With all the fuss surrounding the presidential race this
year and all the different issues candidates are required to address, some
issues are bound to be overlooked.

The military detention center at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba has
been notably ignored by candidates from both parties even though its importance
is undeniable. All remaining candidates in the race have expressed their
willingness to shut down the facility; however, none of them have adequately
explained how they plan to do so.

I am still consistently amazed when I hear the
justifications given by many conservative pundits for the indefinite detention
of those prisoners without charges or trial.

Instead of indulging in a logical and philosophical argument
against the existence of Guantanamo, it?s time to put a face to the victims of
this horrible injustice. Sami al-Haj is prisoner No. 345 at the Guantanamo Bay
detention facility. He is a Sudanese citizen who, before his detention, worked
as a photographer for Al-Jazeera, a prominent Arabic news station.

On Dec. 15, 2001, Mr. al-Haj was arrested on the
Pakistan-Afghan border while on assignment to cover the aftermath of the U.S.
invasion of Afghanistan. At the time of his arrest, no explanation was given
for his detainment. He was moved from Pakistani custody to the U.S. Air Force
base in Bagram, Afghanistan, and subsequently to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

For more than six years he has been detained without any
charges filed against him or any trial given to him. He has been on a hunger
strike since Jan. 7, 2007, in protest of his detention and as a result, has
been subject to daily force-feeding. He has also been subjected to sleep
deprivation as a means of ?enhanced interrogation? (aka torture). According to
the Committee to Protect Journalists, Mr. Al-Haj was subject to severe beatings
by U.S. soldiers in Bagram who accused him of recording videos for Osama bin
Laden.

Now, a person who has to go through all this agony for such
a long time must have done something gravely wrong, one might assume. Not so,
says his attorney Clive Stafford Smith, director of a London-based human rights
group. ?There is absolutely zero evidence that he has any history in terrorism
at all,? says Smith, citing the vague and shifting accusations raised against
Mr. Al-Haj and the virtual absence of any evidence to support them. But Mr.
Smith asserts that the most persuasive evidence that the government?s case is a
sham is that Mr. Al-Haj?s interrogators seem completely uninterested in
addressing him with their accusations. Instead, almost all the 130
interrogations he has been subject to focused on Al-Jazeera in an attempt to
tie the media company to al-Qaida.

He was questioned about the company?s finances, prominent
journalists and several other subjects related to the company?s operations. His
lawyer even reports that Mr. Al-Haj?s interrogators offered to release him
under the condition that he would spy on Al-Jazeera, yet he refused to do so.

What adds fuel to the fire is the absurdity of some of the
accusations raised against him. One such accusation is that he interviewed bin
Laden and other self-proclaimed Al-Qaida members. Even if this accusation turns
out to be true, the man has committed no crime. If interviewing self-proclaimed
terrorists and bin Laden is a crime, then Christiane Amanpour of CNN and Peter
Arnett, along with other prominent journalists, should be Mr. Al-Haj?s
cellmates.

Throughout his detention, Mr. Al-Haj?s has maintained his
innocence. His detention officers single him out for exceptionally good
behavior, even though his hunger strike is against the detention center?s
regulations. In the Middle East, Sami Al-Haj is a household name, due to an
extensive campaign by Al-Jazeera to advocate his release. His case is often
cited as a clear example of the injustice perpetrated by the U.S. government in
Guantanamo. Yet his case has received virtually no coverage from major media
outlets in the United States, which is quite puzzling. All Mr. Al-Haj and his
lawyer are asking for is a fair trial. I?m sure anyone who looks at the facts
of his case will agree that this is the least he deserves for all the suffering
he has been through.

If we are confident that justice would be served by
reevaluating the status of some of the detainees at Guantanamo and the image of
United States would be enhanced in the eyes of the international community,
then what would it take for the presidential candidates to start talking about
this issue? One can only wonder.

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Ammar Al Marzouqi ([email protected]) is a
freshman majoring in computer engineering.