A Nobel Effort by Chad?

Amongst all the fallout from President Obama’s Nobel Prize win, my favourite is the recent suggestion by a Chadian Minister that the Norwegians made a mistake.

Rather sycophantically, Environment Minister Ali Souleymane Dabye went on to say that President Idriss Deby, who has ruled Chad for 19 years, should have beaten President Obama in the race for the Nobel.

The comment was greeted with mirth by many Chadians, and a mischievous Cameroonian journalist, the aptly named Innocent Ebodé of the Voix du Tchad, likened such a competition to a race between Olympic world-record-holder Usain Bolt and a one-legged runner. The joke obviously fell flat at the N’Djamena Presidence, as Ebode was promptly expelled from Chad.

You may not know very much about Chad, a landlocked country in Central Africa. I have to admit that I didn’t until I began working with my colleagues here at Reprieve to assist one of our clients, Mohammed El-Gharani, who having been captured aged just 14, was released to Chad from Guantanamo Bay in June this year.

Mohammad was born in Saudi Arabia but is the son of Chadian migrants. He won his freedom in court before a Bush appointed judge who had ruled that Guantánamo prisoners had no right to a day in court at all. He then waited a further 6 months before being released to Chad, a country he had never been to before. Since landing in N’Djamena he has been detained inexplicably for 8 days, has had travel restrictions placed on him that mean he is not permitted to leave the capital, has been refused an ID card and passport and faced intimidation and harassment. More worryingly he cannot access the specialist medical care that after seven years of incarceration and ill treatment he so desperately needs.

It seems that it is the Nobel Peace Prize wannabe, President Deby, who is blocking Mohammed’s attempts to receive documentation and access medical care. Perhaps Innocent gave Deby too much credit in likening him to a one legged runner? At present he does not seem to be in the race at all.