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Mahvish Rukhsana Khan is an American lawyer, born to immigrant Pashtun parents in Michigan. While persuing a law degree at the University of Miami, she became enraged by the illegal[…]
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Mahvish Khan describes stress positions leading to injury.

Question: What kinds of abuses have detainees reported?

Mahvish Khan: Well, I haven’t seen any abuse firsthand. I’m assuming that mostly interrogators and government interpreters see that, but Dr. Ali Shah spoke about being beaten, extremes of heat and cold, sleep deprivation for weeks, being made to stand for long periods of time to the point where he couldn’t stand anymore ‘cause his legs felt like these wet noodles and they would give and so they would beat him back in to a standing position, being cursed about his nationality, religion, his family or being called a terrorist, accused of being complicit in 9/11, and not being able to stand up for himself. And that happened at Bagram Air Base by U.S.... the U.S. military right before he was brought to Guantanamo and the eighty year old man similarly spoke of abuse of... He was beaten to the point of arm injury and he... Haji Nusrat, the eighty year old paraplegic, was reluctant to speak about his torture and abuse because I found that when you ask prisoners about their torture it’s a difficult subject to speak about because in essence they’re reliving their shame and the experiences that they’ve endured, so some of them didn’t want to open up.

 

Recorded on: 7/17/08


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