By William Fisher
Even as the alleged ringleader of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal faces court-martial Friday, human rights groups are questioning whether his case is really the ”aberration” the Pentagon claims.
”The trial of Charles Graner is a first step toward accountability, but no one should confuse it with the end of the process,” said Reed Brody, special counsel at Human Rights Watch. ”The issue isn't only who was the local ringleader, but whether his superiors led him to believe he had permission to engage in such atrocities.”
The scope of U.S. mistreatment of prisoners, at home and abroad, has continued to widen in recent weeks, even as the government is reportedly considering building a 25-million-dollar, 200-bed prison to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever appear before a military tribunal for lack of evidence.
In December, a federal court ordered the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to turn over documents to human rights groups that it had previously refused to divulge regarding prisoner abuse by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan, under a law that allows citizens access to public records.
Government lawyers contended that the spy agency should be allowed to complete its internal investigation before turning over the documents, an argument rejected by the court.
Jameel Jaffer, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the plaintiff in the case, told IPS that the decision ”recognised that, at least in certain circumstances, the Freedom of Information Act gives the public the right to information about CIA activity.”
”We have insisted from the outset that the public has a right to know whether CIA personnel are engaged in the abuse and torture of detainees,” he said. ”Judge Hellerstein's ruling is an important step towards vindicating that right.”
He added that the CIA has not yet said whether it will appeal the order.
The ACLU suit is also seeking information about so-called ”ghost detainees” -- prisoners held by the CIA but who were not registered so that they would escape discovery by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Army investigations had previously confirmed the existence of these practices, and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news conference months ago that he had complied with a CIA request to conceal at least one prisoner. Since then, Army investigators have estimated that the number of ”ghost detainees” could be as many as 100.
Meanwhile, the new inspector general of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has begun an ”intensive audit of the immigration detention system...seeking information from government, non-governmental organizations, attorneys with currently detained clients and.detainees themselves.”
Inspector generals are frequently critical of their own agencies. They can be removed by the president, and President George W. Bush recently fired the
inspector general of the DHS. He had issued many critical reports about the mismanagement and security flaws at the huge department.
The new inspector general said this week that his office would look into allegations of mistreatment, including physical and sexual abuse, and cases of hunger strike and attempted suicide.
A leading authority on the U.S. immigration detention system, Mark Dow, author of ”American Gulag: Inside U.S. Immigration Prisons”, had a mixed reaction to the investigation.
”It's certainly a good thing that investigators will be looking at a few detention centres,” he told IPS. ”But truly independent monitoring and reforms must come from outside DHS. After all, criminals don't punish themselves.”
After the Sep. 11 attacks, the U.S. government rounded up some 5,000 aliens, mostly Arabs and other Muslims. Many were held for long periods, without access to their families or to legal counsel. Many were deported for visa violations. In some cases, they were returned to countries where they would likely face abuse in detention. None was ever charged with a terror-related crime.
When the Department of Homeland Security was established, the Immigration and Naturalisation Service was split into three new agencies. All are part of the DHS. The service operates detention centers throughout the U.S., and also uses traditional jails and prisons, including many operated by private contractors. The centres have been called the country's most secretive prison system.
According to the Washington Post, the prison issue arose because Bush administration officials are preparing long-range plans for indefinitely jailing suspected terrorists they do not want to set free or turn over to U.S or foreign courts.
One option under this proposal would ”render” large numbers of Afghan, Saudi and Yemeni detainees from the U.S. military's Guantanamo Bay detention centre to new U.S.-built prisons in their home countries. According to the newspaper, ”the prisons would be operated by those countries, but the State Department, where this idea originated, would ask them to abide by recognised human rights standards and would monitor compliance.”
In the past, the legitimacy of such assurances has been widely questioned by human rights groups and legislators because the countries to which prisoners are ”rendered” have well-documented histories of prisoner torture and death in detention.
Since the 1990s, the CIA has secretly transferred captives it picks up abroad to third countries. The transfers, called ”renditions,” depend on arrangements between the United States and other countries, such as Egypt, Jordan and Afghanistan, which agree to have local security services hold certain terror suspects secretly and without access to due process for interrogation by CIA and foreign intelligence officers.
Renditions were originally a way of picking up drug dealers and other criminals abroad, and delivering them to courts in the United States or other countries. But since 2001, the practice has been used against terror suspects to ensure that these detainees do not go to court or back on the streets.
An alternative to the transfer plan would be the construction of a 25-million-dollar, 200-bed prison in the U.S. ”to hold detainees who are unlikely to ever go through a military tribunal for lack of evidence,” Pentagon officials told the Washington Post. The prison reportedly would be modeled on a U.S. prison and would allow socialising among inmates.
The idea of holding detainees potentially for life has drawn criticism from human rights groups and from some legislators.
”There must be some modicum, some semblance of due process...if you're going to detain
people, whether it's for life or whether it's for years,” said Sen. Carl M. Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee.
Thursday, January 06, 2005
Monday, January 03, 2005
THE GOVERNMENT WE DESERVE?
By William Fisher
The 2004 Presidential campaign reminded me of an earlier time.
Two decades ago, I worked for a major public relations firm. Our biggest client was the world’s largest cigarette maker. One of my jobs for this client was writing press releases. We had two criteria for success. One was whether the press release was technically excellent. The other was how many newspapers published it.
Whether it was accurate or not was not on the table. We knew it wasn’t. But no one cared.
So it was with the recent political campaign – and political campaigns throughout American history. It was about who could be more professional in crafting the ten words most likely to resonate with voters, i.e. “he voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it”; “he didn’t show up for National Guard duty”. It was about “staying on message”. It was about appealing to “the base” in the basest possible ways. It was about political theater. It was about stagecraft. And it was about campaign managers and their obvious contempt for the intelligence of the electorate – ten words being the max American voters are capable of processing.
So, since President Bush was reelected, he hails Karl Rove as “the architect”. Rove would have written great press releases for that tobacco company.
But should we condemn Mr. Rove and John Kerry’s campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill? I think not. Because there was more than enough complicity to go around. The voters were complicit. They settled for sound bites rather than demanding substance. They failed to spend the time to understand which issues were important and which were trivial. The media were complicit for allowing the campaigns to “define” the candidates and “frame” their stories. And, perhaps most troublesome of all, America’s schools were complicit. They graduated millions of people without the most minimal equipment necessary for choosing a leader.
America’s voters are the same folks who are unable to show you where Mexico is on a map. Who think Iraq sent us the 9/11 hijackers. Who know less about history, science, math, and most other subjects, than their peers in much of the rest of the industrialized world.
Did you know that close to 30 percent of high school freshmen fail to graduate? That more than 25 percent of the high school graduates who enter four-year colleges fail to return for their sophomore year and that, in two-year institutions, the dropout rate is twice that high. That more than half of today's college students are placed in at least one remedial math or English class, learning skills they should have acquired in high school. That surveys of employers find a high proportion of new hires lacking basic reading, writing and math skills? That in math and science among eighth-grade students, the US is 15th out of 45 countries. That American eighth-graders register an average score in math of 504 out of a possible 1000, below their counterparts' scores in Singapore (605), South Korea (589) and Russia (508), but above those in Sweden (499), New Zealand (494) and Saudi Arabia (332)? That US 15-year-olds score below the international average in math literacy and problem-solving? That at the fourth-grade level, US students are 12th out of 25 in the ranking, below Singapore, Japan, Lithuania and Hungary? And as for the arts or foreign languages? Forget it!
