Mahvish Rukhsana Khan | |
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Born | Michigan, U.S.[1] | July 8, 1978
Education | University of Michigan (BA) University of Miami (JD) |
Occupation(s) | Lawyer, writer |
Mahvish Rukhsana Khan (born July 8, 1978)[2] is a Pashtun-American lawyer and writer.[3][4][5]
She graduated from the University of Michigan with a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Government and from the University of Miami School of Law with a Juris Doctor.[6]
While still in law school at the University of Miami, Khan, who speaks Pashto, and whose parents are Pashtun, worked as an interpreter for defense attorneys representing detainees held at Guantanamo Bay detention camp.[7] After visiting the military base, she wrote of her experiences in The Washington Post in 2006.[3] That article was later expanded into a book, My Guantanamo Diary: The Detainees and the Stories They Told me,[4] published in 2008 by PublicAffairs.
On February 25, 2010, Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, published an excerpt from her book, where she describes meeting Ali Shah Mousovi – the first captive she met.[8] She reported that Mousavi told her of having faced serious abuse, including a week of confinement in a coffin-sized box, beatings, stress positions, and being soaked with freezing cold water.
Khan is now providing supervised legal counsel for one Afghan detainee at Guantanamo.[9]
Much to her surprise, Khan soon discovered many of the detainees she encountered were merely average citizens handed over to U.S. authorities, often by bounty hunters.
He described how he was beaten regularly by Americans in civilian clothing. More painful than the bruises and wounds that covered his body were the unbroken days and nights without sleep. Tape recordings of screeching sirens blared through the speakers that soldiers placed by his ears. His head throbbed. Whenever he managed, mercifully, to doze off, he would be startled awake by wooden clubs striking loud blows against the wall. He recalled the sting as he was repeatedly doused with ice water. He said he was not allowed to sit down for two weeks straight. At some point his legs felt like wet noodles; when they gave out, he was beaten and forced to stand back up. He could not remember how many times this happened.