From The Archers of Okcular:
(Image: Jared Rodriguez / Truthout; Adapted: art makes me smile, jjay69, nitrodog, jfrancis)Adnan
Latif was found dead in his cell on September 10th, 2012, just a day
before the eleventh anniversary of 9/11. He was 32. Latif, a Yemeni
citizen, had been detained at Guantanamo Bay for over a decade, despite a
2010 court ruling that ordered the Obama administration to "take all
necessary and appropriate diplomatic steps to facilitate Latif's release forthwith,"
due to lack of evidence that he had committed any crime. He suffered at
the hands of the US government in ways that most people can't begin to
comprehend, and his death should be a reminder that the national shame
that is Guantanamo Bay lives on and now enjoys bipartisan support.
Reexamining a letter
he wrote to his lawyer David Remes in December of 2010 shows the depths
of his despair near the end of his life. His letter begins simply. The
first paragraph is just one devastating sentence: "Do whatever you
wish to do, the issue is over." He then goes on to describe Guantanamo
as, "a prison that does not know humanity, and does not know [sic]
except the language of power, oppression, and humiliation for whoever
enters it."
"Anybody who is able to die," Latif writes, "will be able to achieve happiness for himself, he has no hope except that."
He continues:
"The
requirement...is to leave this life which is no longer anymore [sic]
called a life, instead it itself has become death and renewable
torture. Ending it is a mercy and happiness for this soul. I will not
allow any more of this and I will end it."
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