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Sami Al Haj
United States

An assistant cameraman with the Qatar-based TV station Al-Jazeera, he was arrested in Afghanistan on 15 December 2001 and was transferred to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay on 12 June 2002. There has been no trial. The Guantanamo Bay detainees are being held in an utterly illegal manner and do not enjoy the rights accorded to prisoners of war by the Geneva Conventions.

He has not been tried or sentenced. The US authorities consider him to be an “enemy combatant” on the grounds, which have never been established, that he ran a pro-terrorist website, engaged in arms trafficking, entered Afghanistan illegally and interviewed Osama Bin Laden. The US State Department is convinced there are links between Al-Jazeera and Al-Qaeda.

He emigrated to the United Arab Emirates where he worked for an import-export company. Soon after joining Al-Jazeera, he was sent to Afghanistan to cover the US air strikes in October 2001. Expelled from Kandahar by the Taliban, his TV crew pulled back into neighbouring Pakistan. After extending his visa, he set off for Afghanistan again on 15 December 2001 but was arrested the same day by the Pakistani security forces. Al-Jazeera said he was arrested on a warrant with his name but a different passport number.

After being held in the Pakistani border town of Chaman for 23 days, he was handed over to the US military on 7 January 2002. The same day, the Americans took him to their base at Bagram, in Afghanistan, and accused him of making Osama Bin Laden’s videos. After he categorically denied this, he was subjected to various forms of mistreatment including being deprived of food, beaten and exposed to the extreme winter temperatures. On 23 January 2002, the Americans sent him to Kandahar prison. He spent five months there, undergoing physical and psychological torture, until his transfer to Guantanamo Bay. The London-based Guardian newspaper reported that, on 26 September 2005, the US authorities offered to release him and give him a US passport if he agreed to spy on Al-Jazeera for them.

He was manacled and hooded during his transfer to Guantanamo Bay. His military escorts him hit him whenever he fell asleep. There has been no letup in this kind of treatment all the time he has been held. Locked in cages, forced to remain seated, exposed to the tropical sun, deprived of sleep, the Guantanamo Bay detainees have all reported being tortured during interrogation sessions - subjected to sexual abuse, beatings or solitary confinement in a room in which extremely loud music was played. Al-Haj has been questioned with the use of threats more than 130 times. He has a throat cancer that is not being treated, he is denied any contact with his family and he is psychologically broken. When his London-based lawyer, Clive A. Stafford-Smith, visited him, he spoke of a desire to commit suicide. In response to a petition by another prisoner’s lawyer, the US supreme court ruled on 29 June 2006 that it would be illegal to use special tribunals to try the Guantanamo Bay detainees. This decision does not unfortunately entail the closure of the camp, where a total of 450 detainees are being held.

Reporters Without Borders wrote to then US attorney general John Ashcroft on 20 September 2002 requesting an explanation for Al-Haj’s arrest and cautioning him against the State Department’s repeated hounding of Al-Jazeera. The letter did not get a reply. In February 2006, the organisation published a report entitled “Camp Bucca and Guantanamo: when America imprisons journalists.” An entire chapter was about the Al-Haj case. Keeping in close contact with Al-Haj’s lawyer, Reporters Without Borders has repeatedly called for his release and for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

Reporters Without Borders created a sponsorship system 16 years ago in which international news media are asked to adopt an imprisoned journalist. More than 200 news organisations throughout the world are currently supporting journalists by regularly urging the authorities to release them and by publicising their cases so they are not forgotten.



Dear Ambassador,

I would like to draw your attention to the case of Sami Al Haj, who was detained in Afghanistan from 15 December 2001 to 12 June 2002, when he was transferred to the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, where he is still held.To the best of my knowledge, he was simply exercising his right to freedom of expression, guaranteed by Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I therefore call on you to take steps to ensure his release.

Yours sincerely,



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