I was 18 when they sent me to Guantanamo. The system that allowed it never went away

Mansoor Adayfi was a student when the 'war on terror' turned him into a number. Twenty-five years later, he argues that the machinery behind his imprisonment has found new targetsGrowing up as a child in Yemen, I never thought the day would come when I would share my story with a global audience. But little did I know that I would be caught in the violent crosshairs of the "war on terror" launched in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. Prior to September 11, 2001, there was nothing extraordinary about my life. I grew up in a humble family, and only when I reached my teens did I begin to think about leaving my country. When I was 18, I took the drastic step and left my village to finish school, armed with a dream of studying computer science abroad. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters For nearly a year, I asked the head of the institute where I studied and worked for a reference letter. He always told me, "Later." After the USS Cole was attacked in Yemen, the head of the institute was asked to write a book about al-Qaeda and the Taliban. He sent a former student who had fought the Soviets in Afghanistan to conduct research and asked me to accompany him. "Come back from this trip," he promised, "and I will give you your letter." We flew to Dubai, then Pakistan, and travelled overland to Afghanistan, eventually reaching Kabul, where an NGO was helping us with our research. I was still there when the towers fell in New York City. At the 9/11 museum, America remembers only its own Read More » We only learned about the attacks three days later from a radio in a restaurant. Soon after, while helping the NGO move supplies before fleeing the country, armed men stopped our car and abducted us. We eventually ended up in the hands of a warlord who demanded $100,000 for our release. I didn't know then that American planes were dropping leaflets across Afghanistan offering bounties for suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Two weeks later, the warlord's men came for me. Hooded and handcuffed, I remember little of what followed except violence, a truck, a helicopter, a plane, and finally an underground room. They hung me from the ceiling with a hood over my head. When they removed it, five rifles were pointed at me, red dots fixed on my chest. "Hello, Mr Adel," a translator said, confusing me with an Egyptian general. "Do you know who we are, and why we are here?" Of course, I had no idea. Weeks earlier, I had been conducting research in Afghanistan and was expecting to begin university at the end of the year. Now, I was accused of being an al-Qaeda leader, kidnapped by Afghan warlords and handed over to the CIA. The beginning of my ordeal While I was unlawfully detained at an air base in Kandahar, I could see US Air Force aeroplanes taking off and landing from the makeshift site. When an Air Force cargo plane landed, we knew that a group of prisoners would disappear. At the end of December 2001, around a hundred of us were held there, in wooden tents surrounded by barbed-wire walls three metres high. From the tents, I could see US Air Force planes taking off and landing from the makeshift site. US Marines watch a helicopter prepare to leave a US base at Kandahar airport on 23 January 2002 (Banaras Khan/AFP) One afternoon, a group of soldiers in different uniforms from those stationed at the Kandahar site began calling the detainees by their numbers. I was in a tent with a group of men who couldn't walk, after months of torture at the CIA black site. I remember it vividly. The soldiers called out my number and ordered me to lie down. They first set a dog on me and then jumped on my back before restraining me and dragging me to a tent. They called it a processing station. I was hung up and stripped naked. Male and female soldiers stripped us, shaved our bodies, left us with no hair, mocked our genitals and kicked us. I watched a young boy as he cried. I spat at the soldiers and told him not to be afraid. They turned their attention to me and beat my mouth hard, splitting my lip. I spent hours hanging there naked. Then a soldier came with an orange jumpsuit, orange shoes, orange socks, an orange hat - orange everywhere. It was my first time meeting my new "friend": the colour orange. I don't remember ever wearing it before. A uniform given to a detainee lies on a bed in a cell at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay on 23 August 2004 (Mark Wilson/AFP) At that point, I didn't think much about the colour itself. There were also chains and shackles I'd never seen before, goggles, earmuffs, a mask, and a sign reading "BEAT ME". They dressed me, chained me, hung the sign around my neck, covered my eyes and ears, and forced me to sit on the floor. When it was time for prayer, I called out and tried to stand to pray. I was beaten, thrown to the floor, gagged with duct tape and strapped to a stretcher. I could hear the roar of the Air Force engines. We