.
20:54Anyone can beat me.
20:55No one respects you.
20:57Anyone can order you around.
20:59Steve Wood, whom I met for the first time in 2004,
21:05came to my cell.
21:07And he asked me to drink a cup of coffee with him.
21:10He was the sergeant of the guards.
21:12He asked me whether I can play card games.
21:15Then I said, he just teach me.
21:17And he taught me Rami.
21:19And then I, you know, start smoking him.
21:22He says in his story that he smoked me, but I smoked him.
21:28And now we are friends.
21:30He came to visit me two times in Mauritania.
21:34One time in the Netherlands.
21:36You know, and I'm the godfather of his daughter, Summer.
21:40He's the godfather of my son, Ahmed.
21:42And Steve and I are working to make the world a better place
21:47through understanding, dialogue, and freedom.
21:57When I was captured, I was living and working in Mauritania.
22:04The backstory, why American intelligence was interested in me,
22:23was very simple.
22:25I received a phone call from my cousin,
22:30who was a friend of Hussam Bin Laden,
22:33using the phone of Hussam Bin Laden.
22:36Very legitimate call.
22:37Family call.
22:38He wants me to help his father, who was sick,
22:42held in the hospital.
22:44That was it.
22:45And I was completely, you know, blissfully unaware.
22:51And from that moment on, completely not to my knowledge,
22:57I was being fallout.
22:59And, of course, later on, my family talked to my cousin
23:04what went on when this was public.
23:06He said, I did not use the phone of Hussam Bin Laden.
23:11He said that.
23:12And I tend to believe him.
23:14And then 9-11 happened.
23:16And several weeks after 9-11, I was with my mother.
23:20I just finished working.
23:23Back then, I was a programmer and IT person.
23:27Back then, you have to code every single line on your own.
23:31And I had a very good living, you know, for Mauritania standards.
23:36I was taking care of my mother, taking care of my family,
23:39taking care of my sisters.
23:41And two police agents came in civilian clothes, plain clothes.
23:47They have this air of confidence, authority.
23:53There is no arrest warrant.
23:55They don't need an arrest warrant.
23:58They only need marching orders from the president,
24:03who received marching orders from the United States of America.
24:08I was kidnapped and taken to Jordan.
24:27So the United States of America asked Mauritania to arrest me.
24:32And they said, why you want him arrested?
24:35They said, because he did unspeakable crimes in relation to 9-11.
24:42Mauritania is a very small country.
24:43Back then, three million or two and a half million.
24:47So they took me to Jordan.
24:49And Jordan was a very well-oiled machine of CIA torture and disappearances.
24:57I wish I could tell the viewers here that I was brave
25:04or I wasn't scared.
25:06I was so scared I almost lost my mind.
25:11I was taken to Jordan where I stayed in darkness eight long months.
25:20I was beaten.
25:22I was made to listen to other people being tortured all night long.
25:27I spent almost a year in other black sites, namely in Jordan and Bagram,
25:38that is an American air base in Afghanistan.
25:40I never saw my mom again.
25:42And I could, to this day, the image of my mom in the rearview mirror is seared in my memory.
25:52She was praying frantically.
25:54She held her prayer beads and she was praying for my return.
25:59A return that never, never happened.
26:02Eleven years after that, in Guantanamo Bay, two officers came to me.
26:09And they told me, Mohamedou, your brother died and your mom too.
26:16And then my world collapsed.
26:21In Guantanamo Bay, especially for me, who was in isolation,
26:27you have to grieve inside yourself.
26:31You have to pray alone.
26:33And even so that you know,
26:36we were not allowed to have grieving counselor, an imam.
26:42And I remember them bringing me a priest.
26:47But not any priest, a black priest.
26:52And that's why I love American sense of humor,
26:56because they figured, okay, this guy is a Muslim.
27:00What a big difference could be between a Muslim and a black guy, black Christian.
27:05And this poor guy started reading from the Bible and so sweating.
27:11I said, dude, you don't have to do anything.
27:13You are free to go.
27:16And then they left.
27:18And then I started like, you know, punishing my body.
27:23And I stood up and sang the Quran 12 hours, six hours.
27:29And then I collapsed in my cell.
27:31And then later on, I woke up.
27:34And then I sang six hours.
27:37And I think after one or two days, I don't remember,
27:40they took me to the hospital.
27:42They put me on suicide watch because I was completely devastated.
