By William Fisher
Legal experts and human rights advocates are challenging the public to remember Guantanamo’s “child soldiers” when GITMO detainees are characterized as “the worst of the worst.”
Since the iconic detention center in Cuba opened in 2002, some 22 juveniles have been imprisoned there. And contrary to the UN’s Rights of the Child protocol, all but three have been housed with the general population, despite their being obliged to promote "the physical and psychosocial rehabilitation and social reintegration of children who are victims of armed conflict."
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and many other senior Bush Administration officials have repeatedly described all the Guantanamo detainees as “the worst of the worst.”
Two “child soldier” cases in particular are being highlighted by human rights advocates.
Mohammed El-Gharani, a Chadian national and Saudi resident, was just 14 years old when he was seized by Pakistani forces in October 2001, in a raid on a mosque in Karachi, Pakistan, 700 miles from the battlefields of Afghanistan.
El-Gharani’s defense lawyers charge he was treated with appalling brutality. They say that, after being tortured in Pakistani custody, he was sold to U.S. forces, who flew him to a prison at Kandahar airport, where, he said, one particular soldier "would hold my penis, with scissors, and say he'd cut it off."
They claim his treatment did not improve in Guantánamo. Subjected relentlessly to racist abuse, because of the color of his skin, he was hung from his wrists on numerous occasions, and was also subjected to a regime of "enhanced" techniques to prepare him for interrogation -- including prolonged sleep deprivation, prolonged isolation and the use of painful stress positions -- that clearly constitute torture.
As a result of this and other abuse, including regular beatings by the guard force responsible for quelling even the most minor infractions of the rules, El-Gharani became deeply depressed, and tried to commit suicide on several occasions.
But last month, just days before President Barack Obama’s inauguration, a federal judge, Richard Leon, ruled that the government had not proven that el Gharani was an enemy combatant and said he must be released and sent home “forthwith”. Judge Leon said the government had relied mainly on information from two other detainees at Guantánamo Bay whose reliability and credibility was questionable. He is unlikely to be released soon, however, because it is not clear if the government of Chad will accept him.
Over the past month, federal judges in Washington have been moving ahead with case-by-case reviews of about 200 detainee legal challenges. The review by civilian courts on the U.S. mainland are happening because of a Supreme Court ruling in June 2006 which gave terror suspects the right to challenge their detention in federal court.
The administration of President George W. Bush had said that Gharani had stayed in an al-Qaeda guest house in Afghanistan, had fought in the battle of Tora Bora -- from where Osama bin Laden escaped in late 2001 -- and had served as a courier for senior al Qaeda operatives. He was also accused of being a member of a London-based al-Qaeda cell.
The other "child soldier" at Gitmo is Omar Khadr. He was taken into custody in Afghanistan at the age of fifteen, and was in the midst of his trial when President Obama’s first executive orders suspended all Military Commission proceedings for 120 days pending a case-by-case review of all GITMO cases and mandated an inter-agency task force to review the Military Commission system and alternatives for prosecutions.
Khadr was born in Toronto, and is the only citizen of a Western country currently detained by American authorities in Cuba. He was captured after a four-hour firefight in the village of Ayub Kheyl, Afghanistan, and has spent the past six years at Guantanamo. He is charged with war crimes, providing support to terrorism and throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier.
But, according to Gabor Rona, International Legal Director for Human Rights First, “The case against him was unraveling as the trial proceeded.” Unintentionally released US Military documents revealed that original reports said that Kadr was not the person who threw the grenade, and additional testimony by government witnesses has proven "unreliable.”
But Rona told us that “There was little expectation that the mere failure to prove its case would cause the prosecution much trouble. A verdict of ‘Guilty’ was almost assumed.”
He said Khadr’s case “should be dismissed in its entirety.” He points out that Khadr was 15 years old at the time he was taken into custody. “If his trial proceeds -- and no matter in what forum it proceeds -- it will be the first instance of a child soldier being prosecuted in a U.S. court for conduct in wartime. This would be contrary to international legal principles, which counsel rehabilitation and protection, rather than punishment of, child soldiers.”
He added, “The conduct with which he is charged – defending against an attack by American soldiers – is not a crime under the laws of war. Prosecution an individual for conduct that was not a legal violation at the time of its commission is, itself, a war crime in international law, as well as a violation of the U.S. Constitution.”
Canada's Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, has steadfastly refused to intervene in the Kadr case, and has declined to seek extradition to Canada while legal proceedings were on-going. However, Rona told IPS that Canada and the U.S. are now reported to be discussing Khadr’s possible repatriation to Canada. “Whether this will happen and if so, under what conditions, is uncertain,” he said.
According to recent reliable polling, 64 per cent the Canadian people have expressed the desire to have Kadr returned to Canada, and international and domestic organizations such as Amnesty International and the Canadian Bar Association have pressed the Conservative minority government to bring Kadr home.
Rona told us, “The issue of Child Soldiers is notable mainly when Western societies take umbrage about the recruitment of adolescents to fight in civil wars. The outrage curiously subsides when the child is one of our own, ‘recruited’ in this case by his father, a notorious Al-Qaeda sympathizer. Prime Minister Harper, however, appears deaf to the entreaties of UNICEF and other advocates for children.”
He added, “As Americans contemplate a decade of abuse of their Constitution and increasingly urge that Mr. Bush and his associates be held accountable for their illegal actions at home and abroad, Canadians should also hold Mr. Harper accountable for trampling on the rights of one of his fellow-citizens.”
Wednesday, February 04, 2009
Tuesday, February 03, 2009
GITMO BY THE NUMBERS
By William Fisher
A prominent law professor is charging that the Defense Department is issuing questionable data on the number of Guantanamo detainees who have been released “and then returned to the battlefield” because the government “is now in a position where they have to find some bad guys -- even if they have to invent them by naming people who were never there.”
Their ultimate aim, Professor Mark Denbeaux of the Seton Hall University law school told IPS, “is to foment fear among American voters and limit the freedom of the Obama Administration to release any of the detainees still imprisoned."
Denbeaux heads the law school’s Center for Policy and Research. The Center has issued a report which it says “rebuts and debunks” the most recent claim by the Department of Defense (DOD) that 61 “former Guantánamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight.” The report is one of a series produced by the Center’s faculty and law students. Professor Denbeaux says the Center has determined that “DOD has issued 'recidivism' numbers 43 times, and each time they have been wrong --this last time the most egregiously so.”
He told IPS, “Once again, they’ve failed to identify names, numbers, dates, times, places, or acts upon which their report relies. Every time they have been required to identify the parties, the DOD has been forced to retract their false IDs and their numbers. They have included people who have never even set foot in Guantánamo—much less were they released from there.”
He added, “They have counted people as 'returning to the fight' for their having written an Op-ed piece in the New York Times and for their having appeared in a documentary exhibited at the Cannes Film Festival. The DOD has revised and retracted their internally conflicting definitions, criteria, and their numbers so often that they have ceased to have any meaning -- except as an effort to sway public opinion by painting a false portrait of the supposed dangers of these men.”Denbeaux charged that the Defense Department has issued numbers 43 times, and said these numbers conflict with each other. He noted that the government’s numbers are “seriously undercut by the DOD statement that 'they do not track' former detainees.”
“Time and time again, the Department of Defense, the Executive Branch, and other government officials have claimed publicly that Guantánamo Bay detainees who have been released have "returned to the battlefield" where they have then been re-captured or killed,” Denbeaux declared.
The Seton Hall report attempts to correct what it characterizes as errors in the latest DOD report, which was issued in mid-January. That report alleged that 61 detainees have returned to the battlefield.
The Seton Hall report notes that in each of its 43 attempts to provide the numbers of the recidivist detainees, the Department of Defense has given different sets of numbers that are contradictory and internally inconsistent with the Department's own data.
It says that DOD’s most recent press statement identifies no names, dates, places nor any conduct by released detainees. “The raw numbers that are cited are unsupported, inconsistent with all other statements and appear to be presented to support the internal Department of Defense purposes,” the report says.
