Friday, November 16, 2007

Scars of Mental Anguish

This person was confined to a “close management” control unit after seeking anti-depressant medication and the possibility to see a psychiatrist.
“I decided to let you know my experience of what may amount to torture, or at least in the public eye, as I am convinced that I bear the scars of mental anguish…I did not eat for ten days due to a hunger strike. While being held as a suicidal [I only received] a shroud of a short blanket for warmth in a freezing cell (suicide alert prisoners often do not receive sheets or long blankets). Over a month elapsed and in that time period I was beaten with the fist by two officers. I was made to stand barefoot on the concrete floor while an inmate shaved my face with electric clippers that shocked my face. I could feel the electricity run from my chin to my earlobe. The pain was excruciating, and my plea for it to stop was met with laughter and threats of reprisal. …The struggle of survival didn’t end there. The next year or more has been met with physical and mental abuse where I had to rescue myself…I sit in a cell the size of a small bathroom with blinds over the window for over a year and the memory of isolation I know will linger…The anguish of incarceration, separation and careless custody and control must be met with a strong mind…because peace of mind they will take…if you aren’t exercising peace in the midst of evil.”

I am Dying Every Day

“I am dying here every day, mentally and physically. This is happening to all of us. We have been ignored, locked up in the middle of the ocean for years. Rather than humiliate myself, having to beg for water, I would rather hurry up the process [of dying] that is going to happen anyway. “I would like to die quietly, by myself. I was once 250 lbs (17 stone 12 lbs). I dropped to 130 lbs (9 stone 4 lbs) in the first hunger strike. I want to make it easy on everyone. I want no feeding, no forced tubes, no ‘help’, no ‘intensive assisted feeding’. This is my legal right. “The British government refuses to help me. What is the point of my wife being British? I thought Britain stood for justice, but they … abandoned us [British residents], people who have lived in Britain for years, and who have British wives and children. I hold the British government responsible for my death, as I do the Americans.”