Not to worry, we are told. Americans have “common sense” and “good gut instincts”. Sure, but is that enough? These days, Americans are scared to death. Of terrorists. Of Saddam Hussein’s mushroom clouds. Of losing a son or a daughter or a father or a mother in Iraq or Afghanistan. Of being forced to have a same-sex marriage. This is the “new normal”. So people respond to whoever looks like a way out. Whoever sounds most confident. Whoever they’d like to have a beer with. Whoever is most telegenic. Whoever is best at compressing a dangerous and increasingly complex world into ten words or less: “Mission Accomplished”, or “I’m John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty”.
Maybe the world used to be simpler. Maybe you could get by with common sense and gut instincts. But if history tells us this wasn’t enough even in the past -- we’ve elected our share of deeply flawed leaders – it surely is not enough now. This is not a Republican thing or a Democratic thing. Or a Red State/Blue State thing. It is an American thing. World powers have declined and vanished before. If ours is not to become one of them, our voters need to inform their common sense and gut instincts with real knowledge.
If the people don’t demand fact and truth – from the candidates, from the media, and from our education system – they are doomed to get the government they deserve.
The 2004 Presidential campaign reminded me of an earlier time.
Two decades ago, I worked for a major public relations firm. Our biggest client was the world’s largest cigarette maker. One of my jobs for this client was writing press releases. We had two criteria for success. One was whether the press release was technically excellent. The other was how many newspapers published it.
Whether it was accurate or not was not on the table. We knew it wasn’t. But no one cared.
So it was with the recent political campaign – and political campaigns throughout American history. It was about who could be more professional in crafting the ten words most likely to resonate with voters, i.e. “he voted for the $87 billion before he voted against it”; “he didn’t show up for National Guard duty”. It was about “staying on message”. It was about appealing to “the base” in the basest possible ways. It was about political theater. It was about stagecraft. And it was about campaign managers and their obvious contempt for the intelligence of the electorate – ten words being the max American voters are capable of processing.
So, since President Bush was reelected, he hails Karl Rove as “the architect”. Rove would have written great press releases for that tobacco company.
But should we condemn Mr. Rove and John Kerry’s campaign manager, Mary Beth Cahill? I think not. Because there was more than enough complicity to go around. The voters were complicit. They settled for sound bites rather than demanding substance. They failed to spend the time to understand which issues were important and which were trivial. The media were complicit for allowing the campaigns to “define” the candidates and “frame” their stories. And, perhaps most troublesome of all, America’s schools were complicit. They graduated millions of people without the most minimal equipment necessary for choosing a leader.
America’s voters are the same folks who are unable to show you where Mexico is on a map. Who think Iraq sent us the 9/11 hijackers. Who know less about history, science, math, and most other subjects, than their peers in much of the rest of the industrialized world.
Did you know that close to 30 percent of high school freshmen fail to graduate? That more than 25 percent of the high school graduates who enter four-year colleges fail to return for their sophomore year and that, in two-year institutions, the dropout rate is twice that high. That more than half of today's college students are placed in at least one remedial math or English class, learning skills they should have acquired in high school. That surveys of employers find a high proportion of new hires lacking basic reading, writing and math skills? That in math and science among eighth-grade students, the US is 15th out of 45 countries. That American eighth-graders register an average score in math of 504 out of a possible 1000, below their counterparts' scores in Singapore (605), South Korea (589) and Russia (508), but above those in Sweden (499), New Zealand (494) and Saudi Arabia (332)? That US 15-year-olds score below the international average in math literacy and problem-solving? That at the fourth-grade level, US students are 12th out of 25 in the ranking, below Singapore, Japan, Lithuania and Hungary? And as for the arts or foreign languages? Forget it!
Not to worry, we are told. Americans have “common sense” and “good gut instincts”. Sure, but is that enough? These days, Americans are scared to death. Of terrorists. Of Saddam Hussein’s mushroom clouds. Of losing a son or a daughter or a father or a mother in Iraq or Afghanistan. Of being forced to have a same-sex marriage. This is the “new normal”. So people respond to whoever looks like a way out. Whoever sounds most confident. Whoever they’d like to have a beer with. Whoever is most telegenic. Whoever is best at compressing a dangerous and increasingly complex world into ten words or less: “Mission Accomplished”, or “I’m John Kerry and I’m reporting for duty”.
Maybe the world used to be simpler. Maybe you could get by with common sense and gut instincts. But if history tells us this wasn’t enough even in the past -- we’ve elected our share of deeply flawed leaders – it surely is not enough now. This is not a Republican thing or a Democratic thing. Or a Red State/Blue State thing. It is an American thing. World powers have declined and vanished before. If ours is not to become one of them, our voters need to inform their common sense and gut instincts with real knowledge.
If the people don’t demand fact and truth – from the candidates, from the media, and from our education system – they are doomed to get the government they deserve.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
GIVE US YOUR HUDDLED MASSES…
By William Fisher
The law to reorganize US intelligence services was passed at the 11th hour in the last Congress partly because of a compromise that eliminated a number of controversial anti-immigration provisions. But the sponsor of those provisions says he intends to reintroduce them as “must pass” legislation “on the first day of the 109th Congress in January.” With President Bush, many human rights groups, most Democrats, and a number of civil libertarian conservatives arrayed against measure, the action is destined to trigger a fierce battle on Capitol Hill.
Said Congressman James Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin and powerful chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee: “These common-sense provisions are aimed at preventing another 9/11-type attack by plugging holes in our homeland security efforts. We must address these vulnerabilities very soon because we know America’s enemies diligently probe our vulnerabilities to carry out their deadly intentions.”
Most media coverage of last session’s immigration proposals focused on such issues as establishing uniform security standards for drivers’ licenses and border security, such as closing the three-mile hole in the U.S./Mexico border fence near San Diego, California.
But the provisions that are far more worrying to human rights groups and civil libertarians relate to tightening asylum regulations. For example, the legislation would allow immigration judges to determine witness credibility in asylum cases with significantly reduced opportunity for appeal, stipulate that all terrorism-related grounds for inadmissibility are grounds for deportation, and provide for the ‘expedited deportation’ of immigrants and visitors, even to countries where they are likely to face prison torture.
Human rights groups have been unanimous in their opposition to these provisions.
According to Susan Benesch of Amnesty International USA, the Sensenbrenner provisions “would prevent refugees from finding save haven in the United States and erode their chance for due process in presenting their asylum claims.” She told IPS in an email interview that “these anti-refugee and anti-immigrant measures were not recommended by the 9-11 commission for good reason -- they would not improve our national security. On the contrary -- they would deny safety to people whose own security is in danger.” Amnesty, she added, “also opposes the outsourcing of torture - - the United States is bound by the UN Convention Against Torture to prevent or punish torture, certainly not to facilitate it.”
The legislation reorganizing the intelligence community was based on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, established to investigate the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Sensenbrenner recommendations were not part of the Commission’s recommendations.
Much of the controversy surrounding the Sensenbrenner immigration provisions stems from the widespread round-ups of primarily Arab and Muslim immigrants and visitors after the 9/11 attacks and again just prior to the 2004 presidential election. More than 5,000 people were arrested, and many detained for long periods with access to legal counsel. None were charged with any terror-related crime. Many were deported, some to countries where they were likely to be arrested again and face torture in detention. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has refused to disclose the names of any of the detainees.
But Amnesty’s Benesch says her organization “would be equally opposed if no Muslims had been rounded up” because the government was denying long-established asylum rights.