Previous DOD reports have said the numbers of recidivist detainees have been “one, several, some, a couple, a few, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 12-24, 25, 29, and 30,” the Seton Hall group contends.
But it adds that 82% of DOD’s publicly made claims “contain qualifying language,” including terms such as: "at least"; "somewhere on the order of"; "approximately"; "around"; "just short of"; "we believe"; "estimated"; "roughly"; "more than"; "a couple"; "a few"; "some"; "several"; and "about."
Department of Defense statements about the number of recidivist detainees which do not identify the detainee, the act of recidivism, the place, or the time, are especially unreliable, Seton Hall’s report declares. It claims that in the two instances in which DOD provided written support –July 12 2007 and May 20 2008, their previous oral assertions were repudiated. For instance, the report says, in DOD’s July 12, 2007 press release, “the 30 recidivists reported by DOD in April 2007 is reduced to five.”
DOD’s report of July 2007 identified seven prisoners by name, but the Seton Hall group says that “as many as two of those seven named were never in Guantanamo, and two of the remaining five were never killed or captured anywhere. Of the three remaining, one was killed in his apartment in Russia by Russian authorities. None of them is alleged to have left their homeland or attacked Americans on a battlefield or otherwise.”
Meanwhile, Newsweek magazine is reporting that The Pentagon “is preparing to declassify portions of a secret report on Guantanamo detainees that could further complicate President Obama's plans to shut down the detention facility.”
The publication says that the report “will provide fresh details about 62 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo and are believed by U.S. intelligence officials to have returned to terrorist activities.”
One such example, involving a Saudi detainee named Said Ali Al-Shihri, who was released in 2007, has already received widespread media attention when Pentagon officials publicly asserted that he has recently reemerged as a deputy commander of Al Qaeda in Yemen, Newsweek reports..
Previously known publicly as Guantanamo detainee No. 372, Al-Shihri is alleged to have been involved in an unsuccessful attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen last September.
Newsweek says, “The decision to release additional case studies from the report is in effect a warning shot to the new president from officials at the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies who are skeptical about some of his plans. Some Pentagon officials, including ones sympathetic to Obama's goals, note the political outcry would be deafening should another example like Al-Shihri become public six months from now—and it turns out to be a Guantanamo detainee released under Obama's watch rather than by the Bush administration.”
It adds, "The last thing Obama wants is for one of these guys [at Guantanamo] to get released and return to killing Americans."
According to Newsweek, some counter-terrorism experts have raised questions about the significance of the Pentagon's figures, noting that the number of so-called "recidivist" detainees represents only a small portion, about 12 per cent, of the approximately 520 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo since the detention facility was opened in January 2002. This compares with recidivism rates of as high as 67 percent in state prisons in the United States, according to Justice Department figures.
“There have also been concerns that Bush administration holdovers were deliberately playing up the cases in recent weeks in an effort to undercut Obama. One former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official noted to Newsweek that the Pentagon waited until the day after Obama
signed his executive order mandating the closure of Guantanamo to confirm Al-Shihri's renewed Al Qaeda ties,” Newsweek reports.
Approximately 240 detainees remain at Guantanamo. Human rights groups and defense lawyers contend there is little or no evidence of terrorist involvement against scores of them. This is also the opinion of some federal judges who in recent weeks have ordered the Pentagon to release some of them.
The Obama administration has given itself a year to shut down the facility, and is hoping that European countries including Portugal, Spain and Germany, will agree to take some of these detainees. The Bush Administration was able to identify only two countries willing to take released detainees – Albania and Sweden.
A prominent law professor is charging that the Defense Department is issuing questionable data on the number of Guantanamo detainees who have been released “and then returned to the battlefield” because the government “is now in a position where they have to find some bad guys -- even if they have to invent them by naming people who were never there.”
Their ultimate aim, Professor Mark Denbeaux of the Seton Hall University law school told IPS, “is to foment fear among American voters and limit the freedom of the Obama Administration to release any of the detainees still imprisoned."
Denbeaux heads the law school’s Center for Policy and Research. The Center has issued a report which it says “rebuts and debunks” the most recent claim by the Department of Defense (DOD) that 61 “former Guantánamo detainees are confirmed or suspected of returning to the fight.” The report is one of a series produced by the Center’s faculty and law students. Professor Denbeaux says the Center has determined that “DOD has issued 'recidivism' numbers 43 times, and each time they have been wrong --this last time the most egregiously so.”
He told IPS, “Once again, they’ve failed to identify names, numbers, dates, times, places, or acts upon which their report relies. Every time they have been required to identify the parties, the DOD has been forced to retract their false IDs and their numbers. They have included people who have never even set foot in Guantánamo—much less were they released from there.”
He added, “They have counted people as 'returning to the fight' for their having written an Op-ed piece in the New York Times and for their having appeared in a documentary exhibited at the Cannes Film Festival. The DOD has revised and retracted their internally conflicting definitions, criteria, and their numbers so often that they have ceased to have any meaning -- except as an effort to sway public opinion by painting a false portrait of the supposed dangers of these men.”Denbeaux charged that the Defense Department has issued numbers 43 times, and said these numbers conflict with each other. He noted that the government’s numbers are “seriously undercut by the DOD statement that 'they do not track' former detainees.”
“Time and time again, the Department of Defense, the Executive Branch, and other government officials have claimed publicly that Guantánamo Bay detainees who have been released have "returned to the battlefield" where they have then been re-captured or killed,” Denbeaux declared.
The Seton Hall report attempts to correct what it characterizes as errors in the latest DOD report, which was issued in mid-January. That report alleged that 61 detainees have returned to the battlefield.
The Seton Hall report notes that in each of its 43 attempts to provide the numbers of the recidivist detainees, the Department of Defense has given different sets of numbers that are contradictory and internally inconsistent with the Department's own data.
It says that DOD’s most recent press statement identifies no names, dates, places nor any conduct by released detainees. “The raw numbers that are cited are unsupported, inconsistent with all other statements and appear to be presented to support the internal Department of Defense purposes,” the report says.
Previous DOD reports have said the numbers of recidivist detainees have been “one, several, some, a couple, a few, 5, 7, 10, 12, 15, 12-24, 25, 29, and 30,” the Seton Hall group contends.
But it adds that 82% of DOD’s publicly made claims “contain qualifying language,” including terms such as: "at least"; "somewhere on the order of"; "approximately"; "around"; "just short of"; "we believe"; "estimated"; "roughly"; "more than"; "a couple"; "a few"; "some"; "several"; and "about."
Department of Defense statements about the number of recidivist detainees which do not identify the detainee, the act of recidivism, the place, or the time, are especially unreliable, Seton Hall’s report declares. It claims that in the two instances in which DOD provided written support –July 12 2007 and May 20 2008, their previous oral assertions were repudiated. For instance, the report says, in DOD’s July 12, 2007 press release, “the 30 recidivists reported by DOD in April 2007 is reduced to five.”
DOD’s report of July 2007 identified seven prisoners by name, but the Seton Hall group says that “as many as two of those seven named were never in Guantanamo, and two of the remaining five were never killed or captured anywhere. Of the three remaining, one was killed in his apartment in Russia by Russian authorities. None of them is alleged to have left their homeland or attacked Americans on a battlefield or otherwise.”
Meanwhile, Newsweek magazine is reporting that The Pentagon “is preparing to declassify portions of a secret report on Guantanamo detainees that could further complicate President Obama's plans to shut down the detention facility.”
The publication says that the report “will provide fresh details about 62 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo and are believed by U.S. intelligence officials to have returned to terrorist activities.”
One such example, involving a Saudi detainee named Said Ali Al-Shihri, who was released in 2007, has already received widespread media attention when Pentagon officials publicly asserted that he has recently reemerged as a deputy commander of Al Qaeda in Yemen, Newsweek reports..
Previously known publicly as Guantanamo detainee No. 372, Al-Shihri is alleged to have been involved in an unsuccessful attack on the U.S. embassy in Yemen last September.
