Interview with Mahvish Rukhsana Khan

Mahvish Rukhsana Khan is an American of Pashtun descent. Outrage over the Guantánamo detentions spurred Mahvish to volunteer in the legal effort to defend the detainees’ basic rights.

She first visited the base as a translator. Now a lawyer herself, Khan has published articles in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post and other publications. Her book, My Guantanamo Diary, has just been published by Public Affairs. Cageprisoners spoke to her in this exclusive interview about her book, her experiences and the caged men who became like a father to her.

CAGEPRISONERS: Could you please introduce yourself to our readers?

MAHVISH RUKHSANA KHAN: My name is Mahvish Khan. I’m an American lawyer and a journalist of Pashtun descent. I’ve acted as a Pashto interpreter at Guantanamo Bay, in addition to providing supervised legal counsel for an Afghan detainee. I’ve been to the military base about 30 times and have just published, “My Guantanamo Diary,” which profiles the prisoners. The purpose of this book is to give the prisoners a human face and a voice—something they have been denied. The purpose is to introduce the detainees to the public as individuals. Most people do not know the stories of 80 year old paraplegic Haji Nusrat, or paediatrician Dr. Ali Shah. This book was written to air their perspectives, and those of hundreds of others who have been silenced unlawfully.

CP: When did you first become interested in the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay?

My initial interest was sparked after studying about the subject in law school and realizing that this big Gitmo charade was really nothing more than a lawless black hole where prisoners were being caged, tortured and hidden away from the world.

I was also baffled that Washington policy makers were debating the legality of medieval torture techniques. Once upon a time, they called it Chinese water torture—today in America, it’s called water boarding.

CP: As a habeas lawyer, could you please explain the importance of habeas corpus and its significance to those detained in Guantanamo?

Habeas corpus is an ancient safeguard that protects against imprisonment without charge. The right predates the Magna Carta and it is embedded in the US Constitution. Filing a writ of habeas corpus is supposed to force the jailer to either present evidence of a crime and charge the detainee or to release him. This is significant at Guantanamo Bay because the prisoners are being held indefinitely without having been charged with any crime.

On a side note—most people assume that the detainees must have done something to be there. Yet, the public is generally unaware that most detainees were sold into us captivity. The U.S. military airdropped thousands of leaflets offering up to $25,000 per Taliban or al-Qaeda. That’s a lot of money in Afghanistan. It’s like hitting the jack pot. The average Afghan makes about 80 cents a day, which is about $300 a year. If a bounty program of equivalent proportions was offered in America it would be for over $2 million. And Afghanistan is a very different place. It’s riddled with tribal, political, and ethnic feuds that go back for generations.

When you add such large sums of money into the mix, it creates a financial incentive for people to turn one another in. Theoretically, a bounty program for terrorism suspects could be effective if it were actually followed up with an investigation to determine who was (part of) al-Qaeda and who was swept up by mistake. But the U.S. military conducted no such investigation.

According to an analysis of unclassified DOD documents, over 86% of detainees were picked up at a time when locals had a financial incentive to turn people in.

CP: You are ethnically Pashtun; to what extent did your ethnicity and indeed your religion influence your decision to take an active role for the detainees?

MK: Honestly, I got involved not because I thought they were innocent Muslim men like my father or brothers. I had no idea who I would be meeting. A part of me was afraid that I might actually be sitting down with Taliban and terrorists, because that’s all I had heard in the media until then. However, my decision to get involved at Guantanamo as a law student was purely because I was appalled at how the United States government was creating legal loopholes to deny human beings basic civil and human rights—the same rights that any alleged rapist or murderer would receive in the United States.

CP: What was your opinion of the detainees before arriving at the base?

MK: I had no opinion of the detainees before I met them. I had no idea whether they were innocent or guilty, I had no idea who they were or what would be like. My desire to get involved had more to do with the legal concepts I was studying in law school. I wanted to go to Guantanamo because of the legal principles at stake—the principles upon which America was founded: the conviction that no one should be imprisoned without charge and that everyone has a right to a fair and impartial trial.

