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WORD COUNT
586
MAY 14, 2008
“HAROLD AND KUMAR”
MOVIE NOT ALL MAKE-BELIEVE – Njambi Good
It seems Guantanamo
has become a punch line in mainstream pop culture. The most recent film
"Harold and Kumar: Escape from Guantanamo" is widescreen proof.
Through an ironic
series of mishaps on a flight to Amsterdam, two American friends are
mistakenly arrested for attempting to hijack a plane. They are labeled
as terrorists and immediately sent to the U.S.-controlled detention
facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The mishaps and
narrow-minded authorities that put Harold and Kumar in Guantanamo make
audiences laugh out loud. Yet even though the film trivializes, the
conditions of Harold and Kumar's detention—no charges for any known
crime, poor prison conditions, no right to notify family--are not such a
far cry from the stories of many men detained indefinitely.
Take German national
Murat Kurnaz, for example. He was abducted at the age of 19 by Pakistani
police and turned over to U.S. custody for a $3000 bounty. Kurnaz was
soon transferred to Guantanamo. Three years into his detention, he was
finally allowed to speak to his family. Kurnaz was later released; there
was no evidence that he had committed any crime.
Sami al Hajj, an Al-Jazeera
cameraman, was on assignment when he was taken into custody. He arrived
at Guantanamo in June 2002. Al Hajj reported being deprived of sleep for
more than 48 hours as part of his first interrogation. Yet even after
six years of detention, al Hajj was never charged with any crime. He was
finally released this May, after hundreds of letters were written to
U.S. authorities on his behalf by Amnesty International activists.
Unlike Harold and
Kumar--and even Murat Kurnaz and Sami al Hajj—many men don't leave
Guantanamo. Maher Rafat al-Quwari, for example, was traveling to obtain
identification papers from the United Nations when he was captured by
Afghani villagers. They promptly sold him to U.S. forces, after which he
was sent to Guantanamo. He reports being shackled in a squatting
position for hours, strangled and beaten. And although he was declared
eligible for release in February 2007, al-Quwari remains detained in
Camp 6, among the harshest of the detention facilities.
With such cases, it
is no wonder the detainees' hoods and orange jumpsuits have become the
global image associated with the Bush administration's human rights
violations in the war on terror. Since its creation, Guantanamo has
held more than 755 men from roughly 45 countries. Few have been charged
with a crime.
The United States is
rightly vilified for the conditions and treatment of detainees. Yet
Guantanamo is still open for business. It seems Harold and Kumar are not
the ones trivializing an important issue. It's the nation's highest
officials that make light of the United States’ reputation, morality and
safety by keeping Guantanamo in operation.
For these reasons and
more, the detention facility's closure is long overdue. Amnesty
International is launching a national tour of a Guantanamo prison cell
replica to provide a tangible glimpse into the life of a detainee. The
replica—complete with a steel toilet, florescent lights and frosted
windows—will visit cities throughout the country. Americans will have
their voices heard, either by videotaping their reactions to the cell to
be shared on youtube.com and tearitdown.org or by signing the global
petition to close Guantanamo.
While Harold and Kumar's detention is a comedy, the treatment of actual
detainees like Kurnaz, al-Quwari and al-Hajj is a crime. It is illegal
under U.S. and international law, and an affront to American values.
When will U.S. officials see that, and close Guantanamo?
--
Njambi Good is the
campaign director for Amnetsy International's Denounce Torture
Initiative. Founded in 1961, Amnesty International is a Nobel Prize
winning grassroots activist organization with over one-million members
world wide. -- www.amnesty-usa.org
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