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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was no consensus. Good claims that are within policy are made by both sides, but I think it's obvious that there is no consensus to delete the article here. Thanks everyone for keeping it civil. Lankiveil (speak to me) 09:59, 1 May 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Tarek Dergoul

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Tarek Dergoul (edit | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – (View log · Stats)
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Per WP:ONEEVENT & WP:BLP1E Darkness Shines (talk) 21:36, 19 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This debate has been included in the list of Military-related deletion discussions. Anotherclown (talk) 00:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of People-related deletion discussions. Anotherclown (talk) 00:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Note: This debate has been included in the list of Terrorism-related deletion discussions. Anotherclown (talk) 00:36, 20 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Merge & Redirect to Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Subject has received mention in multiple non-primary reliable sources, that being said it could be argued that the subject has not received significant coverage in those mentions, it can be also argued that those multiple mentions if taken in total can add up to significant coverage. All that being said, I can see the short rational of this AfD that the subject is primarily notable for one event, that is his detention at Guantanamo Bay detention camp, therefore the subject falls under WP:BLP1E. As there is an article about those who fall within the same category of detention at Guantanamo Bay, the article content that can be verified to non-primary reliable sources should be merged into an appropriate target article, and a redirect left in this article space. As for the present state of the article, it appears to be a WP:SOAPBOX/WP:COATRACK do to its external links.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 20:52, 20 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
    • WP:SOAPBOX/WP:COATRACK -- I believe the official advice for contributors who think an article on a notable topic contains element of SOAPBOX or COATRACK is to articulate their concerns, rather than to argue for deletion. You acknowledged that there are a wealth of WP:Reliable sources, so is there a reason you aren't articulating your concerns? The article's talk page is a traditional place for this kind of concern. Geo Swan (talk) 00:44, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
My reasoning for merge and redirect is not based on my opinion on the external links on the subject of this AfD. Please do not confuse that as the basis of my reasoning. I agree that AfD is not the replacement for improving article content, but that doesn't mean that I cannot point it out. If this article survives AfD, hopefully someone more interested in the article will work on it.
That being said, the significant coverage that the subject has received is regarding a single event which was the detention of the subject at Guantanamo Bay (this includes his apprehension, detention, and release). Therefore, the subject falls under WP:BLP1E, as BLP1E subscribes, if the subject is notable for one event, the biography of the subject should be redirected to that event.--RightCowLeftCoast (talk) 22:04, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • You left your first comment on April 20th. In your comment above you suggest the article should be rewritten -- apparently without noticing the article has been rewritten. On April 22nd I made over 2 dozen edits to the article, adding other events, and expanding it almost nine-fold. Your comment above followed almost a day after my last edit.
Many people temporarily add articles to their watchlist, when they choose to comment on the that article's {{afd}}. That way they are aware of changes to the article that might affect their position or call for further comment. Have you ever considered following this practice? Geo Swan (talk) 02:29, 25 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • WRT one event -- I refreshed my memory of WP:ONEEVENT & WP:BLP1E, and I believe the nominator is misinterpreting the advice found there. They address individuals whose coverage is a "flash in the pan", for whom we know only one notable thing -- their involvement in that event. I don't agree that Tarek Dergoul's lifestory is an instance of a BLP1E.
I disagree with the assertion above that Dergoul was so similar to the other captives that his story can be shoehorned into Guantanamo Bay detention camp -- or any other existing article.
I added new material on Dergoul's first interview from May 2004. He offered that interview when the USA was still massively shamed by the trophy photos snapped, and traded, by a ring of torture-porn sadists at the Abu Ghraib. While a few other captives had described conditions for the captives as being brutal, and had described the camp's riot squads being used to administer brutal beatings for trivial reason, rather than to keep order, he was the first captive to assert that each riot squad had a team member assigned to carry a video camera and to record each use of the riot squad.
DoD authorities confirmed that every use of the riot squad was recorded -- for review by senior officers. They said the recordings were all archived.
As the new section describes Senator Patrick Leahy, a senior member of the Senate Judicial Committee, reacted to the information from Dergoul's interview, and called for those recordings to be made available to his committee.
Two months later the camp commandant appeared to testify before the committee about the recordings first described by Dergoul. Coverage of the commandant's appearance also covered Dergoul's role.