27:48So I was in general population when I started to write my diaries.
28:01I did not have papers.
28:03I did not have a pen.
28:05But I did steal papers and pen from my neighbors who had the right to have them.
28:15I wrote in Arabic, in French, and in German at the same time.
28:20I did not write in English because my English was not good enough.
28:24And then in June, in 2003, when I was put in the program of torture,
28:29they took everything.
28:31They found everything.
28:32And then they deprived me of everything I wrote.
28:36I would wait until the end of 2005.
28:42And I was given the right to communicate with my lawyers.
28:46I could write them letters.
28:48I wrote the whole diary in eight weeks.
28:51I wrote very small.
28:52I wrote on both sides of the papers because I want to look small.
28:57I didn't want them to think, oh, he's writing a lot.
29:00Then I kept sending them, numbering them until I wrote everything.
29:05In Guantanamo Bay, there is no 100% privacy between me and my lawyer.
29:12So the government can see also the letters.
29:18So my lawyer can read my letter.
29:21She can close it and give it back to the government.
29:24The government said, we will not read it.
29:26Just put it there, but don't talk about it.
29:28But if my lawyer said, oh, this is good information.
29:31I'm taking this to my office and this could help me also my publicity.
29:40They said, you cannot take it from here.
29:43There is a room in DC just for our letters.
29:48If you take it, we have to read it.
29:50That's exactly what happens in my case.
29:53Because she saw this is very important material.
29:56I need to take it because this would prove his innocence.
30:00They read it.
30:01They said, we read it.
30:03It's bad.
30:04It's not going.
30:05And then it stays with them seven or eight years, between seven and eight years.
30:12They refusing, they were refusing to give it to my lawyer.
30:18And after a big battle, they took out a lot of it, heavily censored.
30:26They gave her a copy that is heavily censored.
30:292015, the heavy censored version was published.
30:34I was in prison.
30:36It was the first book ever written as a first account by a detainee in Guantanamo.
30:42I never forget that day.
30:44I was sitting, pretending to learn Spanish in my cell.
30:51And the first news item, I think, was my photo with my book.
30:57I felt free inside prison.
31:02Because when your story is out there, when your family knows,
31:06you never betrayed their values, the values you were raised on.
31:11That is when you feel free.
31:14When you know also the world is sympathizing with you.
31:20You know, because you are not a criminal.
31:24You know, you are being wrong.
31:28My book is called Guantanamo Diary.
31:32There is also a companion of the film with the same name, the Mauritania.
31:44I was released October 17th, almost nine years ago.
31:49I was released to Mauritania.
31:51I never forget that day.
31:52Never.
31:53I remember this Air Force captain, blonde.
31:58She stuck her head through the binhole.
32:03And she was smiling, the most beautiful smile.
32:06I never saw her before.
32:08She said, you know that you were going home?
32:10She was happier than I was.
32:12You know, that shows you character, you know.
32:16It shows you that the people, a lot of people who are working there,
32:20they really, they really were aware of the pain they were causing to families,
32:27to people who were incarcerated, you know, wrongfully.
32:31I remember what I had in my cell.
32:34I had a couple of DVDs of the show Two and a Half Men.
32:39And if you are watching that, you should be ashamed of yourself.
32:44And I had Shakespeare plays.
32:48I read them.
32:50I didn't understand jack .
32:53And they were just the thick book.
32:55Everybody who could see in my cell, Shakespeare plays,
32:59think that I'm a smart guy.
33:01And I had the photos of my family over the years.
33:05I was horrified to meet my family.
33:08I wouldn't recognize them.
33:11Because the kids I left two years, they are now 17.
33:18The person I left with 15 years is now 30 years of age.
33:24Faces changes.
33:27Then I would look at the photos and test myself.
33:30Photo after photo.
33:32And then write the names on the back side.
33:35Just like, you know, those training cards, you know.
33:39I was released to Mauritania.
33:41The first things I did, first I walked very long.
33:46I went to the dunes.
33:47I went to see the sunset, like looking straight at Guantanamo Bay.
33:51Because the only thing that separates Mauritania from Guantanamo Bay is the sea.
33:56I could look straight at Guantanamo Bay and watch the sunset.
34:01And I ate chebujan, one of our national dishes.
34:05It's really good.
34:07Like rice with fish.
34:10Very spicy.
34:12I drank Mauritanian tea.
34:15Life's good.
34:16Life's good.
34:17Life's good.
