How I fought to survive Guantánamo

It is not hot stabbing pain that Omar Deghayes remembers from the day a Guantánamo guard blinded him, but the cool sen­sation of fingers being stabbed deep into his eyeballs. He had joined other prisoners in protesting against a new humiliation–inmates ­being forced to take off their trousers and walk round in their pants–and a group of guards had entered his cell to punish him. He was held down and bound with chains. "I didn't realise what was going on until the guy had pushed his fingers ­inside my eyes and I could feel the coldness of his fingers. Then I realised he was trying to gouge out my eyes," Deghayes says. He wanted to scream in agony, but was determined not to give his torturers the satisfaction. Then the officer standing over him instructed the eye-stabber to push harder. "When he pulled his hands out, I remember I couldn't see anything–I'd lost sight completely in both eyes." Deghayes was dumped in a cell, fluid streaming from his eyes.