waited like that for hours, then were loaded onto the plane one by one. We were chained to the floor in a circle. I had no idea where they were taking us or what would happen. The journey On board, the soldiers welcomed us with beatings and humiliation, sitting on us and posing for photos. Every 10 or 15 minutes, I was beaten, as the sign around my neck had instructed. Loud music, loud engines, pain and sensory deprivation. It was hard to breathe. The shackles on my hands and legs were so tight that I could feel the pain shooting to my brain. I prayed the journey wouldn't last long. Hours passed and the pain got worse. I lost feeling in my hands and feet. The earmuff frame dug into my head; I was bleeding, but the beatings never stopped. When the plane landed, I felt a sense of relief that the journey was over. But that didn’t last. We were dragged onto another plane, and the journey continued. I was dying, struggling to breathe, unable to hold my body up any longer. I thought I would die. I prayed to Allah to forgive me and accept me. I heard someone calling out for prayer: "Allahu Akbar. Allahu Akbar." Soldiers silenced him immediately. After that, whenever we sensed it was prayer time, we would nudge each other with our elbows to pass the message, and we prayed as best we could under the circumstances. The next leg of the journey was longer than the first. Where were they taking us? When would it end? I kept praying to Allah to make it easier for all of us. Someone had already collapsed against me. I was glad I could at least serve as some support. Finally, the plane landed. Despite all the pain, I was relieved: Alhamdulillah. Soldiers started pulling us out one by one. I couldn't walk. I was dragged and passed from one person to another. I could hear laughter. 'Only cowards beat and abuse men who are chained and shackled. Only cowards act that way' I was chained again, and someone shouted loudly in English while a translator repeated it in Arabic: "You are under the control of the United States Marines. If you try anything, we will eliminate you." The man kept cursing and humiliating us; the translator added his own insults, too. I didn't care who he was. To me, they were just a group of cowards. Only cowards beat and abuse men who are chained and shackled. Only cowards act that way. The bus drove a short distance, then stopped, and I felt us moving over water - a sea. I felt a kind of relief at the sea. Welcome, friend, I thought. The sea broke through the sensory deprivation. That was my first clue: the sea was nearby. The boat sailed for 20 or 30 minutes, then the bus drove again for another 30 to 45 minutes. The Marines spent the whole time beating us. One soldier kept hitting my head from the front and back at the same time. I saw flashes of light each time. The bus finally stopped. The Marines pulled us out one by one and forced us to kneel on sharp gravel. Hours passed like that. My body refused to cooperate, and the beatings continued. A dog barked loudly again and sniffed my body. I was barely conscious. I didn’t care much anymore about what came next. I'd stopped worrying long before, back at the CIA black site, where it had been worse. I had no feeling left about what was coming. Oh Allah, I am in your hands. Please don't give them control over me. Our journey had gone by land, sky, sea, and land again. I never wanted to go back in the air again. Arriving at Gitmo After hours of waiting and listening to men scream in pain, soldiers came and dragged my body and threw me onto the concrete, before cutting my orange uniform off my body and stripping me naked again. I wanted them to remove the hood, the earmuffs, the goggles, the duct tape, the cuffs on my hands and legs. I'd lost all feeling. But they didn't. I felt strong pressure from water over my body, then something like liquid soap and a large, rough brush scraping over my skin. They pretended it was a shower, but it was humiliation and more beating. I was dragged again to more humiliation, a cavity search, over and over. They laughed and asked, "Where is Osama bin Laden? Welcome, Mr Commander." A photo was taken. I couldn't see anything. Fingerprints and other procedures followed, but I couldn't make out most of them. Then a red bracelet was placed on my left hand. A Guantanamo detainee's feet are shackled to the floor as he attends a 'Life Skills' class on 27 April 2009 (Michelle Shephard/AFP) The processing station was a group of tents where we were moved from one to the next for fingerprinting, photographs, height measurements and searches. I couldn’t see what was happening most of the time. After the processing station, I was taken straight to an interrogation room, where team after team came to ask questions. Some offered to remove the duct tape so I could speak, or to loosen my shackles and give me clothes if I cooperated. My body shut down, and I lost consciousness. I collapsed. The soldiers then dragged my body to a cage and threw me down. A soldier knelt on top of me, holding a shield, and began removing the chains, the cuffs, the earmuffs, the goggles and the duct tape. I felt like I could breathe again. They were shouting something I couldn't understand. 