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21 years ago today, I was sent to #Guantanamo gagged, hooded & shackled to the floor of a military plane. I remember the heaviness of the heat, the salty smell of the sea & the ISN they gave me as my name: 0441. I was 19 years old. I’ve written about that first day so many times,thinking that if I write it maybe it will lose its power over me. Maybe that memory will let me rest.Although GTMO is a drak place, we managed to find beauty in among us,all of us Muslim men who were detained.hachettebooks.com/titles/mansoor…

#CloseGuantanamo
16 years ago, 3 of my friends were “found” dead in their cages on my cell block, hanging by the neck, hands and feet bound, cloths shoved in down their throats. Their names were Yasser, Mana, and Ali. The #Guantánamo camp admin called them suicides.
رحمهم الله. This was 6/9/06 and we were in Camp 1’s Alpha block. Yasser, Mana, and Ali and I had been on hunger strike recently and were known by the camp for protesting our indefinite and arbitrary detention, constant harassment, and #torture.

#GITMO20
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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. 2/
The Bush administration said that prisoners held at Guantánamo were all illegal combatants and weren’t covered under the Geneva Conventions.

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.

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.

Hunger Strike Thread:
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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.

#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

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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.