I suggest that meaningful interpretations BLP1E would classify his first interview, and its after-effects are a separate event. Is triggering a Senate Committee subpoena for someone make an individual notable? Well, since actually testifying before Congress doesn't make an individual notable, all by itself, it is only a factor that adds to an individual notability. But I don't think there is any question that this is a separate event.
As one of the first captives to be freed Dergoul was sought out for interviews, and legal scholars and human rights workers have cited, quoted, or summarized the abuse Dergoul described dozens or hundreds of times. I suggest this too places him among the more notable former captives.
I added a section about a 2011 event that ended up with Dergoul being sentenced to a one year suspended sentence. He attacked a parking official that had just given his car a parking ticket when his parking meter expired. Normally an individual's parking violation would not merit mention coverage here. But Dergoul didn't just dispute the ticket. He attacked the parking attendant. And, during his trial, he interrupted the parking official's testimony, yelling at him from the prisoner's dock. Finally, Benjamin Wittes, a senior and influential commentator on counter-terrorism commented on the event. Wittes, who is an WP:RS, tied Dergoul's conviction to the debate over Guantanamo recidivism. I thought that was worthy of mention, and made this a separate event.
I see his attempt to sue the UK government over his claim MI5 and MI6 were complicit in his abuse as one of the additional separate events. Geo Swan (talk) 00:29, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Obvious keep As User:RightCowLeftCoast noted, Tarek Dergoul is widely covered in WP:Reliable sources. RightCowLeftCoast is incorrect however to assert that none of those reliable sources cover him in significant detail, as multiple journalist published articles or interviews that are devoted entirely or almost entirely to covering his story. Andy Worthington, the author of The Guantanamo Files covers Dergoul in five separate chapters. Further, he covered new information about Dergoul, as it emerged, in online appendixes to his book -- the August 2nd, 2011 appendix devotes a dozen paragraphs to him. Further, while other reliable sources do not cover him in significant detail they cover different aspects of his story. Which refutes the assertion that Dergoul is an instance of a BLP1E.
Those different aspects of his story include:
  • His interview that revealed that the riot squad recorded all its actions triggered a Senate subpoena for the camp commandant to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee;
  • His accounts of that his toe became infected because his interrogators directed antibiotics be withheld from him has been widely repeated by legal and human rights experts;
  • His accounts that when a doctor finally looked at his toe, and decided it was too late to treat it, and it had to be amputated, he chose to amputate it without pain killers has been widely repeated;
  • His accounts that two of the men who the DoD claimed committed suicide had cells near him, that he knew them well, and that he did not believe they would ever commit suicide has been widely repeated;
  • His account that it was well known that British intelligence provided an individual from Morocco to serve as a mole in Bagram confirms Binyam Mohammed's claim that the justification the USA used to subject him to an extraordinary rendition to Morocco was that a Moroccan mole within Bagram falsely denounced him;
  • The conditional sentence and mental health assessment imposed on him after he attacked a parking official who took a picture of him;
  • He was the first UK resident to sue the UK government based on claims that MI5 and MI6 were intimately involved in his US detention and interrogation;
  • His account that it took him five years to get government assistance, even though he was an amputee, is, I believe, would not belong in an article on the camp, since it happened after his repatriation.
I am frankly concerned that the concerns of WP:NOTABILITY, WP:COATRACK, WP:SOAPBOX really reflect what WP:ATA characterizes as WP:IDONTLIKEIT. AGF and all that -- I trust this is an unconscious bias. But the key thing here is not whether or not we personally believe or doubt Mr Dergoul's claims. What really counts is the extent to which those claims are covered in WP:RS. The claims are extensively repeated in WP:RS. I am not totally unsympathetic to those who are skeptical of Mr Dergoul's claims. There are lots of times when I have been skeptical of the claims in all the RS on a topic. When I find myself in that position I grit my teeth, and do my best to comply with WP:NPOV and all other policies, when I use those RS. I encourage the challengers to this article to follow my example.
