Guantanamo Survivors Need Your Support This Ramadan

Greetings, WAT Community,

The last ten days of Ramadan begin tonight. For Muslims, this is a special time to reflect on and bring themselves closer to our creator through worship, good deeds and charity. It is a time for generosity and giving. It was in this spirit that the Guantanamo Survivors Fund was launched a year ago by Muslim Counterpublics Lab, No More Guantanamos, Witness Against Torture, Healing and Recovery after Trauma (HeART), Dan Norland and Mansoor Adayfi.

We are proud of the progress we’ve made during the first year with the generous support of friends like you. We have reviewed cases of more than a dozen former Guantanamo prisoners and their families living in desperate situations with no help from the US or other governments. We have raised more than $50,000 in donations and have provided Guantanamo survivors and their families with funds for housing and food, emergency eye surgery, essential prescription drugs, repair and supplies for prosthetic legs, school fees for children, and the down payment for a car to enable one survivor to support his family as a taxi driver.

Our work gives us a clearer picture of the challenges that Guantanamo survivors face every day, such as trauma, isolation, and extreme poverty and hunger. Too many have died due to lack of access to health care. The cruel reality is that the US all but abandons prisoners once they have been transferred to a third party country or repatriated to their home country. Thirty percent of survivors sent to third countries have no legal status where they have been exiled, greatly exacerbating their precarity. The unrelenting oppression has created dire, life-or-death situations for these Muslim men.

We cannot solve all their problems, nor can we wait for the US government, the purveyor of violence against the men, to address their needs. But with your help we can show that US citizens care about them and can provide some of the necessities they need to survive.

For a limited time, as a thank-you for a donation of $200 or more, we are offering a signed copy of the book Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found in Guantanamo, by GSF’s Outreach Director, Mansoor Adayfi. Please join us today, during these last 10 blessed days of Ramadan, by making a tax-deductible donation to this important cause. Your support will help us provide immediate assistance to the men who have been denied justice for too long.

➡️ bit.ly/GitmoSurvivorFund

In solidarity,

Dr. Maha Hilal, WAT Organizing Team, GSF Steering Committee, and Executive Director, Muslim Counterpublics Lab
&
The WAT Organizing Team

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