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PRISONER 345
Snatched on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 2001, Sami al-Hajj is an Aljazeera TV cameraman who has spent over 15 months in prison, including Cuba's now infamous Guantanamo Bay detention centre, without being charged or informed of the reason behind his incarceration.
Aljazeera has doggedly sought his release and, consequently, the network gave the greenlight for this documentary to be produced to disclose some ‘home truths' behind such injustice.
Tracing al-Hajj's movements both before and after his arrest through unclassified letters, testimonies to his lawyer and the eyewitness accounts of former detainees who befriended him, Abdallah El Binni has crafted an intelligent work that essentially asks the question why.
Among other revealing information, including footage of prisoners never seen before, the film shows a demonstration of force-feeding, the latest controversial technique employed by the prison authorities at Guantanamo Bay to stop the largest hunger strike by prisoners.
D Abdallah El Binni P Ahmad Ibrahim Dist Moving Targets Films
L Arabic w/English subtitles TD video/2006/53mins
Abdallah El Binni was born in Sidon, Lebanon, in 1971. He has worked extensively as a war photographer and documentary director/producer for Middle Eastern TV networks.