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Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

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Benjamin Stevenson

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“I helped negotiate the end to the hunger strike. I asked for better meals and time for rec. We got five extra minutes each week. I wasn't the general they thought I was--I wasn't even a leader--but I had found my role in this place: To feel the pain of others. To stick up for those who were beaten. And to try to make our lives better.”

AmericaLeadershipHuman RightsSolidarityHuman Rights ViolationGuantanamoGuantanamo BayWarm Crime
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“No one wanted to be a block leader because as soon as interrogators found out about them, they disappeared to interrogations and then to solitary confinement. The professor was smart and told brothers to make someone else block leader and he would advise them. So they asked me. I wasn't a leader. I wasn't an instigator. I was young and, like most men my age, I was still learning; I was clever, but not wise yet. I was just a simple tribal man who couldn't sit by and watch other men and boys get abused and mistreated.”

LeadershipHuman RightsSolidarityWar CrimesGuantanamoGuantanamo Bay
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“No no, please please Please stop it Is this ‘cause my last name bears the name of the prophet? I don’t know no Akbar I don’t know no Ahmad So why the hell are you tying my hands and tilting my head back? Me no sign up for this Cloth warm, over my face You cut to the chase Cruciform, torturous ways I’m biting my lips Spine chills, trying to be brave So this is the place Sign my will, death is my fate”

TortureDeath And DyingGuantanamoGuantanamo BayWaterboardingCruciformWaterboard
Book:Letter 19
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“In the beginning, some brothers could sea the sea if they stood on their sink and looked through their window. In the rec yard, I found that if I lay down on my stomach in the corner, I could tear away a tiny piece of green tarp covering the fence and steal glimpses of a turquoise sea. I told my brothers and soon many of us would lie down and spend our recreation time looking at the sea through that small secret window. Eventually the guards noticed the hole. "Why can I look at the sea?" I asked the watch commander when he caught me. "It's for your own safety and security," he said through an interpreter. I suspected he thought Osama bin Laden might land on the beach one day with an al Qaeda army and break us all out. America was supposed to be a smart country, but the things we believed made us question this.”

HumanityWar CrimesGuantanamoGuantanamo Bay
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“I remember explaining explaining what I saw to one brother who couldn't see the sea. "I see an endless body of blue," I said, "with a soul that courses through the Atlantic Ocean, the Mediterranean, and the Suez Canal, all the way to the Red Sea and the western coast of Yemen, where in the seaside town of Hudaydah, my father is at the market buying fish for a special meal. And when the tide comes in and the air is heavy with salt, my mind takes me straight to the port city of Aden and weekends I spent there with friends after high school. We'd lie on the beach and imagine our lives and the wives and families we would one day have.”

ConnectionWar CrimesGuantanamoThe SeaGuantanamo Bay
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“Bahr sang in Arabic, Pashto, Persian, and English, but even if our brothers or the guards didn't understand the words, his voice was enough to free us all from our caged lives, even if only for a moment. Music and poetry are the soul's languages, and when Bahr sang, all the blocks quieted down so they could listen. His voice and his songs carried with me into solitary confinement, where I listened to Bahr and the sea in my head.”

SingingGuantanamoThe SeaSolitary ConfinementHuman Rights ViolationsGuantanamo Bay
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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