RITA DI SANTO draws attention to a new film that features Ken Loach and Jeremy Corbyn, and their personal experience of media misrepresentation
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Guantanamo Kid: The True Story of Mohammed El-Gharani
Obscenity of the US hell camp exposed in graphic story of a child's imprisonment
JULIA TOPPIN recommends Patti Smith’s eloquent memoir that wrestles with the beauty and sorrow of a lifetime
MARJORIE MAYO welcomes an account of family life after Oscar Wilde, a cathartic exercise, written by his grandson
KEN COCKBURN guides us through a survey of Chekov’s early short fiction, and the groundwork it laid for his later masterpieces
ANDY HEDGECOCK revels in a hugely enjoyable but deadly serious examination of the 1930s, that is an indictment of our own era
The bard distills our hellish times into fiery words
MOHAMMED EL-GHARANI, aged 14 and of Chadian parentage, went to Pakistan from Saudi Arabia in 2001 to learn English. Travelling on a Chadian passport with faked personal data facilitated by a sympathetic consular official — he was a minor — he stayed in Karachi with relatives.
His life was organised around English classes, football and prayers until one day, three months after 9/11, he was detained outside a mosque because of his Saudi accent. After a period of incarceration, interrogation and torture by Pakistani security officials he and dozens of others were each sold as “confirmed” terrorists to the US for $5,000.
Naively, El-Gharani believed that US officials would soon realise that he was innocent, release him and allow his return to Saudi Arabia. He had a rude awakening in store.
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