#GITMO20
Thread 1/
20 years ago, I was sent to #Guantánamo after being sold to the US for bounty. I was 19 years old and didn’t know much about the US. What I learned, I learned at Guantánamo.
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The Bush administration said that prisoners held at Guantánamo were all illegal combatants and weren’t covered under the Geneva Conventions.
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We lived in dog kennels at Camp X-Ray for the first months, where we weren’t allowed to talk, stand, or pray together. We weren’t told where we were or why we were being detained.
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We didn’t have lawyers or contact w/ our families or the outside world. We were harassed, beaten & interrogated nonstop for years.
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We learned not to see all Americans thru the filter of Guantánamo. We saw guards punished for not beating us. We saw James Yee, the Muslim Chaplain, arrested and harassed for doing his job and treating us humanely.
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I wrote about some of these guards in my book. In 20 years, no one who entered Guantánamo left unharmed. 9 prisoners died at Guantánamo. Some guards committed suicide after serving there.
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Some in the US govt would like to forget Guantánamo, the 780 men who were held there, and the thousands of men rendered to black sites.
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Help us remind the world that Guantánamo exists and is still open, that the US did torture, harass, arbitrarily detain, and treat inhumanely hundreds of prisoners at Guantánamo and thousands in prisons around the world.
What can you do? Endorse and share the letter to Biden I wrote w/ @Moazzam_Begg, Lakhdar Boumediane, Sami Al Hajj, Ahmed Errachidi, Mohammed Ould Slahi & Moussa Zemmouri closingguantanamotogether.com/former-guantan…
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Share this Twitter thread as part of our #GITMO20 Twitter Storm.
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Read our stories and share them with others so that we all remember what happened; so that we don't forget the ones who remain in prison. #DontForgetUsHere hachettebooks.com/titles/mansoor…

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More from @MansoorAdayfi

9 Oct 21
On 10/7/01, when the US launched the #WarOnTerror w/ Operation Enduring Freedom, they littered Afghanistan with Tomahawk missiles, cluster bombs, and pamphlets like this offering $$$$ for al Qaeda & Taliban fighters.
Like thousands of others, I was sold to the US for bounty money, sent to a black site where I was tortured & then sent to Guantanamo. I was only 18 years old. I wasn’t a fighter. I wasn’t al Qaeda leader or Taliban.
At Guantanamo, I met farmers who were sold by neighbors who wanted their land. I met charity workers, teachers, engineers, all kinds of men who were sold as fighters.

[Me at #Guantánamo Camp 6 2012]
Read 9 tweets
2 Oct 21
This week I graduated w/ excellence from college, at the very top of my class and student of the year. 20 years ago this week, I was kidnapped by warlords in Afghanistan and later sold to the US for bounty. I was 18 yrs old.
Education has always been important to me and to my family. My father insisted my sisters go to school and expected US ALL to get top marks. I left my village at 13 for high school in Sana’a. I knew I wanted to go to college.
When I was sent to #Guantanamo, I protested our inhumane treatment w/ hunger strikes and block riots, I refused to talk to interrogators. For this I was stripped of all “comfort items” including books, pens, paper.
Read 11 tweets
25 Sep 21
Hunger Strike Thread:
1/8
We had no rights at #Guantanamo. We had no power. We had nothing but our bodies and our lives and we had to use them to bring about change. Going on #hungerstrike is like entering a dark tunnel & the light at the end is death.
#artfromguantanamo
2/8
In the beginning, your stomach growls & begs for food. You dream of food. I dreamed of meals my father made after Ramadan--lamb mandi that melted in my mouth. I regretted every grain of rice left uneaten.
3/8
Days later, your stomach shuts down. Your body consumes your fat, then muscle. You feel pain in every cell consumed. You don’t sleep. You can’t concentrate and feel confused. Your vision blurs. Your heart beats so fast it’s hard to breathe.
Read 8 tweets
18 Sep 21
#Thread 1/8
20 years ago today, just 6 days after 9/11, George W. Bush gave the CIA broad powers to "Capture and Detain" anyone in what would become the #WarOnTerror
2/8
Weeks later, I was sold to the CIA and sent to a black site in Afghanistan where I was tortured along with many others until I confessed that I was someone I wasn't just to stop the pain. This is what I wrote in my book
3/8
I was then sent to #Guantánamo, where I spent over 14 years as a prisoner of the US. I didn't have rights, I didn't have an attorney or legal representation until 2009. I was never charged with a crime. I was never told why I was being held. I was only detainee ISN 441.
Read 8 tweets
11 Sep 21
1/8
20 years ago, I heard about 9/11 on the radio in Afghanistan. At 18, I couldn’t imagine buildings so tall or why someone would kill so many people. Soon after, I was sold to the US & sent to #Guantanamo. 8 years later, when I saw video of 9/11 for the first time,
2/8
I wept for all the innocent lives that lost since 2001.
I never could have imagined that this tragedy would be used to justify keeping me and hundreds of others locked up and tortured for nearly 15 years.
3/8
This is what I wrote about the day in my book, DON'T FORGET US HERE, LOST AND FOUND AT GUANTÁNAMO.
Read 8 tweets

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