'Inside the cage, there were a few things: a plastic mat, a blanket, a water container and two small buckets - one for water and one to be used as a toilet' My hands and legs were swollen, numb, and had turned blue. I could barely see; my face and eyes were swollen, and my lips split. I could only see out of one eye, and even that was blurry. The first thing I wanted was to cover my body and put on the orange jumpsuit. Then I wanted to pray, then sleep. I hadn't eaten or had water in two days, and by then I didn’t feel like it. It was nighttime. I’m not sure I managed to pray on time. I did the best I could under the circumstances. I looked around. I could see figures in orange in the surrounding cages, just like me. Each block held about 10 cages connected to each other, made of mesh fencing screwed to steel pipes. Bright lights, barbed wire on top. A dog barked loudly. Soldiers shouted and yelled at detainees, called out numbers and barked orders: "Shut the fuck up." "Don't talk." "Look down." "Don't look at me." "Don't move." Inside the cage, there were a few things: a plastic mat, a blanket, a water container and two small buckets - one for water and one to be used as a toilet. A prisoner (R) prays in his cage on 14 February 2002 as another detainee looks on (Peter Muhly/AFP) There was no real toilet, and no protection from the elements. I managed to put on the orange jumpsuit, crawled to the bucket and made my ablution. Now, which direction was Mecca, so I'd know which way to face to pray? I asked my neighbour, a man who looked strikingly pale, blue-eyed, European. "As-Salaamu Alaikum, brother." "Wa Alaikum Salaam," he replied, then signalled for me not to talk. I asked again, whispering, where Makkah was. "We don't know," he said. "You can pray toward the guard tower. If I could see the stars, I could tell you." I stood and started to pray anyway. Soldiers came, calling me by my cage number, and shouted at me to sit down. I could barely stand. I was leaning on the fence. They kept shouting, then stormed my cage, threw me to the floor, beat me, cuffed my hands and legs, and left me lying face down. We weren't allowed to talk, stand or look at the guards. My neighbour was concerned for me. "Please, brother, follow their orders. They want to tame you. Don't give them a reason to beat you," he said. "Wallahi [I swear by God], they will never tame me. I'm not some chicken to be tamed," I replied. I prayed as best I could and eventually couldn't resist sleep any longer. A sea of orange Later, soldiers removed my handcuffs and brought me some food: a US military MRE - Meal, Ready to Eat - a brown bag with a photo of a soldier holding a gun on it, the same meal we’d been given in Kandahar. They tossed the meals through an opening in the cage, calling out our cage numbers. I could see an ocean of orange figures in cages, each block divided into 10 cages, two rows, three blocks per row. Only cages: no ceiling, no toilets, no privacy, mesh fencing filled with shaved men and children. I looked at the bracelet on my wrist. There was a photo on it, and I couldn't tell what I was looking at, a face or something else entirely. Looking at the other detainees, their faces were no different from mine: deformed, unrecognisable as faces, bruised, blue, split lips, broken teeth, bleeding wounds, swollen hands and legs. It was especially painful to see old men and children so badly beaten. I cannot forget that scene. That's how I first came to know these brothers. This is the first memory my mind recorded of them: all of us in those cages, beaten, in orange jumpsuits. Detainees hold onto a fence at Camp 4 in the Camp Deltamaximum security prison at Guantanamo Bay on 26 August 2004 (Mark Wilson/AFP) The first thing I noticed, beyond all that, was the warmth. After the cold of Afghanistan, this new place felt strange, warm, even though it was the end of January. The air was heavy and humid, and a strong wind carried the smell of the sea. It felt like a message from the sea, welcoming us, assuring us we were still alive. The smell of the sea was somehow comforting, gentle, as if the sea were telling us that no matter what they did to us, we could still be free. That was the first smell of the new place, and after two days hooded and gagged, it felt like a breath of life into our broken bodies. There was still something they couldn't control. It wasn't just a smell. It was a kind of power and hope, one even they couldn’t stop us from breathing in. I have loved the sea ever since. It felt close by, listening, watching, keeping watch over us. After breakfast, I saw something strange for the first time, maybe for others too: six guards in what looked to me, at that moment, like some kind of strange costume. I had never seen anything like it. I wasn't someone who'd grown up on Hollywood movies and television. I was just a simple tribal man. They walked in a line, moving through the blocks with a dog. The lead guard carried a shield. I wanted to understand what I was looking at. Dark helmets covered their heads and faces; body armour covered them from head to toe. Chains dragged along the gravel. A dog led the way. They wanted to intimidate us, shouting at anyone who looked at them: "Look down, don't look at me." The best reply anyone had was, "No English." 