He’s forgotten nothing of the pain, the humiliation, the solitude. American investigators took a year to clear him. And another year to free him. Beyond the revolting injustice to which he was victim, former journalist Bader Zaman denounces the arbitrariness of American detention centers in a piece in Le Nouvel Observateur, reprinted by Truthout.org.

He suffers from hypermnesia. It’s twelve months since Bader Zaman was released from Guantánamo prison, but he remembers every detail of his detention. Not only the pain, the humiliation, the solitude, but also little things: dogs’ breath, the scrape of the razor against his eyebrows, the accent of the creep who cried out over the megaphone to the other soldiers: “Don’t show any sympathy for the terrorists!” He can’t forget anything. Today he is free. The Americans have cleared him of all accusations against him. Yet, in Peshawar, this former journalist’s liberty still remains under tight surveillance. A few weeks ago, ISI (Pakistani Secret Service) agents came back to see him again. He received them calmly: “What do I have to fear from you now? Have you found a worse hell on the earth than the one you’ve already thrown me into?”

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