witnesstoguantanamo
June 7, 2013
The ‘Witness to Guantanamo’ project is filming in-depth interviews with former detainees and other voices of Guantanamo, and archiving the videos for history. So far, the project has collected, preserved, and shared the experiences of former detainees and other witnesses at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center through over 100 filmed interviews in 14 countries.
Several former Obama supporters from the military express their dismay that the prison remains open and the prisoners within continue to languish without trial.
See more videos at http://witnesstoguantanamo.com.
ABOUT THE PROJECT
Shortly after September 11, 2001, Peter Jan Honigsberg, a law professor at the University of San Francisco School of Law, began teaching a class about the war on terror, international security, civil liberties and human rights. The questions raised by this class led him to travel to Guantanamo and also delve deeper into the issues. He published several articles and a University of California Press book entitled A Nation Unhinged: The Human Consequences of the War on Terror. In light of his experiences, his writings, his interactions with former detainees and their attorneys, and the public’s desire for information, Professor Honigsberg was compelled to establish the Witness to Guantanamo (W2G) project.
The project is currently conducting in-depth, filmed interviews with former detainees and other witnesses, such as prison guards, chaplains, medical personnel, prosecutors, habeas attorneys, high level government and military officials, FBI agents, interrogators, interpreters and family members of detainees. Witness to Guantanamo is the only project that is systematically filming and preserving these narratives in order to document the human rights abuses and rule of law violations that took place at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. By creating an archive of these videos, W2G will collaborate and partner with other projects around the United States and the world to educate the public and mobilize pressure to hold U.S. government officials and private actors accountable. W2G’s filmed narratives provide voice to former detainees and other witnesses so they can share their personal and poignant stories.
The project’s methodology reflects the Shoah (“catastrophe”) model. After some groups denied the reality of the Holocaust, director Steven Spielberg began filming video accounts of the experiences of survivors. Over 52,000 Holocaust survivors have told their personal stories and the collection is now archived at the University of Southern California (USC) Shoah Foundation Institute for Visual History and Education.
All the interviews will be translated into English and transcribed to reach the broadest audience possible. It is our intent that the video archive grow into an invaluable resource for present and future generations of activists, scholars, historians, journalists, students, documentarians, lawyers, former detainees and the general public. Eventually, individuals will be welcome to apply to use the interviews to support qualitative and quantitative social science research; select footage for documentary and other media-related projects; create educational units on Guantanamo for elementary through graduate school students; and inform and educate the public. The diverse potential uses of the archive will be limited only by the imagination.
Detainees Interviewed:
Feroz Ali Abbasi
Salahidin Abdulahat
Ahmed Adil
Ruhal Ahmed
Zakirjan Asam
Saad Madi Saad al Azmi
Jamil El-Banna
Akhtar Qasem Basil
Moazzam Begg
Brahim Benchakroun
Mourad Benchellali
Haj Boudella
Lakhdar Boumediene
Tarek Dergoul
Mamdouh Habib
Sami Al Hajj
Rafiq Al Hami
Nageeb Al Hosani
Mustafa Ait Idir
Jalil Jalaldin
Kasimbenov Kamaliddin
Abdullah Kamel Abudallah Kamel
Imad Kanouni
Murat Kurnaz
Adel Zamel Abd al Mahsen al Zamel Kuwaiti
Saber Lahmar
Arkin Mahmud
Bahtiyar Mahmut
Khalil Mamut
Mohammed Mazouz
Ben Moujane Mohamed
Aouzar Mohammed
Ayub Muhammed
Khaled Ben Mustafa
Adel Noori
Abubakir Qasem
Abdul Ghabbar Abdul Rahman
Shafiq Rasul
Bisher al Rawi
Chekkour Redoune
Souleimane
Ahmed Tourson
Brahim Yadel
Other Witnesses Interviewed:
Rushan Abbas
Lt. Col. Stephen Abraham
Gen. John Adams
Khalid Al-Odah
Christopher Arendt
Sean Baker
Col. Tom Berg
Felice Bezri
Marion (Spike) Bowman
Lt. Col. Yvonne Bradley
David Brant
Jennifer Bryson
Robert Buehn
Erwin Chemerinsky
Jim Clemente
Lt. Col. Geoffrey Corn
Damien Corsetti
Col. Morris Davis
Mark Denbeaux
Matt Diaz
Dennis Edney
Lt. Col. David Frakt
Michael Gelles
Candace Gorman
Adm. Donald Guter
Gitanjali Gutierrez
Maha Habib
Jonathan Hafetz
Bev Hicks
Terry Hicks
Terry Holdbrooks
Kristine Huskey
Stephen Kenny
Daniel Lakemacher
Estela Lebron
Frank Lindh
Joseph Margulies
George Brent Mickum
Alberto Mora
Emile Nakhleh
Brandon Neely
Vijay Padmanabhan
Michael Ratner
David Remes
Carol Rosenberg
Albert Shimkus
Clive Stafford Smith
Alfred Souza
Manuel Supervielle
Kent Svendsen
William Howard Taft IV
Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld
Lt. Col. Colby Vokey
Marilyn Walker
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson
Tom Wilner
Stephen Xenakis
James Yee
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