Newsweek says, “The decision to release additional case studies from the report is in effect a warning shot to the new president from officials at the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies who are skeptical about some of his plans. Some Pentagon officials, including ones sympathetic to Obama's goals, note the political outcry would be deafening should another example like Al-Shihri become public six months from now—and it turns out to be a Guantanamo detainee released under Obama's watch rather than by the Bush administration.”
It adds, "The last thing Obama wants is for one of these guys [at Guantanamo] to get released and return to killing Americans."
According to Newsweek, some counter-terrorism experts have raised questions about the significance of the Pentagon's figures, noting that the number of so-called "recidivist" detainees represents only a small portion, about 12 per cent, of the approximately 520 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo since the detention facility was opened in January 2002. This compares with recidivism rates of as high as 67 percent in state prisons in the United States, according to Justice Department figures.
“There have also been concerns that Bush administration holdovers were deliberately playing up the cases in recent weeks in an effort to undercut Obama. One former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official noted to Newsweek that the Pentagon waited until the day after Obama
signed his executive order mandating the closure of Guantanamo to confirm Al-Shihri's renewed Al Qaeda ties,” Newsweek reports.
Approximately 240 detainees remain at Guantanamo. Human rights groups and defense lawyers contend there is little or no evidence of terrorist involvement against scores of them. This is also the opinion of some federal judges who in recent weeks have ordered the Pentagon to release some of them.
The Obama administration has given itself a year to shut down the facility, and is hoping that European countries including Portugal, Spain and Germany, will agree to take some of these detainees. The Bush Administration was able to identify only two countries willing to take released detainees – Albania and Sweden.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
What You May Not Know About That Famous Manual
By William Fisher
While applauding President Barack Obama’s recent executive orders banning torture and other harsh interrogation practices, medical authorities are calling attention to a little-reported section of the Army’s Field Manual on Interrogation that they say still allows the use of tactics that can constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under U.S. and international law.
The suspect section of the Manual is known as Annex M, which allows the use of sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and isolation, termed “separation” in the Manual. Obama’s executive orders directed all government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to follow the Manual for interrogations.
But Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a Nobel laureate not-for-profit organization, is calling on the task force appointed by the president to review U.S. interrogation and transfer policies to revoke the Appendix and consult with human rights organizations as part of the review process.
John Bradshaw, Director of PHR’s office in Washington, DC, told IPS, “The technique of separation allowed by Appendix M sounds innocuous, but in reality it allows the use of sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and isolation.”
“Particularly when used in combination, these techniques amount to psychological torture. The Obama Administration must close this loophole in the Army Field Manual by eliminating Appendix M, which leaves the door open to torture,” he said.
Legal experts agree. Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild, told IPS, “President Obama’s announcement that the United States will not engage in torture is commendable. But cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment also violate U.S. law, as specified by three treaties we have ratified. The new administration should not use the Army Field Manual as the gold standard for interrogations since Appendix M sanctions techniques, including isolation and prolonged sleep deprivation, that amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
PHR also called on President Obama and Congress to “immediately authorize a non-partisan commission to investigate the authorization, legal justification, and implementation of the Bush Administration’s regime of psychological and physical torture.” It added that “any accountability mechanism must include a subgroup tasked with investigating the participation of health professionals in detainee abuse.”
PHR also urged the Obama Administration to end the use of Behavioral Science Consultants (BSCs) in interrogations. “The continued use of BSCs violates medical ethics and subverts the traditions of the healing professions. Any procedures currently in place involving health professionals in interrogations which violate medical ethics should be prohibited,” said PHR’S Chief Executive Officer, Frank Donaghue.
“The past administration’s weaponization of the health professions to inflict harm on detainees constitutes a war crime unto itself,” said Donaghue. He added, “Despite all that has been disclosed so far about abuses committed by health professionals, many questions remain, chief among which is whether there will be any accountability for gross violations of medical ethics and the law.”
"The desire to turn the page on the past seven years of detainee abuse and torture by U.S. forces is understandable," Donaghue said. But he noted that "President Obama, Congress and the health professions will not have fulfilled their obligation to the Constitution and medical ethics if we settle only for reform without accountability."
Other health professionals are taking similar positions. One of the most outspoken, psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Kaye, points out that the AFM’s Appendix M “continues to allow use of isolation (called ‘separation’) on so-called ‘unlawful enemy combatants’.”
He told IPS, “After the Abu Ghraib scandal exploded, the U.S. government wanted to hide or forbid all types of treatment that became notorious due to press exposure, including the revelations around waterboarding. They pared down their torture program to the model laid down by the CIA's Kubark manual of the early 1960s. They twisted the meaning of the Geneva Conventions at their will, in order to implement this program of coercive interrogation, using the Army Field Manual and Appendix M as their primary device.”
He added, “This program relies on the production of psychological regression by using a combination of solitary confinement, fatigue, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and feelings of fear to produce dependency upon the interrogator. These techniques, allowed by the Army Field Manual, and implemented with the assistance of doctors and behavioral health specialists, like psychologists, are totally antithetical to existing law, and amount to torture and/or cruel, inhumane treatment of prisoners.”
Kaye contends that, “In many senses, isolation is the essence of U.S. detainee abuse. All else follows. Isolation can cause serious mental deterioration in many individuals.”
He adds that “This deterioration can occur within days, well under the 30 day initial period allowed by Appendix M. This 30 days can be followed by additional periods, if the proper approval is obtained.”
While ostensibly banning it, the AFM also allows sensory deprivation, he says. “As a last resort, when physical separation of detainees is not feasible, goggles or blindfolds and earmuffs may be utilized as a field expedient method to generate a perception of separation.“
In the Bush Administration’s only admission that it inflicted torture on a prisoner, a senior Pentagon official recently disclosed to the Washington Post that a combination of permissible techniques used on a Guantanamo detainee, plus the intensity and duration of these techniques, seriously endangered the health of a prisoner and constituted torture. She declined to refer him to Guantanamo Military Commission authorities for trial.
During the Bush Administration, a number of leading medical organizations called on the president to end the participation of health care professionals in detainee interrogations. The American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a resolution opposing “participation by physicians in the torture or inhuman treatment or punishment of individuals in relation to detention and imprisonment.”
Similar positions have been adopted by other organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Nurses Association.
However, there is ample evidence that some military medical personnel have participated in torture and abuse of detainees. Reports indicate, for example, that so-called Behavioral Science Consultation Teams -- known as "biscuit" teams – included medical personnel who were aware of prisoner abuse but failed to report or properly document it; that interrogators were given access to detainees’ confidential medical records; that health professionals participated directly in the development and implementation of abusive interrogation plans; and that doctors, other medical personnel, and “biscuit” teams of psychiatrists and psychologists may have facilitated abuse by giving interrogators information about detainees’ mental health and vulnerabilities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross described what it observed at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in June 2004 as a “flagrant violation of medical ethics.”
While applauding President Barack Obama’s recent executive orders banning torture and other harsh interrogation practices, medical authorities are calling attention to a little-reported section of the Army’s Field Manual on Interrogation that they say still allows the use of tactics that can constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment under U.S. and international law.
The suspect section of the Manual is known as Annex M, which allows the use of sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and isolation, termed “separation” in the Manual. Obama’s executive orders directed all government agencies, including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to follow the Manual for interrogations.
But Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a Nobel laureate not-for-profit organization, is calling on the task force appointed by the president to review U.S. interrogation and transfer policies to revoke the Appendix and consult with human rights organizations as part of the review process.
John Bradshaw, Director of PHR’s office in Washington, DC, told IPS, “The technique of separation allowed by Appendix M sounds innocuous, but in reality it allows the use of sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation and isolation.”
“Particularly when used in combination, these techniques amount to psychological torture. The Obama Administration must close this loophole in the Army Field Manual by eliminating Appendix M, which leaves the door open to torture,” he said.
Legal experts agree. Marjorie Cohn, President of the National Lawyers Guild, told IPS, “President Obama’s announcement that the United States will not engage in torture is commendable. But cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment also violate U.S. law, as specified by three treaties we have ratified. The new administration should not use the Army Field Manual as the gold standard for interrogations since Appendix M sanctions techniques, including isolation and prolonged sleep deprivation, that amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”
PHR also called on President Obama and Congress to “immediately authorize a non-partisan commission to investigate the authorization, legal justification, and implementation of the Bush Administration’s regime of psychological and physical torture.” It added that “any accountability mechanism must include a subgroup tasked with investigating the participation of health professionals in detainee abuse.”