Mark Dow, author of ‘American Gulag: Inside US Immigration Prisons told IPS, “even sympathetic observers continue to believe that though the post-911 roundup failed to catch terrorists, it was intended to do so. This ignores the evidence that roundups were at least in part a cover to make it look like the Justice Department was doing something.” He added: “It is less the case, as is commonly asserted, that roundups of Arabs and Muslims were intended to fight terrorism than that terrorism was used as a pretext to justify the roundups -- a pattern that is in full force today around the country”. The INS was separated into three agencies, one of which is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All are now part of the new Department of Homeland Security.
One of the few Sensenbrenner provisions that made it into the final law increased the numbers of beds in detention facilities. Of this, Dow calls it “unconscionable to give DHS more detention capacity. Instead, Congress should establish a permanent independent oversight system to review the legality and humaneness of all current and future immigration detainee cases, and to monitor the treatment of all detainees. Ultimately, detention authority should be removed from DHS except in emergencies and for strictly limited periods. The immigration service has shown its unwillingness and inability to run a humane and lawful detention system.”
Washington sources believe most of the original Sensenbrenner proposals are likely to make it into the new bill. These include:
·“Expedited Removal” – allowing immigration enforcement officers to deport without a hearing any non-citizen not admitted to the U.S. by immigration authorities and who has been here for less than five years. This could result in the summary deportation of people who could face serious harm if deported. According to Human Rights First (HRF), an advocacy group, “These provisions place broad uncontrolled power in the hands of immigration officers whose decisions are not subject to formal administrative or judicial review.”
·Summary deportation of battered spouses, children whose unlawful entry into the U.S. was connected to the abuse they suffered, and victims of human trafficking and victims of serious crimes such as rape, torture, trafficking, incest, domestic violence, sexual assault, involuntary servitude, kidnapping, and abduction.
·“Preventing Terrorists from Obtaining Asylum” is, according to HRF, “is NOT about preventing terrorists from getting asylum. Terrorists are already barred from asylum.” This section, the group says, would allow genuine refugees to be denied asylum if they were unable to document relevant conditions in their countries through State Department reports, could not prove their persecutor’s central reason for harming them, or had any inconsistencies between statements made to any U.S. government employees and their testimony before an immigration judge.
·Permitting adjudicators to deny asylum because they are unable to provide corroborating evidence of “certain alleged facts pertaining to the specifics of their claim.” This provision, says HRF, “would disproportionately harm asylum seekers who are held in jails and detention facilities, and the many who are not represented by legal counsel.”
·Giving adjudicators broad leeway to deny applicants asylum based on factors such as their perceived “demeanor”.
·Allowing an asylum applicant to be denied asylum on grounds of credibility if the abuse suffered or feared was not documented in the annual country conditions reports of the Department of State.
·Eliminating stays of removal pending judicial review, allowing refugees to be returned to the persecution they fear while their cases are pending in federal court. According to HRF, “This provision, applicable to ALL immigration cases, would have a particularly devastating impact on refugees and persons facing torture if they are deported.”
·Eliminating all judicial review for persons claiming protection from removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) who are barred from direct review by the court of appeals.
·Requiring that anyone not deported be detained indefinitely. This provision, says HRF, “runs afoul of international legal standards against arbitrary detention. In addition, the Supreme Court has already stated that ‘a statute permitting indefinite detention of an alien would raise a serious constitutional problem’.”
·Allowing the Department of Homeland Security to designate as a “specially dangerous alien” and detain indefinitely anyone who is barred from withholding of removal but has not been granted any protection against removal, while requiring the indefinite detention—without any showing or even allegation of dangerousness.
While the US media has largely focused on border security issues, US asylum policy has come under less scrutiny. However, “The New York Times” wrote in a September 25, 2004 editorial: “In jails and prisons across the United States, thousands of people are detained who have never been accused of crimes. The guards treat them like criminals, and the criminals they bunk with often abuse them. They are held for months, sometimes even years, but unlike the criminals, they do not know when their sentences will end. They receive this treatment because they are foreigners who arrived in the United States saying that they were fleeing persecution at home… They come here chasing America's promised liberty, and they end up in chains…locking up thousands of people who pose no risk and are accused of no crimes is expensive, unnecessary and a betrayal of America's commitment to the persecuted.”
For years, the INS has failed to furnish accurate numbers of asylum-seekers to the Congress, despite a Federal law requiring this data. Thus precise data is difficult to come by. The US Government suggests that there are about 22,000 detainees in US immigration prisons at any one time, and that on average several thousand of these will be asylum-seekers. Non-governmental sources estimate the numbers as many times higher. Other sources have estimated that in 2001, 86,180 people sought asylum in the United States; 68,400 applications were reportedly granted. Yet other sources report that in 2000, there were 48,054 asylum-seekers to the US, and 47,584 cases in the first nine months of 2001. Only a few hundred of the Muslims and Arabs rounded up after September 11th, 2001, were asylum-seekers, but many more were reportedly refugees.
President George W. Bush opposed some of the Sensenbrenner proposals, as well as measures introduced by others, in the bill he signed into law earlier this month. However, it is unclear whether he did so only to facilitate the compromise that allowed the bill to pass. The immigration issue is further complicated by President Bush’s own proposal for a ‘guest worker’ program. This program would grant multi-year work permits to non-citizens, including illegal aliens. The idea has drawn widespread bi-partisan opposition in Congress.
The law to reorganize US intelligence services was passed at the 11th hour in the last Congress partly because of a compromise that eliminated a number of controversial anti-immigration provisions. But the sponsor of those provisions says he intends to reintroduce them as “must pass” legislation “on the first day of the 109th Congress in January.” With President Bush, many human rights groups, most Democrats, and a number of civil libertarian conservatives arrayed against measure, the action is destined to trigger a fierce battle on Capitol Hill.
Said Congressman James Sensenbrenner, a Republican from Wisconsin and powerful chairman of the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee: “These common-sense provisions are aimed at preventing another 9/11-type attack by plugging holes in our homeland security efforts. We must address these vulnerabilities very soon because we know America’s enemies diligently probe our vulnerabilities to carry out their deadly intentions.”
Most media coverage of last session’s immigration proposals focused on such issues as establishing uniform security standards for drivers’ licenses and border security, such as closing the three-mile hole in the U.S./Mexico border fence near San Diego, California.
But the provisions that are far more worrying to human rights groups and civil libertarians relate to tightening asylum regulations. For example, the legislation would allow immigration judges to determine witness credibility in asylum cases with significantly reduced opportunity for appeal, stipulate that all terrorism-related grounds for inadmissibility are grounds for deportation, and provide for the ‘expedited deportation’ of immigrants and visitors, even to countries where they are likely to face prison torture.
Human rights groups have been unanimous in their opposition to these provisions.
According to Susan Benesch of Amnesty International USA, the Sensenbrenner provisions “would prevent refugees from finding save haven in the United States and erode their chance for due process in presenting their asylum claims.” She told IPS in an email interview that “these anti-refugee and anti-immigrant measures were not recommended by the 9-11 commission for good reason -- they would not improve our national security. On the contrary -- they would deny safety to people whose own security is in danger.” Amnesty, she added, “also opposes the outsourcing of torture - - the United States is bound by the UN Convention Against Torture to prevent or punish torture, certainly not to facilitate it.”
The legislation reorganizing the intelligence community was based on the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission, established to investigate the attacks of September 11, 2001. The Sensenbrenner recommendations were not part of the Commission’s recommendations.