9/11 at 25: Trump finds new targets for America's endless war on terror Read More » They kept repeating the order, pointing at their own eyes and then at the floor. Of course we'd look at you, idiots. This was something new. I was curious. What was this? They marched to my cage in that same line, shouting, "Detainee ISN 441, on your knees, now!" I had no idea what they were saying. Their English didn't even sound like English to me. "No English," I said. I was too preoccupied studying their strange armour, trying to work out why they wore it. My Danish neighbour whispered in Arabic, "They want you on your knees. Don't face them. They're going to take you. Please, brother, just do it." "Why are they dressed like this?" I asked. "I'll explain later," he said. I couldn't have stood anyway. Suddenly they opened the door and released the dog on me. I grabbed the dog by the head; a shield struck me hard, and then they were all on top of me, shouting something I couldn’t understand. The dog barked close to my face, a knee pressed into my neck, and they chained my hands behind my back. They wanted me to walk. I refused, but I also couldn't. They dragged my body across the gravel back to the interrogation room. Another cavity search, this time by someone who seemed to be a medic. It felt like humiliation more than anything medical. I could hear my number, ISN 441, repeated over and over on a radio as I was taken through the gates to the interrogation room. Interrogators kept repeating it. I heard it again when they took me back, and again after that. I didn't understand yet that this was my new number, different from the one I'd had in Kandahar. In the CIA black sites, I did not have one at all. I was just a ghost there. This photo shows unidentified detainees at the Camp 6 detention facility in Guantanamo Bay on 8 April 2014 (Mladen Antonov/AFP) Some Americans, I thought, are full of their own myths. They watch too many movies and shows and expect the rest of the world to see them the way Hollywood does. They want to be treated that way, too. At the time, I didn't speak English, but they expected me to understand them anyway. The interrogation lasted almost the entire day: no breaks, no food, no water, no toilet. I was chained to the floor and to a chair. Most of the interrogators wore civilian clothes; the translators were Arabic speakers of different nationalities. The same questions came again and again. This time they brought a folder full of photographs and asked if I recognised any of the men. A woman flipped through them one by one, hundreds of photos. I didn't recognise a single one. She shouted and shoved my head down towards the folder. "You're a fucking liar." They all performed anger, and by then I was genuinely angry, too. She held one photo up to my face and pushed again. "Do you know this man?" I spoke to the photo instead: "Do you know you? Tell them." They slapped my head and face. It was shockingly sad to look at those photos: every face badly beaten, bruised, swollen, blackened eyes, some bleeding, lips split. I didn't even recognise my own photo among them, which was apparently why they were upset, and why I was slapped and beaten further. I was taken back to my cage. When I needed to use the toilet, I tried to cover myself with a blanket so no one could see me. A guard came over, shouting, and hit the fence. I didn't understand the words, but I understood he didn’t want me covering myself. I didn't care. When I finished, a group of guards stormed my cage and took everything I had. I sat on the cement floor, trying to find a moment to think, to process what was happening and why. That was my first day in Guantanamo. Guards served MREs for dinner to the other detainees, but not to me and a couple of others. Two of my neighbours tried to pass me some of their food, a Danish man and a 14-year-old boy. I declined at first, grateful for their kindness, but the Danish brother insisted, so I took a piece of a biscuit with peanut butter. I tried calling one of the guards. I needed water; they'd taken the plastic water container. I called out in Arabic: "Soldier, soldier, come here." They shouted at me in English to shut up while I kept speaking Arabic. The Danish brother translated what I wanted. First they said no. An hour later, I called again. They talked among themselves over their radios, then came back with a hose, turned it on my face and shouted, "Drink, drink," laughing at me. I stood there looking at them, asking myself: what kind of people are these? My first night in Gitmo That night, when it was time to sleep, I had no blanket, no mat. I lay on the bare