PHR also urged the Obama Administration to end the use of Behavioral Science Consultants (BSCs) in interrogations. “The continued use of BSCs violates medical ethics and subverts the traditions of the healing professions. Any procedures currently in place involving health professionals in interrogations which violate medical ethics should be prohibited,” said PHR’S Chief Executive Officer, Frank Donaghue.
“The past administration’s weaponization of the health professions to inflict harm on detainees constitutes a war crime unto itself,” said Donaghue. He added, “Despite all that has been disclosed so far about abuses committed by health professionals, many questions remain, chief among which is whether there will be any accountability for gross violations of medical ethics and the law.”
"The desire to turn the page on the past seven years of detainee abuse and torture by U.S. forces is understandable," Donaghue said. But he noted that "President Obama, Congress and the health professions will not have fulfilled their obligation to the Constitution and medical ethics if we settle only for reform without accountability."
Other health professionals are taking similar positions. One of the most outspoken, psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Kaye, points out that the AFM’s Appendix M “continues to allow use of isolation (called ‘separation’) on so-called ‘unlawful enemy combatants’.”
He told IPS, “After the Abu Ghraib scandal exploded, the U.S. government wanted to hide or forbid all types of treatment that became notorious due to press exposure, including the revelations around waterboarding. They pared down their torture program to the model laid down by the CIA's Kubark manual of the early 1960s. They twisted the meaning of the Geneva Conventions at their will, in order to implement this program of coercive interrogation, using the Army Field Manual and Appendix M as their primary device.”
He added, “This program relies on the production of psychological regression by using a combination of solitary confinement, fatigue, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, and feelings of fear to produce dependency upon the interrogator. These techniques, allowed by the Army Field Manual, and implemented with the assistance of doctors and behavioral health specialists, like psychologists, are totally antithetical to existing law, and amount to torture and/or cruel, inhumane treatment of prisoners.”
Kaye contends that, “In many senses, isolation is the essence of U.S. detainee abuse. All else follows. Isolation can cause serious mental deterioration in many individuals.”
He adds that “This deterioration can occur within days, well under the 30 day initial period allowed by Appendix M. This 30 days can be followed by additional periods, if the proper approval is obtained.”
While ostensibly banning it, the AFM also allows sensory deprivation, he says. “As a last resort, when physical separation of detainees is not feasible, goggles or blindfolds and earmuffs may be utilized as a field expedient method to generate a perception of separation.“
In the Bush Administration’s only admission that it inflicted torture on a prisoner, a senior Pentagon official recently disclosed to the Washington Post that a combination of permissible techniques used on a Guantanamo detainee, plus the intensity and duration of these techniques, seriously endangered the health of a prisoner and constituted torture. She declined to refer him to Guantanamo Military Commission authorities for trial.
During the Bush Administration, a number of leading medical organizations called on the president to end the participation of health care professionals in detainee interrogations. The American Medical Association (AMA) adopted a resolution opposing “participation by physicians in the torture or inhuman treatment or punishment of individuals in relation to detention and imprisonment.”
Similar positions have been adopted by other organizations, including the American Psychiatric Association, the American Psychological Association, and the American Nurses Association.
However, there is ample evidence that some military medical personnel have participated in torture and abuse of detainees. Reports indicate, for example, that so-called Behavioral Science Consultation Teams -- known as "biscuit" teams – included medical personnel who were aware of prisoner abuse but failed to report or properly document it; that interrogators were given access to detainees’ confidential medical records; that health professionals participated directly in the development and implementation of abusive interrogation plans; and that doctors, other medical personnel, and “biscuit” teams of psychiatrists and psychologists may have facilitated abuse by giving interrogators information about detainees’ mental health and vulnerabilities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross described what it observed at the U.S. military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in June 2004 as a “flagrant violation of medical ethics.”
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Obama’s Executive Orders: Is Egypt Listening?
By William Fisher
You may have missed it because it was ignored by virtually the entire the American mainstream press, but there’s a really creepy irony that accompanied President Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo and end torture, secret prisons and extraordinary rendition.
The irony is that some of the most lavish praise for Obama came from the press in countries that most of us would find, what shall we say, paradoxical. Countries that for many years have been the poster boys for unlawful detention, torture, secret prisons and “disappeared” prisoners. Countries in a part of the world that has been a consistent destination for those rendered by our CIA.
That would be the Middle East, where most of the press is owned or controlled by authoritarian governments. Countries in which political dissent is about as welcome as a pandemic of the Black Plague.
Top of the poster-boy list has to be Egypt, a beautiful country full of gracious, hospitable people – and some not so much -- where my family and I lived for several years.
Egypt has been ruled by Hosni Mubarak since 1981, when the then vice-president took on the top job following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Since then, the country’s now 80-year-old president has been a kind of caricature of old-style Arab potentates.
For all those years, Egypt has lived under so-called Emergency Laws. These laws give the government sweeping powers and give the citizens no powers. Public gatherings are banned unless they get government permits. And until recently -- when Bush’s democracy promotion mantra finally began exerting ever-so-gentle pressure on the Mubarak regime to clean up its act -- political parties were banned or otherwise prevented from participating in the annual referendums that reelected the president with math-like precision.
Egypt’s security services are omnipresent. Public intellectuals – including journalists and bloggers -- who dare to express dissent with the government wait, literally, for the knock at the door at 3 A.M. And the knock comes all too often. The security cops can and do take you away, destination often unknown, and can hold you indefinitely. You may never be charged with anything, nor have a lawyer represent you. The “justice system,” as we understand justice, is virtually non-existent. The security courts are in Hosni Mubarak’s pocket.
Since 1995, when Bill Clinton was president, Egypt has been one of the CIA’s favorite destinations for victims of “extraordinary rendition,” which is government-ese for kidnapping. Since that time, by the most conservative estimate, U.S. authorities have spirited at least twenty people off to Egyptian prisons. Many have been tortured. Some have died. Others have simply disappeared. Little wonder then that each and every year Egypt’s abuses are high on the list in our State Department’s annual human rights reports.
But, at the same time, in some other place in our government, foreign policy-makers are drafting the latest request to Congress for more billions in U.S. military and economic aid. U.S. aid to Egypt has averaged more than $2 billion every year 1979. It is second only to Israel.
U.S. aid to Egypt is its reward for making peace with Israel in 1979, following the Camp David Accords. And it continues because Egypt has been playing a peacemaker role between the warring Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, as well as between Israelis and Palestinians.
Since 9/11, the government has used George W. Bush’s “global war on terror” to suppress dissent from its leading opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood. But denial of the most basic human rights is not directed only at the Brotherhood; it applies to every Egyptian citizen.
Given that background, I found it more than a bit ironic that one of Egypt’s leading newspapers, Al Ahram, would be trumpeting President Obama’s GITMO executive orders as a huge victory for human rights.
Calling Guantanamo “a dark spot in U.S. history” and “a symbol of injustice and oppression,” the newspaper wrote, “The prison is arguably one of the worst mockeries of international law, which was itself drafted partly by American legal experts. Past U.S. administrations may not have been devoted followers of the Geneva Conventions, but neither have they ever discarded international treaties as openly and as arrogantly as the current one.”
“Former attorney-general Alberto Gonzales, a personal friend of President Bush, mastered this art in a way that allowed his bosses to adorn their gratuitous actions with the air of legitimacy. Guantanamo was his ultimate masterpiece,” its story concluded.
There is little dispute among those of us George Bush has not terrorized into a perpetual state of fear that GITMO and what happened there is a disgrace to the United States. But offhand I can’t think of a hypocrisy greater than its denunciation by a country that invented its own Guantanamos many years before ours – and arguably even more brutal and law-free.
That said, there may yet be an upside for the Egyptian people in Obama’s decision to close the place down. Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper – one of the best in the region – captured the possible gain.
