For all of us detained at Guantánamo, making art was a lifeline. Why won’t Joe Biden let us keep our work?
Last month, the Pentagon partially lifted the Trump administration’s ban on the release of artwork made by prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. Prisoners will be able to take “a practicable quantity of their art” if they are transferred out of the prison. It’s unclear what “practicable” means, and whether this ambiguous term means prisoners will only be allowed to take a small portion of the artwork they have created during years of captivity.
In Guantánamo, from the very beginning, we made art. We had nothing, so we made art out of nothing. We drew with tea powder on toilet paper. We painted our walls with soap, and carved Styrofoam cups and food containers. We sang, danced, recited poetry and composed songs. We were always punished for making art or singing.
In 2010 the rules changed: we then had real paper, pens and paints – colours we hadn’t seen for years. We no longer had to hide our writings, paintings, poems and songs, which had meant hiding parts of ourselves. We no longer were punished for painting or singing. We could reveal parts of ourselves that were long hidden.
Art was our way to heal ourselves, to escape the feeling of being imprisoned and free ourselves, just for a little while. We made the sea, trees, the beautiful blue sky and ships. Our art helped us survive, freed us from years of solitary confinement that corroded our memories and distanced us from who we are, where all we could see was cages, tarps and chains.
And we shared our artwork. Artwork moved from one block to another in Camp 6, so we could see each other’s efforts. We gave our art to our lawyers and families as well as guards and camp staff. We started to share our artwork with the world. In 2017, an exhibition was organised, Ode to the Sea, curated by Erin Thompson in New York at John Jay College.
In response, the Department of Defense threatened to shut down the exhibition and to burn the art, as it claimed the pieces were US government property. The news shocked us all. The increased public attention on the prison angered the Trump administration, which responded by banning art from leaving Guantánamo. The Pentagon spokesperson Maj Ben Sakrisson confirmed at the time that the government’s position was that “items produced by detainees at Guantánamo Bay remain the property of the US government”.
For years before the ban, the camp administration had permitted detainees to send their artwork to their families through the International Committee of the Red Cross. Also, lawyers for the prisoners were permitted to take their clients’ art off the US Navy base. All the artwork went through a security screening that analysed it for secret messages with national security implications. In the instance of some model ships made by Moath al-Alwi, troops went so far as to make and study an X-ray of them. Some detainees transferred off the base had also been allowed to take their works of art with them.
Ironically, the US government was the first to exhibit our artwork. In 2010, with the launch of a prison art programme, and for years until the ban, the artwork was featured during tours of Guantánamo’s detention facilities given to reporters and other delegations. Journalists were encouraged to photograph it. Once the ban was imposed, reporters were no longer allowed to see the artwork.
Along with Guantánamo’s lawyers, activists and NGOs appealing to the US government, we have been working since the ban was imposed to free the artwork. Last year, eight former Guantánamo prisoners wrote a letter to the president, Joe Biden, asking him to release artwork from Guantánamo; it was signed by hundreds of people. Lawyers who represent some of the Guantánamo prisoners also contacted the UN. Last year, two rapporteurs for the UN wrote to the secretary of state, Antony J Blinken, inquiring about the artwork policy.
The Biden administration has not yet replied to UN officials. One of the rapporteurs, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, visited the military prison at Guantánamo last month. The artwork was one topic she was planning to discuss. The partial lifting of the ban is welcome, but it is not enough.
The questions we must ask the defence department, specifically, are: what makes detainees’ artwork US property? Where exactly in the US constitution does it state that prisoners’ artwork belongs to the government? What about detainees’ intellect? What about their creativity? Are these also the government’s property? Who owns the copyright to the prisoners’ artworks? If it is government property, how are they going to treat it? Where is it now?
This is slavery, theft and cruelty. The defence department needs to explain its future policy regarding detainees’ artwork. People need to know what will happen, and current and former prisoners have the right to know too.
The art these men created is often precious to them. Sufyian Barhoumi, who was released last April back to his home country, Algeria, said “they took all my artwork and even my legal documents including letters from my lawyers. My lawyers are trying to contact the US government about my legal documents and my paintings but there is no answer … I’m afraid they will just throw it away or destroy it.”
Al-Alwi, who was cleared for release in January 2022, told his lawyer that he would rather his artwork be released than himself. “As far as I am concerned, I’m done, my life and my dreams are shattered,” he said. “But if my artwork is released, it will be the sole witness for
posterity.”
And Khalid Qasim, who was cleared for release in July 2022 but remains imprisoned, asked his brother in a call on 3 August of that year to spread a message to the free people of the world: “I ask you all to help me to free my artwork from Guantánamo. My artworks are part of me and my life. If the US government does not agree to release my artwork, I will refuse to leave Guantánamo without it.”
Guantánamo symbolises injustice, torture and oppression. It is where humanity and beauty are sentenced to death. We still demand its closure, alongside an official apology from the US government and reparation for its victims. But the art from Guantánamo became part of our lives and of who we are. It was borne from the ordeal we lived through. Each painting holds moments of our lives, secrets, tears, pain and hope. Our artwork makes up parts of ourselves. We are still not free while these parts of us are still imprisoned at.
Mansoor Adayfi is CAGE’s Guantánamo project coordinator, an artist, activist, writer and former Guantánamo prisoner. He is the author of Don’t Forget Us Here, Lost and Found at Guantánamo