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Attorneys React to Shocking Guantánamo Suicide
Letter Just Declassified and Released by The U.S.
First Guantánamo Suicide Letter Declassified by U.S. Government
Confirms Prior Accounts From Detainee: “Imprisoned, Tortured and
Deprived” for “No Reason or Crime Committed”
Click Here to Read Jumaa's
Suicide Letter In Full
Synopsis
In New York, onMarch 15, 2006, attorneys representing Guantánamo
detainees at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) reacted to
the first detainee suicide letter ever declassified by the U.S.
Government, blasting the Bush Administration for driving detainees
to suicide through indefinite detentions, mistreatment and torture
at the base. The shocking letter by Jumah Al Dossari, a Bahraini
national whose attorney found him hanging by his neck in a suicide
attempt at Guantánamo in October 2005, describes how the horrific
conditions of Jumah’s confinement and indefinite detention drove him
to try to take his own life. In his letter, Jumah seeks to make his
“voice heard by the world from the depths of the detention centers”
and implores the “fair people of America to look again at the
situation and try to have a moment of truth…”
"This disturbing new letter reveals a man brought to the brink of
self-destruction because of the government's inhumane policies of
indefinite detention and mistreatment - affecting hundreds of people
who have not been accused of a crime or even afforded the most basic
due process in court," said CCR Deputy Legal Director Barbara
Olshansky.
"Jumah's letter is a haunting reminder of the meeting I had with him
just before he slashed and hung himself. Jumah had repeatedly begged
us to get him out of isolation. Because our request to the court for
this relief was denied on technical grounds, we implored the
military to hold Jumah under more humane conditions, and we continue
to do so. Our grave fear is that if the military persists in denying
our requests, Jumah, who by the military's own count has tried to
kill himself ten times in U.S. custody, will not survive
Guantanamo," said Joshua Colangelo-Bryan of Dorsey & Whitney LLP,
co-counsel with the Center for Constitutional Rights for Jumah.
On March 22, 2006, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
will hear oral argument relating to the government's motion to
dismiss Jumah's case and those of all other Guantanamo detainees.
Posted 03/16/06
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