It wrote of the negative effects U.S. interrogation practices have had on the observance of human rights by Arab governments. “With public knowledge of the American use of waterboarding in Guantanamo and elsewhere, why would Arab leaders promote human rights and political reforms? The closing of Guantanamo will send an important message that torture will not be tolerated by the Obama administration,” the paper said.
Will Obama’s actions rob Mr. Mubarak of one of his most useful fig leaves? Maybe. But it’s a real longshot.
I wouldn’t take it to the bank just yet.
You may have missed it because it was ignored by virtually the entire the American mainstream press, but there’s a really creepy irony that accompanied President Obama’s decision to close Guantanamo and end torture, secret prisons and extraordinary rendition.
The irony is that some of the most lavish praise for Obama came from the press in countries that most of us would find, what shall we say, paradoxical. Countries that for many years have been the poster boys for unlawful detention, torture, secret prisons and “disappeared” prisoners. Countries in a part of the world that has been a consistent destination for those rendered by our CIA.
That would be the Middle East, where most of the press is owned or controlled by authoritarian governments. Countries in which political dissent is about as welcome as a pandemic of the Black Plague.
Top of the poster-boy list has to be Egypt, a beautiful country full of gracious, hospitable people – and some not so much -- where my family and I lived for several years.
Egypt has been ruled by Hosni Mubarak since 1981, when the then vice-president took on the top job following the assassination of Anwar Sadat. Since then, the country’s now 80-year-old president has been a kind of caricature of old-style Arab potentates.
For all those years, Egypt has lived under so-called Emergency Laws. These laws give the government sweeping powers and give the citizens no powers. Public gatherings are banned unless they get government permits. And until recently -- when Bush’s democracy promotion mantra finally began exerting ever-so-gentle pressure on the Mubarak regime to clean up its act -- political parties were banned or otherwise prevented from participating in the annual referendums that reelected the president with math-like precision.
Egypt’s security services are omnipresent. Public intellectuals – including journalists and bloggers -- who dare to express dissent with the government wait, literally, for the knock at the door at 3 A.M. And the knock comes all too often. The security cops can and do take you away, destination often unknown, and can hold you indefinitely. You may never be charged with anything, nor have a lawyer represent you. The “justice system,” as we understand justice, is virtually non-existent. The security courts are in Hosni Mubarak’s pocket.
Since 1995, when Bill Clinton was president, Egypt has been one of the CIA’s favorite destinations for victims of “extraordinary rendition,” which is government-ese for kidnapping. Since that time, by the most conservative estimate, U.S. authorities have spirited at least twenty people off to Egyptian prisons. Many have been tortured. Some have died. Others have simply disappeared. Little wonder then that each and every year Egypt’s abuses are high on the list in our State Department’s annual human rights reports.
But, at the same time, in some other place in our government, foreign policy-makers are drafting the latest request to Congress for more billions in U.S. military and economic aid. U.S. aid to Egypt has averaged more than $2 billion every year 1979. It is second only to Israel.
U.S. aid to Egypt is its reward for making peace with Israel in 1979, following the Camp David Accords. And it continues because Egypt has been playing a peacemaker role between the warring Palestinian factions, Hamas and Fatah, as well as between Israelis and Palestinians.
Since 9/11, the government has used George W. Bush’s “global war on terror” to suppress dissent from its leading opposition group, the Muslim Brotherhood. But denial of the most basic human rights is not directed only at the Brotherhood; it applies to every Egyptian citizen.
Given that background, I found it more than a bit ironic that one of Egypt’s leading newspapers, Al Ahram, would be trumpeting President Obama’s GITMO executive orders as a huge victory for human rights.
Calling Guantanamo “a dark spot in U.S. history” and “a symbol of injustice and oppression,” the newspaper wrote, “The prison is arguably one of the worst mockeries of international law, which was itself drafted partly by American legal experts. Past U.S. administrations may not have been devoted followers of the Geneva Conventions, but neither have they ever discarded international treaties as openly and as arrogantly as the current one.”
“Former attorney-general Alberto Gonzales, a personal friend of President Bush, mastered this art in a way that allowed his bosses to adorn their gratuitous actions with the air of legitimacy. Guantanamo was his ultimate masterpiece,” its story concluded.
There is little dispute among those of us George Bush has not terrorized into a perpetual state of fear that GITMO and what happened there is a disgrace to the United States. But offhand I can’t think of a hypocrisy greater than its denunciation by a country that invented its own Guantanamos many years before ours – and arguably even more brutal and law-free.
That said, there may yet be an upside for the Egyptian people in Obama’s decision to close the place down. Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper – one of the best in the region – captured the possible gain.
It wrote of the negative effects U.S. interrogation practices have had on the observance of human rights by Arab governments. “With public knowledge of the American use of waterboarding in Guantanamo and elsewhere, why would Arab leaders promote human rights and political reforms? The closing of Guantanamo will send an important message that torture will not be tolerated by the Obama administration,” the paper said.
Will Obama’s actions rob Mr. Mubarak of one of his most useful fig leaves? Maybe. But it’s a real longshot.
I wouldn’t take it to the bank just yet.
Monday, January 26, 2009
News From The Countries that Trash Press Freedom
By William Fisher
While the decision of President Barack Obama to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, and end the practice of interrogation techniques that violate international law, made front page news throughout America, press reaction in the Middle East was far less extensive – but generally favorable.
One reason is that, while in the U.S., Obama’s actions topped all other news on January 22, the day he signed his landmark executive orders, the attention of most of the Arab world was still riveted on Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Nonetheless, the Guantanamo story was addressed in news reports or editorials by most of the major media in Arab and other Muslim countries, and many government spokespersons and human rights advocates spoke out on the subject.
Under the headline, “News of Guantanamo's closure welcomed worldwide,” the Jordan Times wrote, “Former detainees, human-rights advocates and government officials around the world welcomed President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.” Obama’s actions, it said, “helped restore their faith in the United States.”
Beirut’s Daily Star wrote of the negative effects U.S. interrogation practices have had on the observance of human rights by Arab governments. “With public knowledge of the American use of waterboarding in Guantanamo and elsewhere, why would Arab leaders promote human rights and political reforms? The closing of Guantanamo will send an important message that torture will not be tolerated by the Obama administration,” the paper said.
Calling Guantanamo “a dark spot in U.S. history” and “a symbol of injustice and oppression,” Egypt’s Al Ahram wrote, “The prison is arguably one of the worst mockeries of international law, which was itself drafted partly by American legal experts. Past U.S. administrations may not have been devoted followers of the Geneva Conventions, but neither have they ever discarded international treaties as openly and as arrogantly as the current one. Former attorney-general Alberto Gonzales, a personal friend of President Bush, mastered this art in a way that allowed his bosses to adorn their gratuitous actions with the air of legitimacy. Guantanamo was his ultimate masterpiece.”
In the United Arab Emirates, the newspaper Al-Bayan reported that President Obama “began his era of reform yesterday by signing two executive orders to shut down the notorious U.S Guantanamo U.S. prison within a year, immediately closing all secret detention centers abroad and banning torture of suspects. Obama said at the Oval Office that the message in these decisions was to tell the world that the United States plans to continue the struggle against terror and violence, but with caution and in line with American values.”
In Dubai, the leading newspaper wrote that Obama’s “swift action on the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba and the Middle East on his first day in office that sent out the message to the world that change has indeed come to America and it’s already started showing concrete results.”
The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper saw Obama’s action as an effort to “accelerate a return to protecting the constitution and civil liberties.” It wrote, “The US Democratic Party political rhetoric in the last eight years was translated into action yesterday with the new US President Barack Obama's decision to suspend the special courts at Guantanamo.”
In Saudi Arabia, Arab News wrote, “To many around the world, the decision by Obama to close the reviled prison within a year is welcome news. But it is especially so in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where the detention facility has become a symbol of U.S. injustice toward Muslims and Arabs around the world.” Several years ago, Saudis were second only to Yemenis as the second largest group of detainees at Guantanamo. According to a Saudi human rights lawyer, at least 13 Saudi families are still awaiting freedom for relatives detained there.