Much of the controversy surrounding the Sensenbrenner immigration provisions stems from the widespread round-ups of primarily Arab and Muslim immigrants and visitors after the 9/11 attacks and again just prior to the 2004 presidential election. More than 5,000 people were arrested, and many detained for long periods with access to legal counsel. None were charged with any terror-related crime. Many were deported, some to countries where they were likely to be arrested again and face torture in detention. The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has refused to disclose the names of any of the detainees.
But Amnesty’s Benesch says her organization “would be equally opposed if no Muslims had been rounded up” because the government was denying long-established asylum rights.
Mark Dow, author of ‘American Gulag: Inside US Immigration Prisons told IPS, “even sympathetic observers continue to believe that though the post-911 roundup failed to catch terrorists, it was intended to do so. This ignores the evidence that roundups were at least in part a cover to make it look like the Justice Department was doing something.” He added: “It is less the case, as is commonly asserted, that roundups of Arabs and Muslims were intended to fight terrorism than that terrorism was used as a pretext to justify the roundups -- a pattern that is in full force today around the country”. The INS was separated into three agencies, one of which is the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). All are now part of the new Department of Homeland Security.
One of the few Sensenbrenner provisions that made it into the final law increased the numbers of beds in detention facilities. Of this, Dow calls it “unconscionable to give DHS more detention capacity. Instead, Congress should establish a permanent independent oversight system to review the legality and humaneness of all current and future immigration detainee cases, and to monitor the treatment of all detainees. Ultimately, detention authority should be removed from DHS except in emergencies and for strictly limited periods. The immigration service has shown its unwillingness and inability to run a humane and lawful detention system.”
Washington sources believe most of the original Sensenbrenner proposals are likely to make it into the new bill. These include:
·“Expedited Removal” – allowing immigration enforcement officers to deport without a hearing any non-citizen not admitted to the U.S. by immigration authorities and who has been here for less than five years. This could result in the summary deportation of people who could face serious harm if deported. According to Human Rights First (HRF), an advocacy group, “These provisions place broad uncontrolled power in the hands of immigration officers whose decisions are not subject to formal administrative or judicial review.”
·Summary deportation of battered spouses, children whose unlawful entry into the U.S. was connected to the abuse they suffered, and victims of human trafficking and victims of serious crimes such as rape, torture, trafficking, incest, domestic violence, sexual assault, involuntary servitude, kidnapping, and abduction.
·“Preventing Terrorists from Obtaining Asylum” is, according to HRF, “is NOT about preventing terrorists from getting asylum. Terrorists are already barred from asylum.” This section, the group says, would allow genuine refugees to be denied asylum if they were unable to document relevant conditions in their countries through State Department reports, could not prove their persecutor’s central reason for harming them, or had any inconsistencies between statements made to any U.S. government employees and their testimony before an immigration judge.
·Permitting adjudicators to deny asylum because they are unable to provide corroborating evidence of “certain alleged facts pertaining to the specifics of their claim.” This provision, says HRF, “would disproportionately harm asylum seekers who are held in jails and detention facilities, and the many who are not represented by legal counsel.”
·Giving adjudicators broad leeway to deny applicants asylum based on factors such as their perceived “demeanor”.
·Allowing an asylum applicant to be denied asylum on grounds of credibility if the abuse suffered or feared was not documented in the annual country conditions reports of the Department of State.
·Eliminating stays of removal pending judicial review, allowing refugees to be returned to the persecution they fear while their cases are pending in federal court. According to HRF, “This provision, applicable to ALL immigration cases, would have a particularly devastating impact on refugees and persons facing torture if they are deported.”
·Eliminating all judicial review for persons claiming protection from removal under the Convention Against Torture (CAT) who are barred from direct review by the court of appeals.
·Requiring that anyone not deported be detained indefinitely. This provision, says HRF, “runs afoul of international legal standards against arbitrary detention. In addition, the Supreme Court has already stated that ‘a statute permitting indefinite detention of an alien would raise a serious constitutional problem’.”
·Allowing the Department of Homeland Security to designate as a “specially dangerous alien” and detain indefinitely anyone who is barred from withholding of removal but has not been granted any protection against removal, while requiring the indefinite detention—without any showing or even allegation of dangerousness.
While the US media has largely focused on border security issues, US asylum policy has come under less scrutiny. However, “The New York Times” wrote in a September 25, 2004 editorial: “In jails and prisons across the United States, thousands of people are detained who have never been accused of crimes. The guards treat them like criminals, and the criminals they bunk with often abuse them. They are held for months, sometimes even years, but unlike the criminals, they do not know when their sentences will end. They receive this treatment because they are foreigners who arrived in the United States saying that they were fleeing persecution at home… They come here chasing America's promised liberty, and they end up in chains…locking up thousands of people who pose no risk and are accused of no crimes is expensive, unnecessary and a betrayal of America's commitment to the persecuted.”
For years, the INS has failed to furnish accurate numbers of asylum-seekers to the Congress, despite a Federal law requiring this data. Thus precise data is difficult to come by. The US Government suggests that there are about 22,000 detainees in US immigration prisons at any one time, and that on average several thousand of these will be asylum-seekers. Non-governmental sources estimate the numbers as many times higher. Other sources have estimated that in 2001, 86,180 people sought asylum in the United States; 68,400 applications were reportedly granted. Yet other sources report that in 2000, there were 48,054 asylum-seekers to the US, and 47,584 cases in the first nine months of 2001. Only a few hundred of the Muslims and Arabs rounded up after September 11th, 2001, were asylum-seekers, but many more were reportedly refugees.
President George W. Bush opposed some of the Sensenbrenner proposals, as well as measures introduced by others, in the bill he signed into law earlier this month. However, it is unclear whether he did so only to facilitate the compromise that allowed the bill to pass. The immigration issue is further complicated by President Bush’s own proposal for a ‘guest worker’ program. This program would grant multi-year work permits to non-citizens, including illegal aliens. The idea has drawn widespread bi-partisan opposition in Congress.
Sunday, December 19, 2004
BACK-PEDALING AT THE TREASURY
By William Fisher
From Washington this week comes proof that high-profile individuals can sometimes force the Bush Administration to reverse some of its anti-human rights policies.
The high-profile individual is Prof. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian dissident who was the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Prize. This is the story of how she and her colleagues got the US Treasury Department to stop a certain train wreck.
Prof. Ebadi was told she couldn’t publish her memoirs in the United States because of regulations that prohibit ‘trading with the enemy’. “The enemy”, in Prof. Ebadi’s case, is Iran, against whom the US currently has sanctions. The Trading With The Enemy Act (TWTE), passed in 1917, allows the president to bar transactions during times of war or national emergency. Though the law has been amended to exempt publishers, the Treasury Department continued to rule it illegal “to enhance the value of anything created in Iran without permission” -- including books.
The Department suggested Prof. Ebadi apply for a special license. But instead, Prof. Ebadi and her agent joined a lawsuit filed a month earlier against the Treasury Department by several American organizations representing publishers, editors and translators. These organizations had conducted fruitless negations for more than a year with Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers the TWTE regulations. Prof. Ebadi’s book is described as an effort to "help correct Western stereotypes of Islam, especially the image of Muslim women as docile, forlorn creatures." The TWTE regulations currently apply to countries against which the US has sanctions – Iran, Sudan and Cuba.
The lawsuit said, “At a time when the US calls for citizens of other countries to follow the example of American democracy, preventing writers in certain countries from reaching the American public sends exactly the wrong message. Writers in Iran, Cuba and Sudan cannot publish freely in their own countries. It is a tragic and dangerous irony that Americans may not freely publish the works of those writers here, either.”