CP: To what extent has your opinion changed since going to see them?

MK: Once I actually went to military base and met the prisoners-- that purpose shifted from upholding legal ideals to helping real human beings—many of whom I genuinely grew to admire, care for and worry about.

I remember my first trip to the base still very vividly. I was scared. I thought I would meet a member of the Taliban or of al-Qaeda, or someone who wouldn’t speak to a woman. Everything I had heard in the media had settled in. They must have done something, I thought.

I walked into that first meeting room with my heart pounding and across the room I saw an equally frightened man standing in the corner, behind a table, and shackled to the floor.

The Guards called him No. 1154. His name was Dr. Ali Shah—a 43 year old paediatrician and over time the more I learned about him through his file and from our meetings, the more none of it made any sense. Dr. Ali Shah worked for the United Nations in support of the new Afghan Democracy. He had fled Afghanistan for years while the Taliban ruled his country. He didn’t want his wife (an economist) and daughter to grow up in that environment. And yet there he was with being accused of working with the Taliban.

Beyond that, Dr. Ali Shah was one of the most polite and hospitable individuals I have ever met. And despite the abuse he suffered—he had been beaten, stripped and paraded naked, deprived of sleep for weeks... I remember being in awe of how dignified the doctor tried to maintain himself. He shared the food we brought for him and he always stood up when he came in or left the room.

It was on that initial trip to Gitmo, that I understood why the prisoners had been hidden from the world and also why, not even the guards knew their names. The men at Guantanamo are catalogued and referenced by serial number as a way of dehumanizing them. A name makes a person or even an animal, individual and unique. Serial numbers are for inanimate objects. It’s easier to mistreat something called 1154. It’s easier to shave its beard, kick it around like an object, spit on it or make it cry. It’s harder to dole out such abuses when 1154 retains his identity as Dr. Ali Shah. It harder to hate 1154, when you realize he is more like you than he is different.

The second detainee I met was No. 1009, as the military calls him. His name was Haji Nusrat. He was an 80-year old, white bearded paraplegic.

Haji could not walk. His milky eyes were glazed with cataracts. He had suffered two strokes 15 years before. He was brought to Gitmo on a stretcher.

And despite his health, the military made no concessions for his old age. During that meeting, his swollen legs were cuffed and shackled to the floor.

It was then that I realized that at the heart of this big Gitmo debate lies something much more fundamental than habeas corpus and due process.

This is about people’s lives. We don’t hear much about the individuals. They’re known only abstractly in the media. The Guantanamo detainees are a one mass entity of nameless, faceless foreigners. They’ve been stripped of their names and hidden, because not knowing who is at Gitmo, makes their abuse and indefinite detention more palatable. But, if Americans had any idea who really was at Gitmo, they would feel ashamed.

No doubt, there are some bad men at Guantanamo, but without trials it’s hard to separate the good from the bad.

CP: Have you ever encountered any difficulties with these men based on your religious beliefs?

MK: No, not at all. I’m Muslim, as were the prisoners. Some of the attorneys were Jewish and Christian. But, it was all a non issue. Besides, the essence of my book is that these are human beings just like most other people. The point is that we are all a lot more alike than we are different. The sooner we understand that about each other, the sooner the fear of Muslims will erode.

CP: Unlike many of the other works that have been written about Guantanamo Bay and the War on Terror, your book is extremely personal, was there a conscious decision to convey such a personal experience?

MK: This book will not only open your eyes, but it will also open your heart. The experience was a deeply personal one. I genuinely grew to admire, care for and worry about many of the prisoners I met. I wanted to convey their voices and their perspectives as truthfully as possible. I believe that by sharing the intimacy with readers, they will feel what I and what they felt. This account is not about the law and not about the Geneva Conventions or about torture. These stories even transcend Guantanamo Bay. This book is about perseverance, trust and relationships. It is about bridging our differences and learning about a group of people who we know little or nothing about.

