by Lynn Feinerman

Contrary to the claims of President Obama in his recent state of the union address, news reports assert that the US is still torturing. Anand Gopal’s recent article in the Nation magazine reveals the existence of many secret field sites in Afghanistan where torture is continuing apace, while the US maintains a somewhat cleaner game in Bagram Air Base.

And while the US courts have blocked torture survivors like Maher Arar in their efforts to sue the US government for damages, and the Obama justice department has swept all the crimes against humanity of the Bush years under the rug, a sinister blowback of this “war on terror” is creeping into the US itself.

An estimated 50,000 prisoners are kept in solitary confinement in the United States. No other nation in the world comes close to isolating that many prisoners. Most nations have opted to phase out solitary confinement from their prison policies and programs. But the use of it in the United States has skyrocketed in the past couple of decades.

In addition, the United States has arrogated to itself the right to tighten restrictions on the lives of prisoners in solitary confinement — through legislation like the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act passed during Clinton’s presidency. Also during Clinton’s presidency, the US government established the application of what it dubbed Special Administrative Measures — now called “SAM”s — which the Center for Constitutional Rights has described as draconian. The Bush regime embraced SAMs like they were old cronies.

An example of the draconian use of SAMs is the imprisonment of 28-year-old Fahad Hashmi, who has been held in a federal prison in Manhattan for nearly three years, without a trial. Fahad Hashmi is kept under 23-hour solitary lockdown — every day of the year. For the one hour he’s allowed into a small, cage-like space to exercise, he is also kept alone. His every movement in his cell is monitored on videotape, he is not allowed to move in ways that the prison personnel don’t want — and he has not been allowed to speak freely within his own cell. For almost three years.

Recently on DEMOCRACY NOW!, Dr. Atul Gawande, a physician and surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a teacher at Harvard University, spoke about medical research into the effects of solitary confinement on prisoners, hostages and detainees. Researchers did brain scans and found that people who have sustained head injuries have the same scan indications as people in solitary confinement for long periods. Said Dr. Gawande on air, “…The science of what happens to people deprived of social contact is they have to fight for their sanity. And many lose their sanity. That…. led me to ask the question, is solitary confinement, the way we’re practicing it now, torture?”

Fahad Hashmi’s brother Faisal, who sees Fahad only in Fahad’s rare court appearances, said on DEMOCRACY NOW!, “From the court interactions where we see him in court, he looks like a shell of the person that he was before. He looks frail, and he looks jittery. As you can imagine, people cannot stand solitary confinement for a day or two days or three days. He’s been in solitary, straight solitary confinement, ahead of his trial for two and a half years without having a conviction, because the government says so.” It’s now almost three years.

I, personally, wonder if Fahad is “jittery,” as his brother notes, because he is being drugged without his knowledge or consent. Suffice it to say that the treatment of Fahad Hashmi undermines his fundamental human rights, and goes counter to the basic and historic US legal assumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty. Without any trial, Fahad Hashmi is being treated as if he is guilty. And even if he could be proven guilty, Hashmi’s tightly controlled solitary confinement constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. It is torture.

In his book Oath Betrayed: America’s Torture Doctors, M.D. Steven H. Miles reports that Donald Rumsfeld appointed a Defense Department working group to develop interrogation techniques for Guantanamo, and Rumsfeld approved many of their recommended techniques, including isolation. Rumsfeld commented that some nations might view the techniques as inhumane or as violations of the Geneva Conventions, but then maintained that “provisions of the Geneva Convention are not applicable” to Guantanamo detainees.

The extreme isolation Fahad Hashmi is suffering is not happening in Guantanamo, Cuba, but in Manhattan. The US is using the methods of torture in our prisons. This practice is a very serious breach of our Constitution, and of our human rights as US citizens.

I remind readers that out of 1,000 detainees at Guantanamo, only 2 — yes, only 2 have been convicted of any sort of wrongdoing. This fact is often lost under the hysteria and witch-hunt fear mongering prevalent in our nation post-9/11. “Authorities” want US citizens not to care how suspects are treated — if they can be labeled “terrorists” against the US. So, let’s look at the alleged charges against Fahad Hashmi.

Fahad Hashmi is being charged with providing material support to Al Qaeda because he allowed one Junaid Babar to stay in his London apartment for two weeks, while Fahad was pursuing a Masters degree in international relations there. Junaid Babar allegedly delivered rain ponchos and waterproof socks to Al Qaeda, was arrested on terror charges, then turned government informant and implicated Fahad. There appears to be no direct evidence of Fahad having met with Al Qaeda, or of his having delivered any material support to any other activist groups considered by the US to be terrorist.

It is unclear whether Fahad Hashmi was connected to Al Qaeda at all. But significantly, during his studies for his bachelor’s degree in the US, Fahad Hashmi was outspoken against US foreign policy, and belonged to a New York activist group called Al Muhajiroun. That group is not designated a terrorist group. However, Fahad was quoted by CNN at a 2002 meeting, calling the US the “biggest terrorist in the world.” Could it be that Fahad has been placed in the torture conditions of solitary confinement in Manhattan because he expressed his opinions of US policy, publicly? Is the US imprisoning Hashmi for his political views, and trying to brainwash him? If so, then the government is also assaulting our Constitutionally protected free speech.

Perhaps the only thing that can be concluded with certainty about the Fahad Hashmi case, at this time, is that Fahad Hashmi is correct, the US is squarely among the most prominent state sponsors of torture. And as torture is a form of terrorism, the US is at least one of the biggest terrorists in the world.

Pastor Martin Niemoller famously said about the Nazi/fascist era: “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out.” Niemoller’s remarks are particularly relevant to the case of Fahad Hashmi, and of others such as Affia Siddiqi — detained by the US along with her children, under cloudy and confusing circumstances. She has stated that she was tortured in US custody.

The US has clearly subjected Muslims, or people it thinks are Muslims, to harsh treatment in its “war on terror.” Is the case of Fahad Hashmi a signal that the “war on terror,” with its torture, its brutal treatment of Muslims, is moving into our nation’s prisons? Where will it show its ugliness next?

Niemoller is warning about the curtailment of free speech, and the persecution of those whose opinions or religion are not currently in favor with “the authorities.” We must not allow “the authorities” to do what they are doing to Fahad Hashmi. We must speak out — as if they were coming for us.

http://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/2010/02/04/torture-continues-the-case-of-fahad-hashmi/

Lynn Feinerman is a San Francisco Bay Area independent media professional, whose company, Crown Sephira Productions, has emphasized ecology, peace, and social justice. Her recent writings have appeared online at Common Dreams and UFPJ.