Background
Al Hajj was arrested in Pakistan on December 15, 2001. He was on his way to work in Afghanistan as a cameraman for Al Jazeera and had a legitimate visa. He was held as an "enemy combatant" at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp, with Guantanamo Internment Serial Number 345, and was the only journalist to be held in Guantanamo.
British human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith represented Al Hajj, and was able to visit him in 2005. According to Stafford Smith, Al Hajj had "endured horrendous abuse - sexual abuse and religious persecution" and that he had been beaten, leaving a "huge scar" on his face. Stafford Smith also said that Al Hajj had witnessed "the Quran being flushed down the toilet by US soldiers in Afghanistan" and "expletives being written on the Muslim holy book".
On November 23, 2005, Stafford Smith said that, during (125 of 130) interviews, U.S. officials had questioned Al Hajj as to whether Al Jazeera was a front for al-Qaeda.
Stafford Smith stated of his client that:
He is completely innocent. He is about as much of a terrorist as my granddad. The only reason he has been treated like he has is because he is an Al Jazeera journalist. The Americans have tried to make him an informant with the goal of getting him to say that Al Jazeera is linked to Al Qaida.Al Jazeera responded that Al Hajj reported his passport stolen in Sudan in 1999, and that anything done with the passport after that date was likely the work of identity thieves.
During Sami Al Hajj's time in captivity, Reporters Without Borders repeatedly expressed concern over his detention, mentioning Al Hajj in its annual Worldwide Press Freedom Index, and launched a petition for his release.
In January, 2007, Al Hajj and several other inmates went on hunger strike in protest of their treatment in Guantanamo, during which Al Hajj lost over 55 pounds. In response to the hunger strike, Al Hajj and the other inmates were force-fed. Al Hajj's hunger strike lasted 438 days until he was set free on 1 May 2008.
On April 18, 2007, the Sudanese Minister of Justice, Mohammad Ali Al-Marazi, condemned the United States' detention of Al Hajj. Al-Marazi called Al Hajj's detention an "illegal act", which ran counter to human rights. He claimed it exposed American claims of supporting human rights as "false".
When Alan Johnston, former Gaza Correspondent for the BBC, was abducted on 12 March 2007 in Gaza City by gunmen from the Army of Islam and held for 113 days, Sami Al Hajj made a plea to Johnston's captors to let the journalist go. Following his release, Johnston made a similar plea for the release of Al Hajj, being held by the United States Government in Guantanamo.
Read more about this topic: Sami Al-Hajj
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