“We seek to overturn the regulations on what Americans can and cannot read in the United States”, Prof. Ebadi wrote in “The New York Times” (November 16) about the lawsuit. The suit was filed by the PEN American Center, the Association of American Publishers Professional and Scholarly Publishing division (AAP/PSP), the Association of American University Presses (AAUP), and Arcade Publishing. Arcade is the publisher of PEN’s “Anthology of Iranian Literature”. PEN is a writers’ advocacy group.
Prof. Ebadi wrote that she “was surprised and angered when I learned that regulations in the United States make it nearly impossible for me to write a book for Americans. Despite federal laws that say that American trade embargoes may not restrict the free flow of information, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control continues to regulate the import of books from Iran, Cuba and other countries. In order to skirt the laws protecting the flow of information, the government prohibits publishing ‘materials not fully created and in existence’. Therefore, I could publish my memoir in the United States, but it would be illegal for an American literary agent, publisher, editor or translator to help me.” Rule-breakers are subject to prison sentences of up to 10 years or fines of up to $1,000,000.
Human rights, she said, “including the freedom to read whatever one wishes, are universal values that transcend national boundaries. Therefore, just as I take on court cases in Tehran to defend others' rights, so must I follow my conscience and take on a lawsuit in the United States to defend my own rights and the rights of Americans.”
The organizations asked the court to strike down OFAC regulations that require publishers, writers, and translators to seek a license from the government to perform the routine services necessary to publish foreign literature in the United States.
Those rulings and the regulations they interpret mandate that Americans may not publish work not already published in embargoed countries, promote or market the work, nor provide vaguely defined "artistic or substantive alterations or enhancements" to the work.
Prof. Ebadi and her colleagues charged that the regulations violate both the intention of Congress, articulated in the 1989 Berman Amendment, and the 1994 Free Trade in Ideas Act, which exempts transactions involving "information and informational materials" from embargoed countries, as well as the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The author of the Berman Amendment is Congressman Howard Berman, Democrat of California, who has long been an advocate for the free flow of information from embargoed nations.
In March, Rep. Berman wrote the Treasury Department to criticize its “narrow and misguided interpretation of the law”. He added: “I fail to see how this serves the interests of the United States in any way, shape or form.”
PEN, the AAP/PSP, AAUP, and Arcade contended that OFAC's regulations overreached the office's statutory authority and endangered US citizens' constitutional rights.
Last week, the Treasury Department abruptly reversed its interpretation of the TWTE Act, to largely exempt writers, publishers, editors, translators and literary agents from the regulations governing the publication of informational materials, including medical and scientific publications as well as books, from countries subject to US trade embargoes.
Edward Davis, whose law firm represents the publishing organizations as well as PEN, called the Treasury Department’s decision “a very encouraging first step toward restoring the freedom of expression”, but cautioned that “the government has not yet undone all the restrictions imposed.” He told IPS, “Prof. Ebadi’s reputation and notoriety undoubtedly played a role in getting the government to change its rules.” Davis’s law firm, Davis, Wright, Tremaine, has not yet withdrawn the lawsuit.
There is an ironic twist to the Ebadi story. At the same time the Treasury Department was denying Prof. Ebadi the right to publish her book, the US State Department – which is reportedly in charge of ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of people who live under repressive, authoritarian regimes – was lauding her on its website as one of Iran’s “Voices Struggling To Be Heard.”
The website notes that she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 “for her life-long campaign to protect vulnerable and persecuted groups within Iranian society.” And it quotes the citation from the Norwegian Nobel Committee: “As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer and activist, she has spoken out clearly and strongly in her country, Iran and far beyond.”
The State Department website goes on to explain, “Since being forced from her position as the president of the city court of Tehran, she has used her legal expertise to promote and protect some of the most basic and necessary human rights…. she has provided legal representation to many activists who are the targets of government harassment because of dissident opinions and democracy promotion. She has courageously fought for equitable and just treatment for women in Iranian society, and she has also helped to organize efforts to publicize and alleviate the harsh conditions of ‘street children’ in Iran.”
Prof. Ebadi, a former judge who was forced by the Iranian regime to step down from the bench, is now a law professor at the University of Tehran. In her “New York Times” op-ed, Prof. Ebadi wrote, “I cannot publish my memoir in Iran. The book would either be banned altogether or censored to such an extent that it would be rendered useless. Publishing my book in the United States would involve risk and repercussions for me back in Iran. I believe, however, that the message of the book is so important that I will happily accept the risk and its possible consequences.”
The State Department website notes that in 2000 Prof. Ebadi “was arrested and accused of distributing a videotape that implicated prominent hard-line leaders of instigating attacks against advocates of reform. She received a suspended sentence and a professional ban. She was then detained after attending a conference in Berlin on the Iranian reform movement.”
It says she also provided legal representation for “highly politicized and sensitive cases” such as the students killed during the 1999 Tehran University protests by vigilante groups operating under the influence of hard-line clerics, and two prominent political activists who were stabbed to death in 1998 by “rogue” elements within the Intelligence Ministry.
Even President Bush lauds Prof. Ebadi. In Iran, he says, “the demand for democracy is strong and broad as we saw when thousands gathered to welcome home Shirin Ebadi…The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy."
.
From Washington this week comes proof that high-profile individuals can sometimes force the Bush Administration to reverse some of its anti-human rights policies.
The high-profile individual is Prof. Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian dissident who was the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Prize. This is the story of how she and her colleagues got the US Treasury Department to stop a certain train wreck.
Prof. Ebadi was told she couldn’t publish her memoirs in the United States because of regulations that prohibit ‘trading with the enemy’. “The enemy”, in Prof. Ebadi’s case, is Iran, against whom the US currently has sanctions. The Trading With The Enemy Act (TWTE), passed in 1917, allows the president to bar transactions during times of war or national emergency. Though the law has been amended to exempt publishers, the Treasury Department continued to rule it illegal “to enhance the value of anything created in Iran without permission” -- including books.
The Department suggested Prof. Ebadi apply for a special license. But instead, Prof. Ebadi and her agent joined a lawsuit filed a month earlier against the Treasury Department by several American organizations representing publishers, editors and translators. These organizations had conducted fruitless negations for more than a year with Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which administers the TWTE regulations. Prof. Ebadi’s book is described as an effort to "help correct Western stereotypes of Islam, especially the image of Muslim women as docile, forlorn creatures." The TWTE regulations currently apply to countries against which the US has sanctions – Iran, Sudan and Cuba.
The lawsuit said, “At a time when the US calls for citizens of other countries to follow the example of American democracy, preventing writers in certain countries from reaching the American public sends exactly the wrong message. Writers in Iran, Cuba and Sudan cannot publish freely in their own countries. It is a tragic and dangerous irony that Americans may not freely publish the works of those writers here, either.”
“We seek to overturn the regulations on what Americans can and cannot read in the United States”, Prof. Ebadi wrote in “The New York Times” (November 16) about the lawsuit. The suit was filed by the PEN American Center, the Association of American Publishers Professional and Scholarly Publishing division (AAP/PSP), the Association of American University Presses (AAUP), and Arcade Publishing. Arcade is the publisher of PEN’s “Anthology of Iranian Literature”. PEN is a writers’ advocacy group.
Prof. Ebadi wrote that she “was surprised and angered when I learned that regulations in the United States make it nearly impossible for me to write a book for Americans. Despite federal laws that say that American trade embargoes may not restrict the free flow of information, the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control continues to regulate the import of books from Iran, Cuba and other countries. In order to skirt the laws protecting the flow of information, the government prohibits publishing ‘materials not fully created and in existence’. Therefore, I could publish my memoir in the United States, but it would be illegal for an American literary agent, publisher, editor or translator to help me.” Rule-breakers are subject to prison sentences of up to 10 years or fines of up to $1,000,000.