cement. Looking up at the sky, I saw large white birds flying close over our cages, the first time I’d seen a bird like that up close: long neck, long legs. Hello there, I thought. Can I fly with you? Can you take me with you? I wonder what you can see from up there. While I was sleeping, guards came banging on the fence. "Detainee 441, wake up, cage search." I was chained and shackled while they searched an empty cage, then gave my things back. I was relieved to have something to lie on and cover myself with again. They moved to the next cage. I was hungry and tired and fell back asleep. Nasal feeding tubes, like those used to feed detainees on hunger strike, sit on display in the hospital at Guantanamo Bay on 27 October 2009 (John Moore/Getty Images/AFP) A hard bang on the fence and a shout of "Detainee 441" woke me again. I sat up. The guards were holding a piece of paper and wanted me to arrange my belongings in a specific order, pointing to each item in sequence: flip-flops, then water container, water bucket, waste bucket. I arranged them as they asked. They moved on. They came back 30 minutes later with a different order. I did it again. Thirty minutes after that, I ignored them and refused. The Danish brother said, "Brother, don't give them a reason to beat you." "I don't care, and I don’t need their things anyway,” I replied. A team of guards in full gear stormed my cage, removed everything, cuffed my hands and legs behind my back, and left me lying on my stomach for hours. I slept anyway. My body and mind simply shut down. The next day, after breakfast, a medical team arrived with a box of pills, ordering us to take around 10 each. Some of us refused. We didn't trust these people and had no idea what we were being given. A riot team was called. They stormed my cage, chained me to the fence like a cross, chained my legs too, and held my head while the medical team tried to force pills and water into my mouth and make me swallow. I refused. I kept my mouth shut no matter how many times they tried. The medical team slapped my already swollen face, trying to force the medicine down. They left me chained there for hours, which only gave me more resolve to break their rules. I called the guards' names, talked to everyone. They kept shouting, "Shut up" at me. I shouted it right back. A detainee is escorted by military guards back to his cell after his annual Admistrative Review Board hearing inside Camp Delta's Maximun Security area on 6 December 2006 (Paul J. Richards/AFP) We whispered to each other, asking names, nationalities, stories. Each of us had a different story to tell. We hadn't known each other before Guantanamo; we had no shared life before Guantanamo. And we ran into a serious problem: the language barrier. A young boy from Africa was called a racial slur by some of the white guards. That was where I first came to understand what racism based on skin colour meant. An Afghan man was calling out to the guards, trying to talk to them. Another Afghan translated for him, and what I heard shook me to my core: the man’s infant son had been handed over to the Americans along with him, injured, and he was begging to know if his son was still alive. The Americans apparently believed the baby was somehow connected to Osama bin Laden. Another detainee was moaning in pain from a leg injury; the medical staff told him they would amputate it if he refused treatment. He couldn't sleep, crying from the pain. Another Afghan man shouted, day and night, "Number One." He"d stripped himself naked, defecated on the floor, but never stopped shouting those two words. The guards punished him anyway; interrogators kept questioning him. "Number One" became his identity. He had lost his mind before he ever reached Guantanamo. All he could say, all he seemed to remember, was "Number One," shouted at the top of his voice. Why were we here? On every face, you could see a thousand questions. We all asked the same things. Why were we here? Until when, and what would happen to us? And where were we? There were different theories, based on speculation, guesses about the weather and other clues. Some said Oman or Bahrain, based on the climate and flight times. Others said India, because of writing stamped on the pipes: "Made in India." Based on these guesses, different groups faced different directions when they prayed. There was no clear answer. What would happen to us? Some said interrogators had told them we'd all be executed. Others said only men on death row wore orange. My Danish neighbour said no, they couldn't just kill us; there were laws. "But I don't see them," I told him. I didn't know what to think anymore. Too much was happening too fast; my mind couldn’t process everything I’d been through. It was all new to me. 