Interview With Marianne Kremer

CAGEPRISONERS.COM: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for Cageprisoners.com. Could you introduce yourself to our readers and tell us a little about your work as a free-lance writer?

MARIANNE KREMER: My name is Marianne, I am 46 year old and I live in Luxembourg. In my spare time I write articles and ‘reader’s letters’ about topics that are important to me, like human rights. I have written several books, but I actually never had the courage or the motivation to publish them. But the Guantanamo prisoners’ plight actually got me to sit down during my vacation on the Canary Islands and I wrote a book about Camp X-Ray in order to raise public awareness.

CP: In a previous interview, you stated that when you first saw the prisoners taken from Afghanistan in shackles, that you believed that they deserved to be treated in that way - what caused your opinion to change?

MK:When I saw the first prisoners arriving at Guantanamo I was still upset by 9/11 and not as well informed as l am now. I used to watch the American news channel that calls itself ‘fair and balanced’, but I noticed that our media often report in a very one-sided way. I started to read about ‘the other side of the story’, why there is so much anger in the Middle East.

CP:What evidence have you found of torture or abuse of human rights in Guantanamo Bay?

MK:I read a lot about the way the Guantanamo detainees are treated and in my opinion human rights are violated. The United States have no right to detain people without access to lawyers and to keep them in legal limbo for an unlimited period of time and to eventually subject them to military tribunals.

CP:What did you hope to achieve in writing "Defiance at Guantanamo"?

MK:I wrote that short novel to raise public awareness. I think that readers actually tend to identify with the main characters of a novel and they ‘experience’ what the protagonists go through. When I wrote this, I actually ‘experienced’ being detained at Guantanamo, what it probably feels like, and I was shocked by the treatment these detainees get, especially the small cells, the seclusion from the outside world and the ‘stress and duress’ methods they are subjected to.

CP: Why did you choose to focus on someone who would be branded a "genuine terrorist", rather than the many at Guantanamo Bay who are wrongly accused?

MK:I asked some of my friends what they thought was more interesting: a genuine terrorist, of course, they said unanimously. But in my next book I write about the fate of an innocent Afghan teenager who is caught ‘on the battlefield’ by the Northern Alliance and later on sent to Guantanamo. I think that Abdul is also a very interesting character.

CP: How did you research the character of Saad Al-Alawi?

MK: I read a lot about al-Qaeda, of course, and I created Saad as someone that the readers would hopefully find interesting. By giving him the nickname ‘Ali’ I even endeared him to the readers.

CP: How has your book been received?

MK:Some of my friends loved the book, others flatly refused to read it and asked me to publish one of the Hollywood soap operas that I have written for fun. The happiest moment was when a young lady who lost her husband in the Iraq war wrote to me that my book has given her courage. I was really moved.

CP: Could you tell us about the other activities you are involved in, campaigning for the rights and raising awareness about the plight of the detainees?

MK: I am a member of Amnesty International, Fair Trials Abroad and Human Rights Watch. These organizations have done so much to raise public awareness about the fate of the Guantanamo prisoners. It’s nice to see so many people who are so dedicated

CP: What has the public opinion in your native Germany been like for those held in Guantanamo?

MK:People in Germany are very much aware of the United States violating human rights and they are very concerned. The war on Iraq angered many people. Actually, German television will broadcast a film by the international filmmaker Ashvin Raman exposing the Guantanamo scandal on November 12th.

CP: How would you respond to those who say that the people held at Guantanmo are "bad people" and should be kept "off our streets" (to paraphrase Bush and Rumsfield)?

MK:I can only say: there surely are innocent men being held at Guantanamo and others have probably only committed minor offences like being on a battlefield during a war. Some obviously innocent prisoners have been released after being detained for months without access to lawyers. And even the ‘bad’ ones like Saad deserve a fair trial.

CP: Has the detention of more than 600 Muslims in Guantanamo Bay altered your perception of the American government and their policy on the War on Terror?

MK: Yes, it has altered my perception of the United States, I am disappointed and so are many other Europeans I talked to. Several people told me that they don’t think they’ll travel to the US in the near future.

CP: Do you believe that the detainees who will be reviewed by military tribunal will be given a fair trial?

MK: After having listened to interviews given by military lawyers I actually think that these men who volunteer to defend the detainees are dedicated and possibly better than some civil lawyers (who can afford a good high-powered attorney at Guantanamo?), but that is not good enough. Amnesty International states that these military commissions will lack independence from the executive and there will be no right to appeal to an independent court, no right to counsel of choice. The President of the United States and the Secretary of Defense (or his designee), have the power to name who will be tried by the commissions, to appoint the commission members, designate which member will serve as ‘judge’, appoint the Chief Prosecutor and Chief Defense Counsel, approve the charges prepared by the prosecutions. The Pentagon’s operating guidelines for the commission include the presumption of innocence, but this guarantee has been repeatedly undermined by public commentary by the Bush Administration on the presumed guilty of the detainees. President Bush calls them ‘bad people’

So, I think unfortunately the detainees will not be given fair trials. In my opinion, the threat of the death penalty under these conditions is an outrage.

CP: What do you think should be done with the detainees?

MK: I think they all deserve fair trials, either in the United States or in their native country, with access to counsel of choice. And I think that the innocent men should be immediately released.

CP: Finally, what do you think of our website?

MK: I think your website is great. When I wrote my book I thought that it would be wonderful to create a web site like yours and you did!

Thank you so much for interviewing me.