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Guantanamo Bay Quotes

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Guantanamo Bay Quotes

“According to our faith, we're all created for a single reason, which is to worship Allah. One way to worship is how you handle hardship and dilemmas in your life. Life on this earth is a test for us, and we should expect anything, even the worst hardships, in our test. At the same time, nothing happens without Allah's permission; nothing moves without Allah's will. If we were at Guantánamo, He had willed it and we would leave when He willed it. But we had free will to choose our path while here.”

InspirationMotivationReligionFaithPrisonIslamMuslimGuantanamo BayDon T Forget Us HereMansoor Adayfi
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“How do you do it?'' one of the nicer guards asked me one day through the interpreter. ''How do you not lose your mind with loneliness? How do you starve yourself? How do you survive without wanting to die?'' ''Allah,'' I said and then tried to explain to him about my faith and the belief that all of this was Allah's wish. For years, the interrogators, Miller, the revolving door of colonels had desensitized us to the violence of our daily lives. They hit us so much that we no longer felt the pain of the punch. There was something bigger at work protecting us, something beyond our capabilities, and that kept us alive without losing our minds. This was Allah's Mercy, and we all felt it there. We couldn't survive without Allah's help.”

InspirationMotivationReligionFaithPrisonIslamMuslimGuantanamo BayDon T Forget Us HereMansoor Adayfi
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“Islam is a practical religion that's woven into the fabric of our daily life. General Miller, this head of interrogations, the interrogators and psychologists all failed to understand the depth and strength of our faith. Yes, we were physically weak, we were beaten, and they would beat us more, but our strength was in our hearts, and our hearts were driven by our faith and trust in Allah. We couldn't be bought with promises of riches.”

InspirationMotivationReligionFaithPrisonIslamMuslimGuantanamo BayDon T Forget Us HereMansoor Adayfi
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“After so many years of interrogations, I had learned that praying and reciting the Qur'an completely shut off all my senses so that I didn't hear, I didn't see, I didn't feel anymore. I just existed in the moment but outside the moment. Interrogators could talk for hours. They could do all kinds of horrible humiliating things to me and they did. But it didn't matter anymore.”

InspirationMotivationReligionFaithPrisonIslamMuslimGuantanamo BayDon T Forget Us HereMansoor Adayfi
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“I thought about all the moments we had experienced in this place that no one knew about. But I didn't want the world to just know about all the bad things that had happened to us. I wanted them to see who we were and how we had survived through friendship and brotherhood.”

WritingFriendshipHuman RightsMemoirBrotherhoodWar CrimesGuantanamoHuman Rights ViolationsGuantanamo BayTelling Your Story
Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
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“Passei a ter alucinações e a ouvir vozes claras como cristal. Ouvi minha família numa conversa informal da qual eu não conseguia participar. Ouvi a leitura do Corão numa voz celestial. Ouvi música de meu país. Mais tarde, os carcereiros usaram essas alucinações e começaram a falar com vozes de chacota através do encanamento, incentivando-me a agredir os carcereiros e armar um plano de fuga. Mas não me enganaram, mesmo quando eu fazia o jogo deles. “Ouvimos alguém — talvez um gênio!”, diziam eles. “Sim, mas eu não estou ouvindo”, eu respondia. Só sabia que estava à beira de perder o juízo. Comecei a falar sozinho. Por mais que tentasse me convencer de que não estava na Mauritânia, de que não estava próximo de minha família e portanto não poderia ouvi-la conversando, eu continuava ouvindo vozes permanentemente, dia e noite. Assistência psicológica estava fora de questão, como também assistência médica de verdade, além do imbecil que eu não queria nem ver.”

Guantanamo BayTorturaPrisãoPrivação Sensorial
Author:Mohamedou Ould Slahi
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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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“To overcome extremism, we must also be vigilant in upholding the values our troops defend – because there is no force in the world more powerful than the example of America. That is why I have ordered the closing of the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and will seek swift and certain justice for captured terrorists – because living our values doesn't make us weaker, it makes us safer and it makes us stronger.”

WorldAmericaCertainValuesForceJusticePowerfulExampleOvercomingStrongerTerroristTroopsClosingExtremismCapturedVigilantOur TroopsDetentionGuantanamoGuantanamo Bay
Author:Barack Obama
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“I believe the United States of America must remain a standard bearer in the conduct of war. That is what makes us different from those whom we fight. That is a source of our strength. That is why I prohibited torture. That is why I ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed. And that is why I have reaffirmed America's commitment to abide by the Geneva conventions. We lose ourselves when we compromise the very ideals that we fight to defend.”

BelieveDifferentWarStatesAmericaFightingI BelieveLosesUnitedUnited StatesSourceStandardsCommitmentIdealsPrisonCompromiseTortureConventionsUnited States Of AmericaGenevaGuantanamoGuantanamo BayGeneva Convention
Author:Barack Obama
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“There had been a free and open election in Haiti in the early 1990s and president Jean-Bertrand Aristide won, a populist priest. A few months later came the expected military coup - a very vicious military junta took over, of which the United States was passively supportive. Not openly, of course, but Haitians started to flee from the terror and were sent back and on towards Guantanamo Bay. Of course, that is against International Law. But the United States pretended that they were "economic refugees."”

StatesLawCoursesPresidentUnitedUnited StatesEconomicMilitaryMonthsElectionInternationalTerrorExpectedPriestsRefugeeSupportiveViciousHaitiInternational LawPopulistCoupsGuantanamoGuantanamo Bay
Author:Noam Chomsky
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“From Iraq to Guantanamo Bay, international standards and the framework of international law are being given less when they should be given more importance. I am pleased that the courts in the United States are beginning to review what has happened to those detained in Guantanamo Bay. Similarly in Iraq we need to bring our strategies back within the framework of international norms and law.”

NeedsShouldStatesLawGivenUnitedUnited StatesHappenedStandardsImportanceCourtStrategyInternationalIraqReviewsNormFrameworkInternational LawGuantanamoGuantanamo Bay
Author:Mary Robinson
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“Shouldn't the American leadership be addressing what is happening in America, with its domestic policies on racism, discrimination, illegal monitoring, solitary confinement, torture, Guantanamo Bay and any other social and political issues related to the American society not directly connected to Islam? American Muslims must speak out and be involved as well in international policies and, through their institutions, they should raise their voice. This is the way you serve the community.”

WayShouldWellsAmericaPoliticalSpeakSocialVoiceCommunityIssuesPolicyInvolvedRacismHappeningsRaisesInstitutionsIslamInternationalConnectedDiscriminationRelatedTortureIllegalSolitarySpeaks OutAmerican SocietyConfinementMonitoringGuantanamoPolitical IssuesSolitary ConfinementGuantanamo BayAmerican LeadershipDomestic Policy
Author:Tariq Ramadan
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“General Colin Powell shocked a lot of people in Washington by speaking out against President Bush's policies, saying that the world is beginning to doubt the moral basis of our fight against terrorism. That's what I think he said - it was hard to hear him because he was being hustled out of the room to his cell in Guantanamo Bay.”

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Author:Jay Leno
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