'The guards called her an iguana. I called her Princess' Interrogation never stopped, day or night. Guards moved detainees back and forth to the interrogation rooms constantly. We could only communicate by whispering or hand signals. All of us were searching for any scrap of information, anything new. When we needed the toilet, we had to cover ourselves and watch the guards’ walking pattern along the block, waiting until one had passed before using it. Other detainees would warn each other when a guard was getting close. Getting caught meant punishment. On the third day, at lunchtime, while I was eating, I noticed someone watching me from a short distance, with beautiful eyes. "As-Salaamu Alaikum," I said, and offered to share my meal. She walked closer to my cage, elegant, and we had our first meal together. I'd never seen her before. I named her Princess. We noticed that whenever she walked, the guards stepped aside for her; none of them dared touch her. She could go wherever she wanted. The guards called her an iguana. I called her Princess. This photo made on 9 April 2014 in Guantanamo Bay naval base, Cuba, shows an Iguana walking on a road of the base (Mladen Antonov/AFP) She kept coming back to my cage to share my food, and other detainees grew jealous of her. By the end of the third day, guards ordered us to sit facing one direction, no movement, no talking, no looking around. I heard a helicopter hovering close over the camp, and then soldiers shouting the way they had when we first arrived, chains rattling. A dog barked. We knew they’d brought in a new group of detainees. Hours passed until it was nighttime. No dinner that night, no sleep, no rest. We knew what the new arrivals were about to go through. I prayed to Allah to make it easy on them, to protect them. During the day, the sun beat down on us with nowhere to take cover. We weren't allowed to cover our heads with towels, or use the plastic mats to shield ourselves. On the fifth day, a group of male and female guards came to our block and ordered us to strip naked in order to be taken for showers. I refused, and so did some others. Wallahi, I will not remove my clothes even if it costs me my life. I simply couldn't do it. I told them: either give me something to cover myself with, or let me shower in my clothes. Some detainees didn't mind doing it; they would be beaten and dragged if they refused. 'Guards had no respect for our prayers or for the Quran. Whenever they came to search the cage, they would kick it, throw it, and desecrate it' An officer came and introduced himself as a Muslim chaplain, bringing with him copies of the Quran, which turned out to be one of the biggest problems. Guards had no respect for our prayers or for the Quran. Whenever they came to search the cage, they would kick it, throw it, and desecrate it. We protested and asked them not to do that, which only made things worse. They threw it into the buckets. They didn't see us as human. They didn’t believe we should be treated as human beings. We started learning about these people, and about our situation. Some detainees who were European nationals, or had lived in Europe, told us they couldn’t keep us forever; it could be up to six months, and then we’d be released. I wanted to believe them. I thought I did. The Danish brother told me that once they figured out who we really were, they would release us. Part of me wanted to believe him, but everything I had already been through - the journey from the CIA black sites, through Kandahar detention and now this - said otherwise. We had no contact with the outside world. No lawyer. No family. Not even contact with the world beyond these fences. Days in Guantanamo stretched into months, years, decades. Guantanamo itself grew, evolved and changed. Around 800 Muslim men and children passed through it, from dozens of different nationalities, speaking dozens of languages: Arabic; Pashto; Dari; Urdu; Uyghur; Russian; French; Bosnian; and many more. Many were captured or handed over to the US military by allied forces while the US was offering bounties for suspected enemies. Each one was labelled the "worst of the worst," a terrorist. It became a laboratory for the US military, a torture chamber, a blueprint. Abu Bakker Qassim, a Chinese Muslim and an ethnic Uighur released from Guantanamo prison and resettled in Albania, makes pizzas in Tirana on 6 January 2012 (Gent Shkullaku/AFP) While the prison stayed open, the CIA ran a parallel network of secret sites, "black sites", with the complicity of governments around the world. During Obama's final years as president, he established Periodic Review Boards - a legal and technical process for reviewing the cases of detainees. In 2015, the Periodic Review Board approved me for transfer out of the prison. Critically, the Periodic Review Board process was yet another measure to obfuscate the fact that I, like most of the other men detained at Guantanamo, was never charged with a crime and never had a trial. For years, I was told I was too dangerous to release. I was even classified as a "forever prisoner." Then, without any new evidence, I was told I could leave. Notably, even with this approval, I remained detained at Guantanamo for another nine months. Finally, after spending almost half my life in US black holes, I was forcibly