Arrested and Jailed for Protesting Gitmo 'Black Hole'

By Bryan Farrell, Foreign Policy in Focus. Posted February 5, 2008.

It was nearly three in the morning, on a recent Saturday, when the door of a Washington DC jail cell slammed closed with me inside. After an already grueling day in police custody that began at 1:30pm and included being handcuffed for eight hours straight at one point, the ability to move freely (albeit in a 5x7 cell) was a welcomed relief.

I climbed up to the top bunk, which was more like a cold metal shelf, and sat with my legs pulled in toward my chest for warmth. "When will I get out of here?" I despaired. "Will I get out of here? What if something goes wrong and they just forget about me?"

Several hundred miles away, my parents wondered the same things, except that unlike many detainees and their families, they had been expecting my arrest. I decided to participate in a nonviolent action on the steps of the Supreme Court to protest the beginning of the seventh year that prisoners are being held in Guantánamo Bay without habeas corpus rights and subjected to torture.

These prisoners, once referred to as "the worst of the worst," are virtually all innocent. By the Pentagon's own estimate, 92 percent have not committed any crime against the United States. In fact, foreign bounty hunters were paid by the U.S. government to capture many of those who are now detained. It was this information, along with the horrid stories of physical beatings, forced stress positions, and trickery (such as guards posing as lawyers) that convinced me that resistance was necessary.

Although it was my first time taking such a risk, I was joined by a group of civil disobedience veterans who had a good idea of what to expect. Wearing orange jumpsuits with black hoods, we ascended the steps and then knelt silently halfway up, where we were arrested for the ironic violation of "speech at the Supreme Court." We expected to be held in custody for a few hours until being issued a citation, similar to a traffic fine. Just about everyone who had risked arrest before, including those who had done so a dozen times or more, said it would be rare to spend the night.

Seeing as how we thought it would probably be over before they could begin to worry, I decided full disclosure with my parents was the best option. Little did I realize, however, that arrests and jail time are never that innocuous when they're actually happening to you or someone you know.

It wasn't until I was shivering away in that cell, recapping the day's events, and pondering with complete uncertainty what would happen to me, that I began to really understand the horrors of torture and imprisonment. What I went through is only a pinprick compared to the evils faced by the near 800 men and boys who have passed through Guantánamo, but it is surprising how little it takes to set someone over the edge both mentally and physically.

After eight hours of being handcuffed behind the back, my arms started to throb with constant pain and fatigue, while my wrists got sore and cut-up. The guards wouldn't help. Often times they adjusted the cuffs so that they hurt more than before you complained. All the while, it was a struggle to get just a few sips of water. There was even a sign outside one cell I was in that read: "Do not ask for water." And forget about food. Even though our lawyers told us that we should have been offered some every 12 hours, I went all 30 hours of my incarceration without a morsel.

I was able to tough out these hardships, especially as one of the youngest protesters in the group. But of the 82 who were arrested, most were twice my age or older -- with some even in their eighties. So, it was not surprising that a good many were suffering from nausea and dehydration. That's not to say I was lucky, however. My age and inexperience worked against me at times, as I was most unprepared for the psychological aspects of imprisonment that I encountered.

For starters, there's the waiting. It took one police jurisdiction hours to figure out how to ship us off to the next. The lines of communication between precincts are tangled in an intricate web of bureaucracy that ends up having more to do with when you get released than the actual charges you might be facing. Once I realized this, I felt consumed by complete helplessness. Not only did I lose control of my destiny, but some unknowable inhuman force was also controlling it.

Then again, there's nothing human about the entire process. Officers referred to us as "prisoners" and "bodies," showing the line of division between them and us, like we were some kind of subspecies. However, there was one saving grace: the camaraderie of friends who had been through similar situations -- even if many did admit that this was their worst experience.

I spent the morning of my court hearing at a different jail, reunited with the rest of the group. Although we were divided up into four consecutively cramped cells and branded with leg shackles, the community experience is what helped me turn the corner and remember what it was that we were doing.

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Bryan Farrell is a New York based journalist and activist, whose writings have appeared in The Nation and In These Times. He can be contacted at www.bryanfarrell.com.