‘Happening again’: Guantanamo victims say Israel using ‘US-style’ torture

Former prisoners who suffered mistreatment in US detention facilities say Israeli abuse of Palestinian detainees follows the same patterns.

When former Guantanamo detainee Asadullah Haroon looks at pictures of Palestinians being held in Israeli prisons, the memories of his own abuse and torture in United States detention centres come flooding back.

“This is the worst form of oppression,” he says. “When you are labelled as a terrorist you cannot defend yourself in any way. Without a doubt it’s the same process; they are torturing the people in the same way. I think the Americans have made this and the Israelis are implementing it.”

Haroon, who won his case against the US government for illegal imprisonment in 2021, was held without charge in the notorious Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba for 16 years following his arrest in 2007. Without a doubt, he says, Palestinians held in Israeli prisons now are enduring similar treatment to that he experienced.

“It’s like in the first days when I was arrested, I was beaten to an extent that I was standing; I couldn’t sit down or if I was sitting down and beaten up, I couldn’t get up. Same with insomnia and I was assaulted for several days. A lot of the prisoners were bitten by dogs. We were provided very little medical care.

“Physical torture was really bad but the worst was mental torture in different forms. I believe there isn’t much of a difference in the torture of prisoners of Palestine, Guantanamo, Bagram and Abu Ghraib.”