Author Biography | Interview | Books by this Author | Read-Alikes
Mahvish Rukhsana Khan
is an American lawyer, born to
immigrant Pashtun parents in
Michigan. While pursuing a law
degree at the University of Miami,
she became enraged by the illegal
detainment of prisoners at
Guantanamo Bay. Having grown up
listening to her mother tell her
"Now is not the time to be
complacent," Khan felt compelled to
help any way she could. With her
fluency in Pashto and a familiarity
with Afghan cultures and customs
that no other "habeas" lawyer with
security clearance had, she was
quickly taken on as an interpreter
for Afghan detainees. Six months
later, in January 2006, Khan was on
her way to Guantanamo Bay. Her role
with the detainees quickly
developed. She began providing
supervised legal counsel and
traveled to Afghanistan to find
exonerating evidence for prisoners.
During more than thirty trips to
Guantanamo, Khan unexpectedly
connected with the very men that
Donald Rumsfeld called "the worst of
the worst." She brought them Starbucks chai, the closest
available drink to the kind of tea
they would drink at home. And they
quickly befriended her, offering
fatherly advice as well as a
uniquely personal insight into their
plight, and that of their families
thousands of miles away. As time
went by Khan began to question
whether Guantanamo truly held
America's most dangerous enemies.
But regardless of each prisoner's
innocence or guilt, she was
determined to preserve their most
fundamental right, the right to a
fair trial.
For Mahvish Rukhsana Khan, the
experience was a validation of her
Afghan heritage—as well as her
American freedoms, which allowed her
to intervene at Guantanamo purely
out of her sense that it was the
right thing to do. Her story is
challenging, brave, and essential
test of who she is—and who we are.
Mahvish Rukhsana Khan is a recent
law school graduate and journalist.
She has been published in the Wall
Street Journal, New York Times, the
Washington Post, and other media.
She lives in San Diego.
This bio was last updated on 09/25/2016. In a perfect world, we would like to keep all of BookBrowse's biographies up to date, but with many thousands of lives to keep track of it's simply impossible to do. So, if the date of this bio is not recent, you may wish to do an internet search for a more current source, such as the author's website or social media presence. If you are the author or publisher and would like us to update this biography, send the complete text and we will replace the old with the new.
You were in law school in 2006
when you decided that you wanted to do something about the illegal detainment of
prisoners in Guantánamo Bay. When most people decide to volunteer, they usually
serve at soup kitchens or walk dogs at animal shelters. However did you end up
at Guantánamo translating for detainees?
I was studying Gitmo at the time and found myself constantly
ranting about how criminal the situation was. Eventually I googled the cases I
had read so much about. My internet search revealed who the attorneys on those
cases were and I quickly got in touch with them. I wanted to be involved as a
journalist and a lawyer. When I learned that there was no one with security
clearance who spoke Pashto (a predominant Afghan language) I applied for
security clearance and got my foot in the door as an interpreter for habeas
lawyers representing detainees. My role eventually grew, but that's how it all
started.
Specifically, my desire to bring awareness and get involved
was triggered by how appalled I was while studying Gitmo and the Federal torture
statutes in my international law class. I realized the detention center was
created just to weasel around cornerstone constitutional ...
Curtis Dawkins grew up in rural Illinois and earned an MFA in fiction writing at Western Michigan University. He has struggled with alcohol and substance abuse through most of his life and, during a botched home robbery, ... (more)
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My Guantanamo Diary
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Dan Fesperman first began writing about dangerous and mysterious people and places as a journalist, a newspaper career that culminated in his years as a foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun. Reporting from Europe and ... (more)
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My Guantanamo Diary
Try:
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by Dan Fesperman
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