2023-05-07 10:14:01
Arrested by mistake and sold to the CIA, Ahmed Rabbani was transferred to Guantanamo in 2004. Rizwan TABASSUM / AFP
Ahmed Rabbani was incarcerated in the American prison for twenty years without ever having been tried. He never stopped painting throughout his detention and presents his works for the first time in Karachi.
Soil, ground coffee and even turmeric from the canteen: during his almost 20 years of incarceration in Guantanamo without ever having been tried, the recently released Pakistani Ahmed Rabbani used everything he could find to escape through art. “Thanks to the painting, I felt outside Guantanamo“, explains the 53-year-old man, with the large pepper and salt beard, on the occasion of the presentation of more than twenty of his works in the port city of Karachi, in the south of Pakistan. “Painting was everything to me there“, he adds during this exhibition called “The Unforgotten Moon : Liberating Art from Guantanamo Bay(The Unforgettable Moon: Liberating Art in Guantanamo).
In September 2002, Ahmed Rabbani was arrested by the Pakistani authorities and handed over to the CIA against a bounty of 5,000 dollars. He was “soldas a notorious activist known as Hassan Ghul, but he always claimed it was a mistaken identity. He was also accused of recruiting his older brother, Muhammed, for extremist circles. He was transferred to Guantanamo in September 2004. He and his brother were never charged, or tried, during their years in detention, and were not released until February 2023.”The United States had paid dearly and did not want to be fooledwrites Clive Stafford Smith, Rabbani’s lawyer, in the exhibition catalogue.
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Taxi driver
«What neither he nor I knew, until the US Senate released its report on detentions in 2014, was that Hassan Ghul had been captured and taken to the same prison, before being released in Pakistan. for cooperating“, he explains. “As Hassan Ghul resumed his terrorist activities and was killed in a drone attack in 2012, Ahmed got a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay».
Born in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, where his parents worked, Ahmed Rabbani arrived in Karachi as a teenager and was a taxi driver when he was arrested. Fluent in Arabic, he had specialized in transporting customers from the Middle East, which contributed to his misidentification.
Painting became Ahmed Rabbani’s obsession during his captivity, although years in prison and numerous hunger strikes often made him too weak to hold a paintbrush. When his condition allowed it, in case of shortage of equipment Ahmed Rabbani improvised with what was around him. “I found a discarded or torn piece of clothing and turned it into a canvas“, he explains. “Sometimes I dipped in coffee, sometimes in turmericto make paint.
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Confiscated works
«He lost a large part of his life. Producing images of such quality is a miracle… It’s remarkable», points out Natasha Malik, curator and curator of the exhibition. Alongside the twenty or so paintings he was allowed to take on his release from prison, are presented those of local artists responsible for “reimaginethe paintings that were confiscated from him. “Exhibited alongside Ahmed’s uncensored works, these artists accentuate his protest and creative expression by recreating work that audiences weren’t meant to see.», Analyzes the commissioner.
Depicting his hopes and despair, his works are surprisingly accomplished for someone who only studied art superficially in school. Some works express his hopes for freedom: nature that can be guessed through narrow openings, flying birds and endless oceans. Another painting shows a cage containing bright orange fish, the color of the suits Guantanamo prisoners are forced to wear.
«I spent many years in orange», recounts the artist who says he has «never accepted their lawsand prefers to look to the future. With a smile on his lips and bright eyes, he talks about his projects, including the publication of a cookbook in which he will talk about his memoirs. Ahmed Rabbani also wishes, thanks to the money raised by the sale of his works of art, to open a restaurant based on recipes learned in prison.
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