An interview with Sami al-Haj, former Guantánamo prisoner and al-Jazeera journalist

The following inspiring interview with Sami al-Haj, who was released from Guantánamo on May 1, was conducted by journalist Silvia Cattori during Sami’s recent visit to Switzerland. It was translated into English by Sue Bingham, and was first published on the website of the British human rights organization Cageprisoners. This is a slightly edited version. Note: Sami has recently explained that his name is transliterated as Sami El-Haj, but I have stuck with the old spelling, as this is how he is more commonly known.

In Guantánamo, spurred on by his passion for justice and his conviction that every journalist’s mission is to bear witness to what he sees, Sami al-Haj had the psychological strength to carry on, resisting the worse abuses and putting his own suffering to one side. His experiences were extremely painful but he was able, even in the worst moments, to cling to the hope that he would get out alive. And knowing that he had to observe everything in order to be able to tell the world helped him to bear the unbearable. Moreover, it was through viewing this horrific place (which could have been his tomb) with the objective eye of the journalist that Sami al-Haj was able to survive and remain sane. Others, who were not as lucky as he was, died [see here and here] or became insane, and so were unable to recount their experiences. With neither pencil nor paper, Sami al-Haj forced himself to memorise everything in order, even in a cage, to carry on his work as “an al-Jazeera journalist covering a story,” as he put it.