Human rights, she said, “including the freedom to read whatever one wishes, are universal values that transcend national boundaries. Therefore, just as I take on court cases in Tehran to defend others' rights, so must I follow my conscience and take on a lawsuit in the United States to defend my own rights and the rights of Americans.”
The organizations asked the court to strike down OFAC regulations that require publishers, writers, and translators to seek a license from the government to perform the routine services necessary to publish foreign literature in the United States.
Those rulings and the regulations they interpret mandate that Americans may not publish work not already published in embargoed countries, promote or market the work, nor provide vaguely defined "artistic or substantive alterations or enhancements" to the work.
Prof. Ebadi and her colleagues charged that the regulations violate both the intention of Congress, articulated in the 1989 Berman Amendment, and the 1994 Free Trade in Ideas Act, which exempts transactions involving "information and informational materials" from embargoed countries, as well as the First Amendment to the US Constitution. The author of the Berman Amendment is Congressman Howard Berman, Democrat of California, who has long been an advocate for the free flow of information from embargoed nations.
In March, Rep. Berman wrote the Treasury Department to criticize its “narrow and misguided interpretation of the law”. He added: “I fail to see how this serves the interests of the United States in any way, shape or form.”
PEN, the AAP/PSP, AAUP, and Arcade contended that OFAC's regulations overreached the office's statutory authority and endangered US citizens' constitutional rights.
Last week, the Treasury Department abruptly reversed its interpretation of the TWTE Act, to largely exempt writers, publishers, editors, translators and literary agents from the regulations governing the publication of informational materials, including medical and scientific publications as well as books, from countries subject to US trade embargoes.
Edward Davis, whose law firm represents the publishing organizations as well as PEN, called the Treasury Department’s decision “a very encouraging first step toward restoring the freedom of expression”, but cautioned that “the government has not yet undone all the restrictions imposed.” He told IPS, “Prof. Ebadi’s reputation and notoriety undoubtedly played a role in getting the government to change its rules.” Davis’s law firm, Davis, Wright, Tremaine, has not yet withdrawn the lawsuit.
There is an ironic twist to the Ebadi story. At the same time the Treasury Department was denying Prof. Ebadi the right to publish her book, the US State Department – which is reportedly in charge of ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of people who live under repressive, authoritarian regimes – was lauding her on its website as one of Iran’s “Voices Struggling To Be Heard.”
The website notes that she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 “for her life-long campaign to protect vulnerable and persecuted groups within Iranian society.” And it quotes the citation from the Norwegian Nobel Committee: “As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer and activist, she has spoken out clearly and strongly in her country, Iran and far beyond.”
The State Department website goes on to explain, “Since being forced from her position as the president of the city court of Tehran, she has used her legal expertise to promote and protect some of the most basic and necessary human rights…. she has provided legal representation to many activists who are the targets of government harassment because of dissident opinions and democracy promotion. She has courageously fought for equitable and just treatment for women in Iranian society, and she has also helped to organize efforts to publicize and alleviate the harsh conditions of ‘street children’ in Iran.”
Prof. Ebadi, a former judge who was forced by the Iranian regime to step down from the bench, is now a law professor at the University of Tehran. In her “New York Times” op-ed, Prof. Ebadi wrote, “I cannot publish my memoir in Iran. The book would either be banned altogether or censored to such an extent that it would be rendered useless. Publishing my book in the United States would involve risk and repercussions for me back in Iran. I believe, however, that the message of the book is so important that I will happily accept the risk and its possible consequences.”
The State Department website notes that in 2000 Prof. Ebadi “was arrested and accused of distributing a videotape that implicated prominent hard-line leaders of instigating attacks against advocates of reform. She received a suspended sentence and a professional ban. She was then detained after attending a conference in Berlin on the Iranian reform movement.”
It says she also provided legal representation for “highly politicized and sensitive cases” such as the students killed during the 1999 Tehran University protests by vigilante groups operating under the influence of hard-line clerics, and two prominent political activists who were stabbed to death in 1998 by “rogue” elements within the Intelligence Ministry.
Even President Bush lauds Prof. Ebadi. In Iran, he says, “the demand for democracy is strong and broad as we saw when thousands gathered to welcome home Shirin Ebadi…The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy."
.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
LETTER FROM IRAQ
By William Fisher
One of my dearest friends is the director of a major project in Iraq funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). She emails me periodically to report on the situation there. Below is her communiqué from December 15.
“I have not been to Baghdad for almost two months. I am running this project through email and telephone, and from time to time my colleagues from Baghdad come to see me. They report, as does our security group there, that things are bad, lawless in some areas, and indeed lots of people are getting killed. It is hard sometimes to distinguish between insurgency and criminality. Baghdad has always bounced back - what's a car bomb or two? But the bounce these days is not as high and is slower in coming. The city is much quieter, though that could be from the lack of gasoline and electricity.
“There is a relative news blackout, which says to me that the good guys are really kicking butt or really getting their butts kicked. I suspect it is the former, though not uniformly so. Mosul is a mess, fighting continues in Fallujah, the two triangles (Sunni and death) just keep rumbling on, and the security reports are uneven in their forecasts and assessments. The best news is that large numbers of parties, include the biggest amongst the Sunnis have decided to contest the election. My Iraqi friends and colleagues are unambiguously excited about the elections, and while there is not the type of political debate that we have the US, I have a feeling that this election is going to more successful than one would assume based on what the situation looks like now.
“Yesterday, I made my first, and I hope it will be my only trip to pay my condolences to the widow of one of my employees. One of my guards, while off-duty, traveled to Mosul to purchase building material for construction of a new house. He was with a group of cousins and brothers. The group was approached by masked gunmen who inspected their IDs one by one. The gunmen found my guard's badge, so he was shot in the arm and dragged away. The cousins and brothers fled. A few days later my guard's brother found him lying dead in a street in Mosul. His name was Saed. His funeral was a few days ago and my deputy attended (as you know, funerals are only
for men).
“How pathetic the situation is. Saed's widow is but a girl, no more than 17 or 18 years old, with two little kids, a boy and girl. We sat on a carpeted floor, bare but for a kerosene heater in the center. I was offered a cup of sugary tea. Her brother-in-law, a high ranking Iraqi army officer, sat with us, as did Ahmed my security guy. The brother-in-law did what little talking there was. He described his brother as loyal and strong, dedicated to his family and tribe. Ahmed made a collection from the project staff, and accumulated a wild looking stack of multicolored Iraqi notes and US dollars. We had a goal of giving him his annual salary, $5000, and we succeeded with a little help from the project slush fund. I handed this to the girl without ceremony, and she accepted with but a hint of gratitude.The gesture made much more impact on the officer and the others in the village who came to witness the goings-on. We also offered to pay to finish the house that Saed was building. The brother-in-law officer assured me that the girl will be taken care of, in fact, she will probably become a wife of another brother.
“And on this same day, Paul Bremer got his Presidential Medal of Honor,along with (General Tommy ) Franks and (former CIA chief George) Tenet. Instead of receiving medals they should be the ones attending the funerals and handing over paltry sums to innocent Iraqis. This is why I am so angry. None of this had to happen.”
There is little one can add to this kind of crie de couer. Except to underline my friend’s last sentence: “None of this had to happen.” The list of those who should be held accountable is too long to publish here. But, as Harry Truman famously remarked, “The buck stops here” – which means George W. Bush.
