Reprieve, the charity that provides frontline investigation and legal representation for prisoners in Guantánamo Bay, is releasing the first in a series of protest pieces called Sketches of My Nightmare, inspired by the suffering of Sami al Haj. Al Haj is an al-Jazeera journalist picked up covering the Afghan war and sent to Guantánamo Bay. He has been on hunger strike in Guantánamo since January 7, 2007.

Sami al Haj drew a series of powerful, graphic sketches that illustrate the suffering in Guantánamo Bay, particularly the abusive treatment of those on hunger strike. The drawings were submitted to the US military censors, but were barred from public release. However, Reprieve counsel Cori Crider also submitted Mr. al Haj’s detailed descriptions of his sketches, which were permitted through the censorship process. Based on these descriptions, a political cartoonist has drawn the first in a series of Sketches titled: “SCREAM FOR FREEDOM.”

“Reprieve has commissioned these drawings to highlight the denial of basic justice to Sami al Haj. He is no terrorist, but he does not ask you to take his word for it. By his peaceful hunger strike he asks only for a fair trial,” said Clive Stafford Smith, Director of Reprieve. “Yet the US military seeks to muzzle him at every turn. He cannot tell his story to a jury. He is not allowed to draw a picture demonstrating how he and others suffer. And now, as the price for discussing his release, the US is trying to force the Sudanese government to bar Sami from working as a journalist once he is out of Guantánamo. This reflects precisely the opposite of the high ideals for which the US stands.”

The sketches are based on drawings made by Mr Al Haj earlier this year, depicting his ongoing hunger strike in Guantánamo. Cori Crider explained: “When I saw Sami on February 1, he showed me four very gruesome and incredibly detailed sketches. He explained he felt compelled to express the nightmare that he and the rest of the hunger strikers in Guantánamo have been suffering. Sami’s sketches spoke volumes about what he goes through every time they strap him into that chair for forcefeeding. But I knew that they might be censored, so I had him describe what he was trying to say in his own words as well.”

As predicted, Al Haj’s drawings were censored, although a memo describing them was unclassified. “This is typical of the misplaced censorship used by the authorities at Guantánamo, where the motivation is not national security but trying to avoid embarrassment for the illegal acts of the military,” said Clive Stafford Smith. “The Bush Administration can suppress Sami’s sketch, but they can’t stop another artist from replicating it. Ultimately, Sami’s spirit is irrepressible. Like Martin Luther King in his Letter from Birmingham Jail, the world will hear him, because he seeks only justice.”