As per WP:NPOV this article should be written from the point of view that we don't know whether his claims are credible. We should always make clear who said what. If there were scholarly works that challenged Dergoul's credibility, we should quote them too, as per WP:UNDUE. I honestly haven't come across any, however. As per WP:UNDUE, if the DoD, or any other organ of the US government had ever offered a specific justification for the suspicion it bore Dergoul, that too should be included, but I honestly haven't come across any of those, either. I encourage contributors who have concerns about this article to raise them on the talk page. Geo Swan (talk) 17:52, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. I've thought about this for a bit now, and as the editors above responding to this AfD generally agree, there is coverage in RSs, which is what we look for, and to me the coverage appears to be appropriately sufficient. So this qualifies under GNG, in my view. It is also not limited to temporary coverage, so that argument falls by the wayside. And as to any editing comments ... as always, that is a subject for normal editing, and not a matter for AfD. And I don't see this as fitting neatly into BLP1E either, as it is not just an event of one moment committed by a minor player.--Epeefleche (talk) 22:22, 23 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • BLP1E states:
  • "If reliable sources cover the person only in the context of a single event." — I'm at a loss as to what the "one event" is in the nominator's mind? The War in Afghanistan? His capture? The Guantanamo detention? None of these would sensibly qualify as a singular event, especially since much of the article is dedicated to cataloging the reliable sources covering Dergoul's post-Guantanamo life.
  • "If that person otherwise remains, and is likely to remain, a low-profile individual. Biographies in these cases can give undue weight to the event and conflict with neutral point of view. In such cases, it is usually better to merge the information and redirect the person's name to the event article." — Being that Dergoul's post-Guantanamo life has been covered by news organizations, there's no way we can call him a "low-profile individual" outside of whatever event the nominator had in mind.
  • "[If] It is not the case that the event is significant and the individual's role within it is substantial and well-documented – as in the case of John Hinckley, Jr., who shot President Ronald Reagan in 1981." — Both the significance of the event (whatever the nominator had in mind) and the "substantial and well-documented" coverage of Dergoul's life take care of this point.
  • Now, let's look at ONEEVENT:
  • "If the event is highly significant, and the individual's role within it is a large one, a separate article is generally appropriate." — If we take the "one event" to be the Guantanamo Bay detention, it's hard to argue that there's a bigger role to play in a prison than prisoner—it's the role that defines the locale. If the one event is this man's capture, the same applies. There might be an argument that the capture is not a significant event, but the article's sources cover much more than the capture and the immediate consequences. And if we somehow twist our reason to say that the War in Afghanistan is "one event," we should remember another passage from ONEEVENT: "if an event is of sufficient importance, even relatively minor participants may require their own articles." -- Veggies (talk) 06:33, 24 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Our personal notion of whether an individual's account of himself or herself is credible is irrelevant to whether they are notable. It is coverage in WP:Reliable sources that makes an individual notable. To voice a delete because one has personal doubts over what reliable sources have written about a topic is a classic lapse from WP:NPOV and a classic instance of what the WP:Arguments to avoid advice calls an "I don't like it" argument.
  • It is true that wikipedia is not Amnesty International, so no one here should be advocating for Dergoul's right, just as no one should be advocating that Dergoul's claims are not credible, and that those who detained him and interrogated him did not do the things he claimed.
  • To cover the documented and repeated fact that Dergoul was the first individual to sue the UK government for complicity in his detention and interrogation, for instance, is not advocacy. This section of the article needs expansion. Maybe there are RS that cover this case that have made substantive points challenging Dergoul's credibility? If they are out there, and any of us find them, we should include them, and cover them neutrally, and with proper attribution. Please, feel free to go look for them.
I think what I have written complied with NPOV, and our other policies. But, if you disagree, I encourage you to explain your concern on the talk page.
  • Sorry, but to assert that Dergoul is merely "mentioned" in RS is to ignore those RS that have covered him in detail. I call on you to be specific -- exactly what details of Dergoul's life do you think are required, that we haven't already covered? Geo Swan (talk) 04:53, 27 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep. WP:ONEEVENT doesn't apply: I count at least (a) his detention and (b) his suing the UK government. Plenty of coverage in reliable sources, even if their sources may not be reliable. That's why we prefer third party sources! —me_and 19:22, 29 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep The person clearly meets GNG. The argument is whether each event such as his imprisonment, release, and subsequent outspoken views on the matter are considered one event or whether they are a series of related events. I have a hard time believing anyone would call his imprisonment and his subsequent activism a single event. They are two closely related but ultimately separate things. If you wrote a book about him they would be separated by chapters. If they were truly one event they would be in the same chapter. Arguably you could even write two books, one imprisonment and the other his activism and no one would argue they're both covering the same thing. The fact that he has maintained coverage after imprisonment seems to suggest enduring notability. Mkdwtalk 07:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keep Article's subject meets WP:GNG. Miniapolis 19:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
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