One of my dearest friends is the director of a major project in Iraq funded by the US Agency for International Development (USAID). She emails me periodically to report on the situation there. Below is her communiqué from December 15.
“I have not been to Baghdad for almost two months. I am running this project through email and telephone, and from time to time my colleagues from Baghdad come to see me. They report, as does our security group there, that things are bad, lawless in some areas, and indeed lots of people are getting killed. It is hard sometimes to distinguish between insurgency and criminality. Baghdad has always bounced back - what's a car bomb or two? But the bounce these days is not as high and is slower in coming. The city is much quieter, though that could be from the lack of gasoline and electricity.
“There is a relative news blackout, which says to me that the good guys are really kicking butt or really getting their butts kicked. I suspect it is the former, though not uniformly so. Mosul is a mess, fighting continues in Fallujah, the two triangles (Sunni and death) just keep rumbling on, and the security reports are uneven in their forecasts and assessments. The best news is that large numbers of parties, include the biggest amongst the Sunnis have decided to contest the election. My Iraqi friends and colleagues are unambiguously excited about the elections, and while there is not the type of political debate that we have the US, I have a feeling that this election is going to more successful than one would assume based on what the situation looks like now.
“Yesterday, I made my first, and I hope it will be my only trip to pay my condolences to the widow of one of my employees. One of my guards, while off-duty, traveled to Mosul to purchase building material for construction of a new house. He was with a group of cousins and brothers. The group was approached by masked gunmen who inspected their IDs one by one. The gunmen found my guard's badge, so he was shot in the arm and dragged away. The cousins and brothers fled. A few days later my guard's brother found him lying dead in a street in Mosul. His name was Saed. His funeral was a few days ago and my deputy attended (as you know, funerals are only
for men).
“How pathetic the situation is. Saed's widow is but a girl, no more than 17 or 18 years old, with two little kids, a boy and girl. We sat on a carpeted floor, bare but for a kerosene heater in the center. I was offered a cup of sugary tea. Her brother-in-law, a high ranking Iraqi army officer, sat with us, as did Ahmed my security guy. The brother-in-law did what little talking there was. He described his brother as loyal and strong, dedicated to his family and tribe. Ahmed made a collection from the project staff, and accumulated a wild looking stack of multicolored Iraqi notes and US dollars. We had a goal of giving him his annual salary, $5000, and we succeeded with a little help from the project slush fund. I handed this to the girl without ceremony, and she accepted with but a hint of gratitude.The gesture made much more impact on the officer and the others in the village who came to witness the goings-on. We also offered to pay to finish the house that Saed was building. The brother-in-law officer assured me that the girl will be taken care of, in fact, she will probably become a wife of another brother.
“And on this same day, Paul Bremer got his Presidential Medal of Honor,along with (General Tommy ) Franks and (former CIA chief George) Tenet. Instead of receiving medals they should be the ones attending the funerals and handing over paltry sums to innocent Iraqis. This is why I am so angry. None of this had to happen.”
There is little one can add to this kind of crie de couer. Except to underline my friend’s last sentence: “None of this had to happen.” The list of those who should be held accountable is too long to publish here. But, as Harry Truman famously remarked, “The buck stops here” – which means George W. Bush.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
THE TARNISHED FIGLEAF
By William Fisher
Arab leaders meeting in Morocco for the Freedom Forum of the G-8 industrialized countries told US Secretary State Colin Powell that "their support for reform in the region will go hand-in-hand with their support for a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict."
Arab League chief Amr Musa echoed the sentiments of all his Arab colleagues when he insisted that Palestinian peace was necessary before the reforms envisioned by the US-proposed Broader Middle East and North Africa initiative could be achieved. He said an independent Palestine "is a must" if the US plan is to have any chance of working. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Faisal put it even more bluntly, telling the conference that the perceived US bias towards Israel was the main obstacle to promoting reform in the region.
But what Mr. Musa and his cohorts forgot to explain is the connection between these two propositions. And for good reason: there is no connection.
For three decades, the authoritarian and unelected governments of the Arab Middle East have used the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as a figleaf to conceal their own unwillingness to embrace transparency, accountability and representative governance. And they have done so while giving little save rhetoric to the Palestinian people or to solving their wretched dilemma.
One has to wonder what these leaders will ever do if, by some miracle of diplomacy and geopolitics, a two-state solution should actually happen -- and the figleaf should drop!
Equitable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian scourge is the desire of all reasonable people. And most of them would agree that US policy is, and is perceived to be, unreasonably pro-Israel. But that merely limits the ability of the United States to function as a truly honest broker. It says nothing about the glacial pace of Arab reform, or of the capacity of the Arab world to accelerate it.
If reform was a real goal among the Arab states, why would they need a US-backed plan in the first place? They already have all the power they need to speed up the process. What they don’t have is the political will and the conviction that reform is what their people deserve.
In a recent article, Rami Khoury, the executive editor of The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut, posed a tantalizing question: What if the roadmap to democratic reform ended up leading not through Baghdad but through Ramallah? What if the Palestinians were able to elect their new president? What if that president were able to rein in their more violent elements? What if the Israelis and the Palestinians then returned to the table and successfully negotiated an end to the bloodshed?
What would the rest of the Arabs do if the State of Palestine became the first Arab democracy to the Middle East? And their last excuse for doing nothing disappeared?
Maybe it’s a longshot, but watch this space!
Arab leaders meeting in Morocco for the Freedom Forum of the G-8 industrialized countries told US Secretary State Colin Powell that "their support for reform in the region will go hand-in-hand with their support for a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict."
Arab League chief Amr Musa echoed the sentiments of all his Arab colleagues when he insisted that Palestinian peace was necessary before the reforms envisioned by the US-proposed Broader Middle East and North Africa initiative could be achieved. He said an independent Palestine "is a must" if the US plan is to have any chance of working. Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Faisal put it even more bluntly, telling the conference that the perceived US bias towards Israel was the main obstacle to promoting reform in the region.
But what Mr. Musa and his cohorts forgot to explain is the connection between these two propositions. And for good reason: there is no connection.
For three decades, the authoritarian and unelected governments of the Arab Middle East have used the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as a figleaf to conceal their own unwillingness to embrace transparency, accountability and representative governance. And they have done so while giving little save rhetoric to the Palestinian people or to solving their wretched dilemma.
One has to wonder what these leaders will ever do if, by some miracle of diplomacy and geopolitics, a two-state solution should actually happen -- and the figleaf should drop!
Equitable resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian scourge is the desire of all reasonable people. And most of them would agree that US policy is, and is perceived to be, unreasonably pro-Israel. But that merely limits the ability of the United States to function as a truly honest broker. It says nothing about the glacial pace of Arab reform, or of the capacity of the Arab world to accelerate it.
If reform was a real goal among the Arab states, why would they need a US-backed plan in the first place? They already have all the power they need to speed up the process. What they don’t have is the political will and the conviction that reform is what their people deserve.
In a recent article, Rami Khoury, the executive editor of The Daily Star newspaper in Beirut, posed a tantalizing question: What if the roadmap to democratic reform ended up leading not through Baghdad but through Ramallah? What if the Palestinians were able to elect their new president? What if that president were able to rein in their more violent elements? What if the Israelis and the Palestinians then returned to the table and successfully negotiated an end to the bloodshed?
What would the rest of the Arabs do if the State of Palestine became the first Arab democracy to the Middle East? And their last excuse for doing nothing disappeared?