34:18I'm telling you.
34:19I don't know how to explain freedom to people who never lost their freedom.
34:25Because it's very hard.
34:27I couldn't sleep for nights.
34:30And I remember for the first time I had a phone.
34:35And then like the whole world opens.
34:40And I would watch YouTube over and over and over.
34:47Useless videos.
34:49Completely no life.
34:51What I'm doing now, I won the Peace Prize of the Netherlands.
34:56I have my own consultancy company in the Netherlands.
35:01I live now in Rotterdam.
35:05Actually it's called Rotterdam.
35:08Every day I walk the street.
35:11And I never forget like almost four years ago when I came to the country for the first time.
35:17The biggest lesson.
35:19Kindness.
35:20To be kind to everyone.
35:22And learning.
35:23Because learning English in prison saved my life.
35:27People start talking to me.
35:28Understanding me.
35:29I start expressing stuff to them.
35:31I want to repeat that in the Netherlands.
35:34And my first day I start speaking the language.
35:38I integrated so quickly.
35:40And I went and I did all the tests.
35:43And I passed the test.
35:46And then I was like granted the citizenship.
35:51And it was so much easier to travel with a Dutch passport.
35:58I'm banned from visiting the US for life.
36:01And that's a win-win situation by the way.
36:03I'm not planning anytime soon to go there.
36:12Guantanamo Bay was established by the former president George W. Bush.
36:21Through authorization to use military force.
36:25Because of what they called pre-emptive strike doctrine.
36:33Or something like that.
36:34What does it mean?
36:35If you watch movies.
36:38It means something like minority report on steroids.
36:44Meaning that the president want to the people with power.
36:49Like military, CIA, FBI tell them.
36:52I don't want you to take criminals and put them on trial.
36:56I want to take people who would be criminal and arrest them.
37:01So there is no crime.
37:03About 900 people were taken to Guantanamo Bay.
37:08More people died in Guantanamo Bay than people were convicted.
37:13Those are some of the cases we know happened.
37:18Because they were revealed.
37:20But there are people who died and we do not know about them.
37:24They just disappeared.
37:26If you come to Guantanamo Bay as someone who is not a prisoner.
37:30Then you will see a sign that says Guantanamo Bay.
37:34JTF, which is Joint Task Force.
37:37JDG, Joint Detention Group.
37:41Honor bound to defend freedom.
37:44Why should you convince anyone that you are a person of honor and that your duty is to defend freedom?
37:54And why should it be in the most infamous, notorious prison, arguably in the world?
38:03As of January, there are 15 people in Guantanamo Bay.
38:08And we are only talking about people in Guantanamo Bay.
38:12We never talk about the families of people in Guantanamo Bay.
38:16We never talk about the families of the people who lost their loved one on 9-11.
38:22Where is justice for those people?
38:26How long is going to take some of them passed on?
38:32Never seen a justice.
38:33Never looking at the face of the person or the persons who killed their loved ones in cold blood.
38:41I know detainees because I belong to the network of former detainees.
38:48One detainee, two nights ago, texted me and said he is very cold.
38:55He is living in a place that is very cold and he doesn't have money to buy food.
39:01He doesn't have money to buy a blanket.
39:04And we had to start a razor for him to buy him a blanket and something to hit.
39:13The U.S. government is shifting more and more toward abandoning the values of democracy
39:21and going more to authoritarianism.
39:26Guys, I grew up in a military dictatorship.
39:29I know dictatorship when I see one.
39:33Masked Asians without arrest warrant who take people away from their neighborhood,
39:39that's not a democracy.
39:40Now they're doing it on the mainland of the United States of America.
39:44If you allow this, now they will go for the citizen.
39:48I am part of a campaign to close Guantanamo Bay, specifically the U.K. campaign.
39:55We need more voices because Guantanamo Bay is very symbolic.
40:01Guantanamo Bay is not in Russia.
40:03It's not in some faraway dictatorship.
40:06It's under the color and authority of the United States of America.
40:10Rule number one, the U.S. government never makes mistakes.
40:15There is no accountability.
40:17There was no accountability during the war crime in Vietnam.
40:21And there is no accountability during the war in Iraq or in Afghanistan, etc., etc.
40:28And I did not ask for anything.
40:30I forgave the United States of America.
40:33I forgave the people who did all of this to me.
40:36And I did this for myself.
40:39.
40:44.
40:55.
41:02.
41:04.
41:09You
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