Similar views were also expressed elsewhere. In an editorial, the News of Pakistan wrote that the paper welcomed what it called “Barack Obama's quick decisions on Guantanamo,” and said “they should act as a step that aids him in his hopes to establish a new relationship with the Muslim world.”
In Afghanistan, the press reported that President Hamid Karzai hailed the inauguration of Obama as the start of a "promising new era of understanding" between Kabul and Washington. Its reports said Karzai’s office reiterated calls for Guantanamo to be closed.
In Indonesia, home to more Muslims than any other nation, the media quoted Makarim Wibisono, a former Indonesian ambassador to the United Nations, as saying that Obama's call was "a good sign leading to the closure of the camp."
But other Indonesians were critical of Obama's failure to directly refer to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel's military onslaught in Gaza in his inaugural address.
Maskuri Abdilah, head of the Nahdlatul Ulama -- Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation with some 60 million followers -- said Obama dodged the one issue at the core of the Muslim world's concerns.
"It is very good that Obama wants to find a 'new way forward' with the Muslim world but first he has to change US policy over Israel and the Palestinian conflict," he told Agence France Press.
Obama’s dramatic action came on his second day in office. He issued three executive orders – one on Guantanamo, a second on interrogation, and a third forming an inter-agency task force to make recommendations regarding the disposition of the estimated 250 prisoners still held at Guantanamo.
The Guantanamo order immediately suspended all military commission proceedings and ordered the closure of the Guantanamo detention facility within one year. It further directed the Attorney General to lead a process of individualized case reviews to determine which prisoners may be transferred to third countries and which detainees may be prosecuted in accordance with U.S. law.
The order on Interrogation put an end to the secret interrogation techniques authorized for use by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), such as forced standing, forced nudity and exposure to frigid temperatures. It also ended secret CIA detentions and required that the International Committee of the Red Cross be given access to all prisoners in the custody of U.S. intelligence agencies. And, finally, it sought to clarify any ambiguity created by flawed Justice Department legal memoranda justifying harsh interrogation techniques by ordering all U.S. personnel to immediately cease relying on all such past legal advice.
The Task Force, mandated in the third order, is to develop policies for the detention, trial, transfer, release, or other disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.
A fourth order calls for a review of the case of a single prisoner, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who has been held by the Defense Department for more than five years in facilities within the United States. Al-Marri is the only individual being held as an enemy combatant within the United States. Because he is not held at Guantánamo Bay, al-Marri is not covered by the review mandated in the Review and Disposition Order.
Where to send detainees who have already been cleared for release, and those found not guilty in subsequent trials, is one of the most contentious problems facing the Obama Administration. There is considerable opposition in Congress to any of the detainees being released into the U.S. Thus far, other countries have been reluctant to take any of the prisoners, who have been described by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other top Bush Administration officials as “the worst of the worst.”
Only Albania and Sweden have taken in a few inmates.
China is demanding the return of Chinese Muslims detained at Guantanamo once the facility is shut down. Some 17 Chinese detainees have been cleared for release but Washington fears they could be mistreated or even tortured if they are turned over to China. Late last year, a Federal judge ordered these prisoners – known as Uighurs – released into the U.S. But the Government appealed his ruling and the case is now pending in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
While the decision of President Barack Obama to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, and end the practice of interrogation techniques that violate international law, made front page news throughout America, press reaction in the Middle East was far less extensive – but generally favorable.
One reason is that, while in the U.S., Obama’s actions topped all other news on January 22, the day he signed his landmark executive orders, the attention of most of the Arab world was still riveted on Israel’s assault on Gaza.
Nonetheless, the Guantanamo story was addressed in news reports or editorials by most of the major media in Arab and other Muslim countries, and many government spokespersons and human rights advocates spoke out on the subject.
Under the headline, “News of Guantanamo's closure welcomed worldwide,” the Jordan Times wrote, “Former detainees, human-rights advocates and government officials around the world welcomed President Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center.” Obama’s actions, it said, “helped restore their faith in the United States.”
Beirut’s Daily Star wrote of the negative effects U.S. interrogation practices have had on the observance of human rights by Arab governments. “With public knowledge of the American use of waterboarding in Guantanamo and elsewhere, why would Arab leaders promote human rights and political reforms? The closing of Guantanamo will send an important message that torture will not be tolerated by the Obama administration,” the paper said.
Calling Guantanamo “a dark spot in U.S. history” and “a symbol of injustice and oppression,” Egypt’s Al Ahram wrote, “The prison is arguably one of the worst mockeries of international law, which was itself drafted partly by American legal experts. Past U.S. administrations may not have been devoted followers of the Geneva Conventions, but neither have they ever discarded international treaties as openly and as arrogantly as the current one. Former attorney-general Alberto Gonzales, a personal friend of President Bush, mastered this art in a way that allowed his bosses to adorn their gratuitous actions with the air of legitimacy. Guantanamo was his ultimate masterpiece.”
In the United Arab Emirates, the newspaper Al-Bayan reported that President Obama “began his era of reform yesterday by signing two executive orders to shut down the notorious U.S Guantanamo U.S. prison within a year, immediately closing all secret detention centers abroad and banning torture of suspects. Obama said at the Oval Office that the message in these decisions was to tell the world that the United States plans to continue the struggle against terror and violence, but with caution and in line with American values.”
In Dubai, the leading newspaper wrote that Obama’s “swift action on the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba and the Middle East on his first day in office that sent out the message to the world that change has indeed come to America and it’s already started showing concrete results.”
The London-based Al-Hayat newspaper saw Obama’s action as an effort to “accelerate a return to protecting the constitution and civil liberties.” It wrote, “The US Democratic Party political rhetoric in the last eight years was translated into action yesterday with the new US President Barack Obama's decision to suspend the special courts at Guantanamo.”
In Saudi Arabia, Arab News wrote, “To many around the world, the decision by Obama to close the reviled prison within a year is welcome news. But it is especially so in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where the detention facility has become a symbol of U.S. injustice toward Muslims and Arabs around the world.” Several years ago, Saudis were second only to Yemenis as the second largest group of detainees at Guantanamo. According to a Saudi human rights lawyer, at least 13 Saudi families are still awaiting freedom for relatives detained there.
Similar views were also expressed elsewhere. In an editorial, the News of Pakistan wrote that the paper welcomed what it called “Barack Obama's quick decisions on Guantanamo,” and said “they should act as a step that aids him in his hopes to establish a new relationship with the Muslim world.”
In Afghanistan, the press reported that President Hamid Karzai hailed the inauguration of Obama as the start of a "promising new era of understanding" between Kabul and Washington. Its reports said Karzai’s office reiterated calls for Guantanamo to be closed.
In Indonesia, home to more Muslims than any other nation, the media quoted Makarim Wibisono, a former Indonesian ambassador to the United Nations, as saying that Obama's call was "a good sign leading to the closure of the camp."
But other Indonesians were critical of Obama's failure to directly refer to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and Israel's military onslaught in Gaza in his inaugural address.
Maskuri Abdilah, head of the Nahdlatul Ulama -- Indonesia's largest Muslim organisation with some 60 million followers -- said Obama dodged the one issue at the core of the Muslim world's concerns.
"It is very good that Obama wants to find a 'new way forward' with the Muslim world but first he has to change US policy over Israel and the Palestinian conflict," he told Agence France Press.
Obama’s dramatic action came on his second day in office. He issued three executive orders – one on Guantanamo, a second on interrogation, and a third forming an inter-agency task force to make recommendations regarding the disposition of the estimated 250 prisoners still held at Guantanamo.
The Guantanamo order immediately suspended all military commission proceedings and ordered the closure of the Guantanamo detention facility within one year. It further directed the Attorney General to lead a process of individualized case reviews to determine which prisoners may be transferred to third countries and which detainees may be prosecuted in accordance with U.S. law.
The order on Interrogation put an end to the secret interrogation techniques authorized for use by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), such as forced standing, forced nudity and exposure to frigid temperatures. It also ended secret CIA detentions and required that the International Committee of the Red Cross be given access to all prisoners in the custody of U.S. intelligence agencies. And, finally, it sought to clarify any ambiguity created by flawed Justice Department legal memoranda justifying harsh interrogation techniques by ordering all U.S. personnel to immediately cease relying on all such past legal advice.