Maybe it’s a longshot, but watch this space!
Saturday, December 11, 2004
RIGHT HAND, LEFT HAND
By William Fisher
Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe performs a genuine public service by calling our attention to yet another screw-up in America’s war against the Axis of Evil.
This one can only make us wonder if the government’s right hand knows what its left hand is doing.
Ms. Goodman points out that Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian dissident who is the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, “is being prevented from publishing her memoirs in the United States because of regulations that prohibit ‘trading with the enemy’." Her book is an effort to "help correct Western stereotypes of Islam, especially the image of Muslim women as docile, forlorn creatures."
But at the same time, the US State Department – which is allegedly in charge of ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of people who live under repressive, authoritarian regimes -- posts on its website a Fact Sheet entitled, “Iran: Voices Struggling To Be Heard.”
And prominent among these ‘Voices’ is – you guessed it -- Shirin Ebadi, who is described as one of Iran’s ‘Voices of Hope’.
It says of her: Shirin Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for her life-long campaign to protect vulnerable and persecuted groups within Iranian society.” And it quotes the citation from the Norwegian Nobel Committee: “As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer and activist, she has spoken out clearly and strongly in her country, Iran and far beyond.”
The State Department goes on to explain, “Since being forced from her position as the president of the city court of Tehran, she has used her legal expertise to promote and protect some of the most basic and necessary human rights…. she has provided legal representation to many activists who are the targets of government harassment because of dissident opinions and democracy promotion. She has courageously fought for equitable and just treatment for women in Iranian society, and she has also helped to organize efforts to publicize and alleviate the harsh conditions of ‘street children’ in Iran.”
The State Department then reminds us that in 2000 Ms. Ebadi “was arrested and accused of distributing a videotape that implicated prominent hard-line leaders of instigating attacks against advocates of reform. She received a suspended sentence and a professional ban. She was then detained after attending a conference in Berlin on the Iranian reform movement.”
It says she also provided legal representation for “highly politicized and sensitive cases” such as the students killed during the 1999 Tehran University protests by vigilante groups operating under the influence of hard-line clerics, and two prominent political activists who were stabbed to death in 1998 by “rogue” elements within the Intelligence Ministry.
Even President Bush lauds Ms. Ebadi. In Iran, he says, “the demand for democracy is strong and broad as we saw when thousands gathered to welcome home Shirin Ebadi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy."
Ms. Ebadi herself says, “Any person who pursues human rights in Iran must live with fear from birth to death, but I have learned to overcome my fear.”
But can she overcome US government bureaucracy? The problem with publishing her book in the US, Ms. Goodman writes, is a 1917 law that “allows the president to bar transactions during times of war or national emergency.” The law has been amended to exempt publishers, but the Treasury Department has ruled it illegal “to enhance the value of anything created in Iran without permission” -- including books.
Moreover, as Ms. Goodman points out, if Ms. Ebadi's literary agent were to help prepare the manuscript for an American audience, she too would be subject to punishment -- 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for an individual or $1 million for a publishing house.
The Treasury Department suggests that Ms. Ebadi apply for a special
license. But, as Ellen Goodman points out, “no American needs a license to publish a book. Neither this free-speech lawyer nor her supporters are going to ask the government for permission.”
Instead, Ms. Ebadi and her agent are suing the Treasury Department. Which obviously hasn’t yet told the State Department.
Publication of the Ebadi book in the US would be perfectly OK with Treasury if the book were already published in Iran. But the Catch-22 here is that the ayatollahs have already foreclosed this option.
And now an anachronistic US law is having the same effect.
When Ms. Ebadi received her Nobel Prize, Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, said, “The Nobel Committee has sent a powerful message to the Iranian Government that serious human rights violations must end. We hope they hear that message."
We hope the US government hears it first.
Ellen Goodman of the Boston Globe performs a genuine public service by calling our attention to yet another screw-up in America’s war against the Axis of Evil.
This one can only make us wonder if the government’s right hand knows what its left hand is doing.
Ms. Goodman points out that Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian dissident who is the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, “is being prevented from publishing her memoirs in the United States because of regulations that prohibit ‘trading with the enemy’." Her book is an effort to "help correct Western stereotypes of Islam, especially the image of Muslim women as docile, forlorn creatures."
But at the same time, the US State Department – which is allegedly in charge of ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of people who live under repressive, authoritarian regimes -- posts on its website a Fact Sheet entitled, “Iran: Voices Struggling To Be Heard.”
And prominent among these ‘Voices’ is – you guessed it -- Shirin Ebadi, who is described as one of Iran’s ‘Voices of Hope’.
It says of her: Shirin Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize “for her life-long campaign to protect vulnerable and persecuted groups within Iranian society.” And it quotes the citation from the Norwegian Nobel Committee: “As a lawyer, judge, lecturer, writer and activist, she has spoken out clearly and strongly in her country, Iran and far beyond.”
The State Department goes on to explain, “Since being forced from her position as the president of the city court of Tehran, she has used her legal expertise to promote and protect some of the most basic and necessary human rights…. she has provided legal representation to many activists who are the targets of government harassment because of dissident opinions and democracy promotion. She has courageously fought for equitable and just treatment for women in Iranian society, and she has also helped to organize efforts to publicize and alleviate the harsh conditions of ‘street children’ in Iran.”
The State Department then reminds us that in 2000 Ms. Ebadi “was arrested and accused of distributing a videotape that implicated prominent hard-line leaders of instigating attacks against advocates of reform. She received a suspended sentence and a professional ban. She was then detained after attending a conference in Berlin on the Iranian reform movement.”
It says she also provided legal representation for “highly politicized and sensitive cases” such as the students killed during the 1999 Tehran University protests by vigilante groups operating under the influence of hard-line clerics, and two prominent political activists who were stabbed to death in 1998 by “rogue” elements within the Intelligence Ministry.
Even President Bush lauds Ms. Ebadi. In Iran, he says, “the demand for democracy is strong and broad as we saw when thousands gathered to welcome home Shirin Ebadi, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. The regime in Tehran must heed the democratic demands of the Iranian people, or lose its last claim to legitimacy."
Ms. Ebadi herself says, “Any person who pursues human rights in Iran must live with fear from birth to death, but I have learned to overcome my fear.”
But can she overcome US government bureaucracy? The problem with publishing her book in the US, Ms. Goodman writes, is a 1917 law that “allows the president to bar transactions during times of war or national emergency.” The law has been amended to exempt publishers, but the Treasury Department has ruled it illegal “to enhance the value of anything created in Iran without permission” -- including books.
Moreover, as Ms. Goodman points out, if Ms. Ebadi's literary agent were to help prepare the manuscript for an American audience, she too would be subject to punishment -- 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine for an individual or $1 million for a publishing house.
The Treasury Department suggests that Ms. Ebadi apply for a special
license. But, as Ellen Goodman points out, “no American needs a license to publish a book. Neither this free-speech lawyer nor her supporters are going to ask the government for permission.”
Instead, Ms. Ebadi and her agent are suing the Treasury Department. Which obviously hasn’t yet told the State Department.
Publication of the Ebadi book in the US would be perfectly OK with Treasury if the book were already published in Iran. But the Catch-22 here is that the ayatollahs have already foreclosed this option.
And now an anachronistic US law is having the same effect.
When Ms. Ebadi received her Nobel Prize, Kenneth Roth, the Executive Director of Human Rights Watch, said, “The Nobel Committee has sent a powerful message to the Iranian Government that serious human rights violations must end. We hope they hear that message."
We hope the US government hears it first.
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