CP: In your book you mention a number of Afghan detainees; who sticks out most in your mind when you think back to your work?

MK: Besides the paediatrician, Dr. Ali Shah and 80 year old paraplegic, Haji Nusrat-- I often think of Salah al-Aslami. The US says he committed suicide by hanging... His family in Yemen cried murder. They hired a team of Swiss pathologists to conduct a second autopsy. The Swiss team soon discovered that all of the organs in al-Aslami’s throat were removed, making the cause of death indeterminable. I often wonder about Salah and his widow (who has been bed-ridden since she received the news). I’m not sure what happened, but at a minimum, there should be an independent investigation.

CP: Putting aside the legal status of the men detained, do you feel that they are being treated in a humane way?

MK: No. They receive multiple full cavity searches in plain view of others. They are subject to extremes of heat and cold. They are kept in concrete boxes (56 square feet)—which is a bit bigger than a king size mattress—all day every day, some are let out only at night, so they never see the sun. They have faced harsh interrogations, religious degradations and solitary confinement. They are humiliated all the time, every day.

Had there been more transparency in this operation, the good would have been released after a fair process and trial and the bad would have been locked up. Without it, everyone is swept up together.

CP: The men have been described as being the “worst of the worst” – does that ring true to your experience?

MK: If I had kids, I would allow many of those men at Gitmo whom I have met to watch them. I think some of the men I’ve met are in fact, the best of the best. They are some of the most hospitable and gracious individuals I’ve come across. I continue to be in awe of their generosity and how dignified they remain under the most trying circumstances.

No doubt, some of the men at Gitmo are evil—even deserving to be called “worst of the worst.” Terrorists like 9-11 master mind Khalid Sheikh Mohammad come to mind. However, none of the guys I’ve met fit that bill and only a fair trial will separate the good from evil.

CP: What have been your worst and best moments in trying to help the detainees?

MK: The worst moment for me was, having to tell an Afghan detainee that his mother died. He cried and kept kissing the photograph of her that we brought for him. The best moment was getting permission to call a detainee to give him the good news that he was being transferred back home.

CP: Some of the Afghan detainees were Shi’a in their belief; did you ever feel that the US understood the nuances in religion and the significance in the belief of the men detained in light of their ethnicities, religion and historical backgrounds?

MK: Unfortunately, the US military knew little about the backgrounds and cultures of the detainees. Dr. Ali Shah Mousovi was a Shi’ite Muslim. This religious minority were persecuted in Afghanistan by the Taliban. Dr. Ali Shah in fact fled the Taliban to neighbouring Iran. He only came back after the Taliban had fallen to work with the United Nations to help increase Afghan electoral support of the new democracy. Yet there he was at Gitmo being accused of being Taliban. There is no such thing has a Shi’ite Taliban. It just doesn’t make sense.

CP: In your book you mention your encounter with Mullah Zaeef, the media ambassador to the Taliban during the conflict; what impression did he leave on you in light of his detention?

MK: Abdul Salam Zaeef should have had diplomatic immunity as an ambassador. While I vehemently disagree with the Taliban’s political and social policies, I don’t believe ambassadors for political parties (however controversial) should be brought to Gitmo.

CP: How do you feel the Muslim world should respond to Guantanamo Bay, especially as it has become the most potent symbol of the War on Terror? Further, what should their response be to the US?

MK: I think that the Muslim world should respond in the same way as the non-Muslim world, by demanding basic civil rights and human treatment for Gitmo detainees. I have never insinuated that all of the detainees are great people who have never committed any act of terrorism, only that there needs to be a process to decipher who is good and who is not.

CP: Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, thank you for taking the time to speak with us.

'My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told Me' by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, is published by Public Affairs, and can be purchased via Amazon and at all good bookstores. It will be available in the UK on August 7th 2008.