Guantánamo Public Memory Project

Abubakir Qasem discusses his experience as an inmate in the U.S. detention facility in Cuba, and the trying to overcome the perception that he was a terrorist.

The worst effect in my life came out of my experience in Guantanamo. Basically my future is gone because of this. When people look at us they do not look at my thirty-six years of life prior to Guantanamo; they will look at my four years of life in Guantanamo.
It does not matter what they say. They say that I am innocent; they released me and all that but when people hear that I have been to Guantanamo, they look at me differently. Some people do not even say hi to me because they know that I was in Guantanamo. So this Guantanamo, this name, became a big black stamp in my head. A lot of people judge me because of that. All these terrorists in Guantanamo, this and that. People take cautious my future, whatever I want to do, this is really affecting my future so that makes me sad when I think about how my future is gone now because of my life in Guantanamo.

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