The Task Force, mandated in the third order, is to develop policies for the detention, trial, transfer, release, or other disposition of individuals captured or apprehended in connection with armed conflicts and counterterrorism operations.
A fourth order calls for a review of the case of a single prisoner, Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, who has been held by the Defense Department for more than five years in facilities within the United States. Al-Marri is the only individual being held as an enemy combatant within the United States. Because he is not held at Guantánamo Bay, al-Marri is not covered by the review mandated in the Review and Disposition Order.
Where to send detainees who have already been cleared for release, and those found not guilty in subsequent trials, is one of the most contentious problems facing the Obama Administration. There is considerable opposition in Congress to any of the detainees being released into the U.S. Thus far, other countries have been reluctant to take any of the prisoners, who have been described by former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and other top Bush Administration officials as “the worst of the worst.”
Only Albania and Sweden have taken in a few inmates.
China is demanding the return of Chinese Muslims detained at Guantanamo once the facility is shut down. Some 17 Chinese detainees have been cleared for release but Washington fears they could be mistreated or even tortured if they are turned over to China. Late last year, a Federal judge ordered these prisoners – known as Uighurs – released into the U.S. But the Government appealed his ruling and the case is now pending in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
THE FIRST HUNDRED DAYS
By William Fisher
Human rights advocates and religious leaders are calling on President-elect Barack Obama to use his first hundred days in office to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and repudiate the policies of President George W. Bush on an array of issues ranging from detainee torture and rendition to warrantless wiretapping and signing statements.
But with the nation facing the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, it is unclear whether human rights will become the top priority of the Obama Administration and its allies in Congress.
Nonetheless, such leading organizations as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Human Rights First are demanding that the President-elect take the lead in effecting speedy action.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) wants the Obama Administration to close the CIA's secret detention centers permanently, apply to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the rules used by the U.S. military to prevent coercive interrogation, close the Guantanamo detention center, repatriate or prosecute all detainees, and ensure that prosecutions are conducted in regular courts, not the “substandard” military commissions.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW said, “Barack Obama must seize back the US leadership in global human rights squandered by outgoing President George Bush in Guantanamo Bay and other scandals.”
The group issued a 564-page report on the state of human rights around the world. The report charged that governments opposing basic rights, including those in Russia and China, had rushed to fill a vacuum left by the United States.
It blamed Bush's “abandonment of long-held principles, including opposition to torture, in the U.S. war against Islamist militants,” but said Obama “could repair the damage once he takes office on January 20. "There is an enormous need for the Obama administration to redeem America's reputation," Roth added.
At the same time, a coalition of equally prominent groups issued a similar “Human Rights Call to Action” at a summit in Washington last week. It demanded that the Obama Administration put an end to “torture, arbitrary detention, and extraordinary rendition, including closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay and rejecting preventive detention models; ending surveillance abuses, attacks on dissent, and targeting of immigrant groups and other communities of color; and ensuring human rights, civil rights and civil liberties.”
The summit included the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Constitution Project, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, the National Lawyers Guild, the Partnership for Civil Justice, the Torture Abolition Survivors Support Coalition, the US Human Rights Network, and Witness Against Torture
Similar demands are being made by a number of religious leaders and organizations.
National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is urging Obama to issue an executive order ending torture one of his first official acts in office. A letter to the President-elect, signed by close to three dozen prominent religious leaders representing America’s diverse faith traditions, said, “Such a step will help the United States to regain the moral high ground and restore our credibility within the international community at this critical time.”
The organization also joined a number of other groups in calling for “an investigation of torture policies and practices since 9/11.” Rev. Richard L. Killmer, NRCAT Executive Director, told IPS, “In order to create safeguards to make sure that torture does not happen again, it is important to understand what happened. NRCAT supports an independent non-partisan committee of inquiry with subpoena power and sufficient funding to do a thorough investigation and issue a comprehensive report.”
He added, “I think about my seven grandchildren. I can imagine that some day they will say that the United States used to torture, but we don’t do that anymore. The challenge for our nation is to develop sufficient safeguards so that we don’t torture anymore. We need to understand what happen so that those safeguards can be created.”
Another group of prominent religious leaders presented the Obama Administration with what it called a "Come Let Us Reason Together" Agenda. As part of a multi-issue declaration, the group asserted that “The use of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment against prisoners is immoral, unwise, and un-American.”
Leaders of the group represent such organizations as Third Way, Public Religion Research, Evangelicals for Human Rights, Evangelicals for Social Action, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and Faith in Public Life.
As these organizations went public with their demands, pressure appeared to be growing for a comprehensive independent investigation of human rights abuses allegedly committed by the Bush Administration. But when ABC News's George Stephanopoulos pressed Obama about it on the television program, "This Week," Obama said he was "still evaluating" the situation but added, "My orientation is going to be moving forward."
However, on Obama's transition website, Change.gov, the top-rated publicly-submitted question asked the incoming president whether he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate "the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping."
Other powerful players are taking the view that questions about the Bush administration's torture policies are so serious they can be answered only by a bipartisan, in-depth investigation. Among them is Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who introduced a bill to establish a blue-ribbon commission to investigate Bush's alleged abuse of executive war powers and civil liberties. The commission would be similar to the panel that investigated the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.
The pressure on the Obama team escalated last week when a senior Bush Administration official admitted that Guantanamo interrogators and guards had tortured one of the detainees, Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi national accused of planning to take part in the September 11, 2001, attacks
The official, Susan Crawford, a retired judge who oversees the military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay inmates, told The Washington Post, "We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.
According to press reports, Qahtani had proved impervious to standard military interrogation in 2002 when former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized special methods to break his will.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) described the admission as "stunning" but said the Bush administration was still planning, on its final full day in office, to prosecute other detainees who had been tortured.
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have said that the United States does not torture. But Cheney has admitted publicly that a technique known as waterboarding – which simulates drowning – was administered to three detainees.
Bush Administration officials, including the president, vice president, and Attorney General Michael Mukasey do not acknowledge that waterboarding constitutes torture. But Obama’s nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, unequivocally declared, “waterboarding is torture.”
The significance of the phrase “The First Hundred Days” stems from the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who took office during the Great Depression. In 1933, he called Congress back from a recess to hold a special emergency session, during which more than 15 bills – the heart of FDR’s New Deal -- were passed and signed into law. The hundred day mantra has been the gold standard for American presidents ever since.
Human rights advocates and religious leaders are calling on President-elect Barack Obama to use his first hundred days in office to close the military prison at Guantanamo Bay and repudiate the policies of President George W. Bush on an array of issues ranging from detainee torture and rendition to warrantless wiretapping and signing statements.
But with the nation facing the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression of the 1930s, it is unclear whether human rights will become the top priority of the Obama Administration and its allies in Congress.
Nonetheless, such leading organizations as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and Human Rights First are demanding that the President-elect take the lead in effecting speedy action.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) wants the Obama Administration to close the CIA's secret detention centers permanently, apply to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) the rules used by the U.S. military to prevent coercive interrogation, close the Guantanamo detention center, repatriate or prosecute all detainees, and ensure that prosecutions are conducted in regular courts, not the “substandard” military commissions.
Kenneth Roth, executive director of HRW said, “Barack Obama must seize back the US leadership in global human rights squandered by outgoing President George Bush in Guantanamo Bay and other scandals.”
The group issued a 564-page report on the state of human rights around the world. The report charged that governments opposing basic rights, including those in Russia and China, had rushed to fill a vacuum left by the United States.
It blamed Bush's “abandonment of long-held principles, including opposition to torture, in the U.S. war against Islamist militants,” but said Obama “could repair the damage once he takes office on January 20. "There is an enormous need for the Obama administration to redeem America's reputation," Roth added.