released and put on a plane out of Guantanamo on 11 July 2016. Because Yemen was in the middle of a war, and Congress had restricted the transfer of detainees to Yemen, instead of being sent home, I was sent to Serbia, a country I had no connection to: no family, no language, no history there. The fact that I had no connection to Serbia, and despite the fact that I refused to leave for Serbia, was of no concern to the US government. The US was only concerned with disposing of our lives and sweeping our stories and the violence we experienced under the rug. Twenty-five years later As the US and mainstream media mark 9/11 this year with the slogan, "Never Forget, Never Forgive," I want to remind the world who the victims actually are. The world should not forget the millions of innocent Muslims killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. We should not forget the invasions, the torture programmes, the prisoners. With the US marking the anniversary of 9/11, people should be aware that Washington is not pursuing justice; it is full of hatred and vengeful towards Muslims. The "global war on terror" was a campaign of terror. 'US President Donald Trump didn't invent the Muslim ban, the watchlists or the idea that an entire religion could be treated as a security threat; he ran on them, and then he used tools that were already there' Let's call it what George W Bush himself once called it: a crusade. Today, Guantanamo is not only still open, but it has also become a symbol of torture and indefinite detention. Based on US documents and lawyers' statements, around 98 percent of the men held at Guantanamo were wrongly detained, without charges or a trial. Fifteen men remain imprisoned there today. Three have been cleared. Three have been classified as forever prisoners. I am a product of America's global war on terror: its invasions, its millions killed, its tens of millions displaced, its torture programme, its drone assassinations, its thousands of Muslims kidnapped, tortured and held indefinitely. That war didn't stay in Afghanistan or Iraq. It came home, too, in the New York Police Department's surveillance of Muslim neighbourhoods and mosques, the NSA's mass surveillance of Muslim communities, the FBI's use of informants to entrap young Muslims into plots the bureau itself designed, and the Muslim travel ban. It crossed the Atlantic as well. In Britain, the Prevent programme built a surveillance net around Muslim life from childhood to death, from the GP’s office to the school to the mosque. From Palestine Action to policing bill, the UK government is killing free speech Read More » Cage International, the advocacy NGO based in London, documented dozens of cases of people flagged and investigated for nothing more than being visibly Muslim. Across Europe, similar laws followed, passed in the name of security, landing overwhelmingly on Muslim communities. The same label followed us everywhere: suspect, by default. That machinery didn't disappear. It became the foundation for something worse. The infrastructure built to watch, detain and deport Muslims gave the far right a ready-made system to inherit. US President Donald Trump didn't invent the Muslim ban, the watchlists or the idea that an entire religion could be treated as a security threat; he ran on them, and then he used tools that were already there. White nationalist movements in the US and Europe absorbed the same language, the same suspicion, and pointed it at immigrants and Muslims alike. Twenty-five years of the "war on terror" built the machine. The far right just had to turn it on. That war paved the way for the far right, anti-Islam and anti-migrant politics we see now. The same machinery now reaches beyond Muslims entirely. In Georgia, prosecutors have charged people involved in protests against the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center with domestic terrorism and other offences. The FBI has turned its terrorism task forces on Black Lives Matter organisers and Standing Rock water protectors. In 2025, the Trump administration issued directives ordering federal agencies to treat left-wing activist networks and protest movements as domestic terrorist threats. In Britain, the government proscribed Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation, and people have subsequently been arrested and charged in connection with alleged support for the group. Dissent itself became suspect. The label that was first fitted to me, and to thousands of Muslims like me, is now fitted to anyone the state decides it doesn’t want speaking. Twenty-five years later, the US government has never brought the 9/11 case to a fair trial. Not one person has ever been convicted in a fair trial for the attacks that were used to justify everything that happened to me. Where are the voices, and where is the media, calling for justice for the millions of victims worldwide of the so-called global war on terror? Where is "Never Forget, Never Forgive" for them? The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.