The last of the detainees from X-camp in the backwaters of the United States is finally home. Saifullah Paracha, arrested from Thailand in 2003 on allegations of funding Al Qaeda, was never charged with a crime but spent more than 19 years in detention. This is a blot on human conscience, and Guantanamo prison simply amplified American imperialism in the new era. The Pakistan-born legal resident of New York was approved for release in 2021, years after the condemned facility was closed, but never made his way home. This simply proved how tedious is the process of international law, and the inherent bias and callousness that cajoles life to a hell.
Paracha’s incarceration is in need of being studied. Surely, a great injustice was done by the United States as it went wild to penalise all and sundry in the wake of the 9/11 tragedy, and hardly exhibited any rationality. The 73-year-old former businessman throughout the years pleaded not guilty, but with no recourse to a proper trial or justice in the notorious prison.
The world witnessed horrible retribution in the backdrop of September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. The injustices of Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and Bagram are episodes of recent history. Iraq and Afghanistan were invaded, and millions were put to death or maimed for life. There are hundreds of Parachas who have tales to tell, as survivors of repressive state-centrism at the hands of the global champion of democracy.
It’s time to question the so-called security concerns due to which prisoners were not released — despite the fact that the charges against them were not proved. Holding them for years incommunicado was an open and shut irony of law as well as a blatant violation of human rights. A US Senate report in 2014 had documented how enhanced interrogation techniques on suspects led to travesty of justice. Waterboarding, rectal dehydration and physical pain by holding the detainee in prolonged periods of darkness, sleep deprivation and extraordinary beating are in need of being told. Time to shame the architects of Guantanamo and the Patriot Act.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 31st, 2022.
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