Guantánamo Boy -- lest we forget

Anna Perera’s novel Guantánamo Boy vividly depicts the horrors behind the bars of the detention facilities in Cuba – horrors that should by now be consigned to history. Sadly, they are as real as ever.

This Friday marks the first anniversary of President Obama’s failure to deliver on his promise of closing Guantanamo. Human rights campaigners around the world are left with a sense of hopelessness; no-one wants to believe that President Obama has let them down. 

The story for Guantánamo Boy was conceived at a human rights benefit event in 2006 where Clive Stafford Smith spoke about Guantánamo Bay's youngest inmates. Guantánamo is best described as a torture chamber where unimaginable nightmares come true. It is no place for a young boy. However, twenty-two inmates have been held there whilst under the age of sixteen. These inmates are not enemy combatants -- they are children. 

Anna was so moved by Clive speaking about these youths that she decided to write a novel about it. She hoped the book would convey the travesty of capturing a young teenager and branding him a terrorist.

Guantánamo Boy is narrated by a sixteen year-old from Rochdale named Khalid. Like any other British sixteen year-old, he enjoys playing football, hanging out with his mates and has a crush on an Irish girl named Niamh. However his life takes a fateful turn for the worst on a family trip to Karachi. Khalid was abducted and imprisoned in Pakistan and Afghanistan before being shackled, hooded and sent to Guantánamo Bay.

Khalid clings to the hope that justice will prevail. He believes that the Americans will realise they have made a mistake and will let him go, yet this never happens. It is not long before Khalid begins to break down mentally. This is particularly hard to read because, although the book is based on a fictional character, the fact is that this really happens to Reprieve's clients. 

Mohammed el Gharani was just 14 when he was arrested. He was accused of being an eleven year old member of an Al Qaeda cell in London, a city he had never even visited. After seven painful years of protesting his innocence, he was finally cleared for release in January 2009. 

The US military subjected Mohammed to no-touch torture techniques like sleep deprivation, repeatedly moving him from cell to cell to prevent him from resting, freezing conditions, strobe lights and loud music. Soldiers slammed Mohammed’s head to the floor, knocking out two teeth. An interrogator stubbed out his cigarette on Mohammed’s arm. Seven years which he can never get back were taken from Mohammed. He is now slowly beginning to rebuild his life but his time in Guantanamo will always haunt him.

Sadly, Guantanamo Boy is a fictional story based on the facts of today’s world. 

I don’t want to live in a world where a fourteen year old boy can be subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment, do you? That‘s why we must support the closure of Guantanamo Bay in any way we can