News

The Newspaper

Archives

Press Releases

Subscribe

Advertise

Mailing list

Links

About us

What's on and where

Messages for
The Muslim News

Contact The Muslim News

The Muslim News on your PDA

Back to index

Issue 188, Friday 17 December 2004 - 5 Dhu al-Qa'dah 1425

Campaign to get Kuwaitis released from Guantanamo Bay

By Fazeelat Saleem

The parents of a Fawzi Al-Odah, one of 12 Kuwaiti detainees and over 500 others imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay prison camp without charge, were in London two weeks ago, to launch the Yellow Ribbon Campaign, demanding a fair trial for their son and 11 other Kuwaitis. Khalid and Suad Al-Odah spoke to The Muslim News in an exclusive interview to voice their concern over the treatment of their son, who has been imprisoned by the US military since 2001, and the impact Fawzi’s imprisonment has had on their lives.
“We believe Fawzi is innocent. All we want is for a fair trial. He is almost 27 years old now,” begins Khalid. “He is a University graduate in Islamic Law. He graduated from Kuwait in 1999, and was employed with the Kuwaiti Ministry of Islamic affairs as a teacher.”
Since 1996, as a high school student, Fawzi was keen on doing charitable work, and helped collect donation of up to 25,000 dinars to invest in local projects for poorer countries like Somalia, Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. On August 13, 2001, Fawzi embarked upon his usual yearly charitable work for approximately 3 months, to teach poor families and children the Qur’an and education in the remote villages near Peshawar, Pakistan.
Following 9/11, floods of refugees were fleeing the US invasion of Afghanistan, and Fawzi called his father to ask for an extension to his visit, to help the refugees cross the Afghan border into Pakistan in safety. Whilst helping the refugees, Fawzi realised that the borders between Afghanistan and Pakistan were closed; Fawzi and four other Kuwaitis tried to cross the border from Afghanistan, and sought the help of an Afghani tribal elder to help them. In the village of Parijinar, Kohat, the five Kuwaitis were unwittingly sold to the American forces by the same tribal leader in exchange for money, under the mediation of Pakistani armed forces, relates Khalid.
The five were then taken to Kohat jail, where they managed to smuggle a letter addressed to the Kuwaiti embassy through a guard, appealing for their Government’s help to get them released. The letter did not get to its destination. Khalid received a phone call from a Kuwaiti charity worker in Pakistan, who had found the letter with the names and telephone numbers of the families of those captured. “We immediately contacted the Kuwaiti Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who reacted very quickly,” says Khalid. “It was a grave situation; the officials were outside Kuwait. The Embassy sent someone to Kohat, but by the time they got there it was too late. They had been shipped to Qandahar prison in Afghanistan.”
On February 8, 2002, Khalid and Suad received a letter from their son, a month after it had been written. “He said that ‘I am OK, don’t worry about me Father and Mother. I am in good health. I am now in the custody of the American forces. They will start interrogating and investigating me, and soon I will prove my innocence. I will be back in no time.” Nine days later, on February 17, 2002, Fawzi was moved to Guantanamo Bay prison camp. The last letter they received from him was dated November 30, 2002.
Upon learning of the Kuwaitis being detained, Khalid and Suad contacted the other families and created a committee to campaign for the rights of the detainees to a fair impartial trial to be held in the US, not in a partial military court. The committee established a strategy for the campaign: put pressure on the Kuwait Government to open diplomatic and political channels with the US, to be modern, and work in a language the Western world would understand. “We don’t want to attack the US Government or our Government or anybody else. We just want to say this: ‘Ok, you have these boys: give them the chance to defend themselves in an impartial judicial trial. Otherwise set them free’.”
As part of the strategy, Khalid and Suad, along with the families of the 11 other Kuwaiti prisoners, successfully filed a lawsuit entitled ‘Al-Odah v US Government’ in August 2002, demanding a fair trial for the detainees in the US. The case proceeded onto the U.S Supreme Court, who ruled in favour of the Al-Odah family in June 2004, stating that “the Guantanamo prisoners have fundamental habeas corpus rights.” The United States Supreme Court declared that the Guantanamo detainees were entitled to a trial, and that their fundamental rights were being compromised. These rights have been understood to cover US citizens and non-citizens and the Court has ruled that, even if Guantanamo Bay were to be understood as a foreign soil, all rights would still apply.
During this period, the Kuwaiti Government was “morally, financially and politically supportive”, but says Khalid, “Kuwait, as a small country, cannot exert much pressure on the US. I don’t believe it though. I think Kuwait could do much more than they are doing. We are not fully satisfied with what they are doing but if you compare Kuwait with other governments, they are doing OK.”
“The relationship between Kuwait and the US is very strong, and I think the Americans should appreciate that when the American forces invaded Iraq, they used Kuwaiti soil as a platform to launch their attack. The Kuwaitis couldn’t refuse…It shows how weak and helpless you are, when your Government can’t refuse the will of another.”
Government support was particularly generous after the Al-Odah case was endorsed by the US Supreme Court. “The Kuwaiti Government kept saying it would not succeed. We proved the Government analysts wrong.”
Despite the judgement however, the US Government has thus far failed to comply with the Supreme Court rulings.
“We were very happy, we thought this was the beginning of the end in reaching our loved ones,” says Khalid. “But we discovered that the Americans were so troubled they did not comply with this decision - they tried to get around it. Now we are still circling the federal courts to get a decision, even the right to meet the Kuwaitis in Guantanamo without being monitored.”
When Fawzi was captured, his mother, Suad, believed he would be back very soon. Now, after three years, she cannot understand why her eldest son, who once accompanied his beloved, ailing grandmother to the US for medical treatment, has been taken away from her, without reason or explanation. “This is the 21st century. How can a son just disappear like that?” asked Suhad, sobbing. “I cannot talk to him, I don’t receive any letters from him….why? After 9/11, we could understand some of the American rage, but it has to end somewhere. It cannot go on like this.”
“The most difficult moment for me,” sighs Khalid, “is when I come home from outside and see Suad sitting in a corner and weeping. Sometimes she can’t speak. Once I woke up in the middle of the night and I couldn’t find her beside me. So I searched for her and found her in Fawzi’s room, sleeping on his bed. She kept saying ‘we need to have life inside his bedroom, we can’t abandon his room’.”
For the US, Fawzi and the other detainees are seen as suspected enemy combatants. For the family and numerous supporters of the 27-year-old, Fawzi is a victim. Fawzi al-Odah, a young Muslim, who “set out to follow the Sunnah (practice) of the Prophet and help mankind through charity, is being rewarded for his deeds with illegitimate imprisonment and US brutality.”
For more information:
www.kuwaitifreedom.org