At the same time, a coalition of equally prominent groups issued a similar “Human Rights Call to Action” at a summit in Washington last week. It demanded that the Obama Administration put an end to “torture, arbitrary detention, and extraordinary rendition, including closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay and rejecting preventive detention models; ending surveillance abuses, attacks on dissent, and targeting of immigrant groups and other communities of color; and ensuring human rights, civil rights and civil liberties.”
The summit included the American Arab Anti Discrimination Committee, the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights, the Constitution Project, Human Rights First, Human Rights Watch, the National Lawyers Guild, the Partnership for Civil Justice, the Torture Abolition Survivors Support Coalition, the US Human Rights Network, and Witness Against Torture
Similar demands are being made by a number of religious leaders and organizations.
National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) is urging Obama to issue an executive order ending torture one of his first official acts in office. A letter to the President-elect, signed by close to three dozen prominent religious leaders representing America’s diverse faith traditions, said, “Such a step will help the United States to regain the moral high ground and restore our credibility within the international community at this critical time.”
The organization also joined a number of other groups in calling for “an investigation of torture policies and practices since 9/11.” Rev. Richard L. Killmer, NRCAT Executive Director, told IPS, “In order to create safeguards to make sure that torture does not happen again, it is important to understand what happened. NRCAT supports an independent non-partisan committee of inquiry with subpoena power and sufficient funding to do a thorough investigation and issue a comprehensive report.”
He added, “I think about my seven grandchildren. I can imagine that some day they will say that the United States used to torture, but we don’t do that anymore. The challenge for our nation is to develop sufficient safeguards so that we don’t torture anymore. We need to understand what happen so that those safeguards can be created.”
Another group of prominent religious leaders presented the Obama Administration with what it called a "Come Let Us Reason Together" Agenda. As part of a multi-issue declaration, the group asserted that “The use of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment against prisoners is immoral, unwise, and un-American.”
Leaders of the group represent such organizations as Third Way, Public Religion Research, Evangelicals for Human Rights, Evangelicals for Social Action, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, and Faith in Public Life.
As these organizations went public with their demands, pressure appeared to be growing for a comprehensive independent investigation of human rights abuses allegedly committed by the Bush Administration. But when ABC News's George Stephanopoulos pressed Obama about it on the television program, "This Week," Obama said he was "still evaluating" the situation but added, "My orientation is going to be moving forward."
However, on Obama's transition website, Change.gov, the top-rated publicly-submitted question asked the incoming president whether he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate "the gravest crimes of the Bush Administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping."
Other powerful players are taking the view that questions about the Bush administration's torture policies are so serious they can be answered only by a bipartisan, in-depth investigation. Among them is Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, who introduced a bill to establish a blue-ribbon commission to investigate Bush's alleged abuse of executive war powers and civil liberties. The commission would be similar to the panel that investigated the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001.
The pressure on the Obama team escalated last week when a senior Bush Administration official admitted that Guantanamo interrogators and guards had tortured one of the detainees, Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi national accused of planning to take part in the September 11, 2001, attacks
The official, Susan Crawford, a retired judge who oversees the military tribunals for Guantanamo Bay inmates, told The Washington Post, "We tortured Qahtani. His treatment met the legal definition of torture. And that's why I did not refer the case" for prosecution.
According to press reports, Qahtani had proved impervious to standard military interrogation in 2002 when former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized special methods to break his will.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) described the admission as "stunning" but said the Bush administration was still planning, on its final full day in office, to prosecute other detainees who had been tortured.
Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have said that the United States does not torture. But Cheney has admitted publicly that a technique known as waterboarding – which simulates drowning – was administered to three detainees.
Bush Administration officials, including the president, vice president, and Attorney General Michael Mukasey do not acknowledge that waterboarding constitutes torture. But Obama’s nominee for Attorney General, Eric Holder, testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, unequivocally declared, “waterboarding is torture.”
The significance of the phrase “The First Hundred Days” stems from the administration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who took office during the Great Depression. In 1933, he called Congress back from a recess to hold a special emergency session, during which more than 15 bills – the heart of FDR’s New Deal -- were passed and signed into law. The hundred day mantra has been the gold standard for American presidents ever since.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
THE BEGINNING OF THE END? OR VICE VERSA?
By William Fisher
Human rights groups are hailing reports that President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. But they are urging him to provide details on when and how it will be done and what will happen to those now imprisoned there.
In a teleconference today with reporters, Caroline Frederickson, the chief legislative representative of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said closing GITMO would mean little if detainees were simply moved to some other location. She also said she needed reassurance that the Obama Administration would not propose a system of “preventive detention.”
“It is not enough to simply close Guantanamo or even to suspend the Military Commission trials currently taking place there,” she said. She called on Congress to repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gave the president authority to detain people, including U.S. citizens, indefinitely without charges or trials.
Deborah Colson of the Law and Security Program of the legal advocacy group Human Rights First (HRF) told us that closing Guantanamo will “show the world we are serious about our values.” But, she added, it “will require embracing time-tested procedures for criminal prosecution of suspected terrorists in our federal courts.”
Closing Guantanamo is unlikely to be completed quickly. One official of the Obama transition team reportedly said it would take several months to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, decide how to try suspects and deal with the many other legal challenges posed by closing the camp. However, transition officials have said president-elect Obama is committed to ordering an immediate suspension of the Bush administration’s military commissions system for trying detainees.
In addition, the incoming administration has reportedly rejected a proposal to seek a new law authorizing indefinite detention inside the United States. The Bush administration had insisted that such a measure was necessary to close the Guantánamo camp and bring some of the detainees to the U.S.
Meanwhile, the fate of a number of GITMO detainees continues to play out in the courts. Today the ACLU filed a petition for habeas corpus in federal court in Washington, challenging the detention of Mohammed Jawad, who has been held at Guantanamo for more than six years. Jawad, now about 23 years old, was captured at the age of 16 or 17 and is one of two Guantánamo prisoners the U.S. is prosecuting for acts allegedly committed when they were juveniles. He is accused of throwing a hand grenade at two U.S. service members and their interpreter in Afghanistan.“It would be a miscarriage of justice for President-elect Obama to continue Mr. Jawad’s unlawful detention in Guantánamo, particularly considering that Mr. Jawad was captured as a teenager and detained based on alleged confessions obtained through torture,” said Hina Shamsi, an ACLU attorney.
“The Bush administration compounded this injustice by using torture-derived evidence to prosecute Mr. Jawad for war crimes in the unconstitutional military commissions. The government’s continued detention and prosecution of Mr. Jawad violates America’s values and the Constitution, as well as this country’s binding obligations under the Geneva Conventions and human rights law,” she said.In September, the military’s prosecutor resigned from the military commissions because he did not believe he could ethically proceed with the case. He told the court there was “no credible evidence or legal basis” to justify Jawad’s detention and prosecution, and that the commission system’s flaws make it impossible for anyone “to harbor the remotest hope that justice is an achievable goal.”
A month later, Army judge Col. Stephen Henley held that evidence collected while Jawad was in U.S. custody could not be admitted in his trial because it had been obtained under duress. Among various forms of abusive treatment, Jawad was a victim of the military’s so-called “frequent flyer” program, in which detainees at Guantánamo were subjected to sleep deprivation for extended periods of time.
In May 2004, a few months after Jawad tried to commit suicide in his cell, prison officials deprived him of sleep for two weeks by moving him 112 times in 14 days – after having been ordered by their commanding general to discontinue this practice.
The government told the judge that Jawad's alleged confessions were the centerpiece of its case against him. “The fact that the government persists in trying to use evidence obtained through torture says everything you need to know about the integrity of its case,” said U.S. Air Force Major David J. R. Frakt, who represents Jawad. The Bush administration is appealing the Guantánamo military judge’s decision to throw out the “tainted” evidence.
In a separate case, the trial of another “child soldier,” Canadian citizen Omar Ahmed Khadr, is scheduled to begin January 26. Khadr was captured by American forces when he was 15, following a four-hour firefight with militants in a village in Afghanistan. He has spent six years in Guantanamo charged with war crimes and providing support to terrorism after allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier.
But in February of 2008, the Pentagon accidentally released documents that revealed that while Khadr was present during the firefight, there was no evidence that he had thrown the grenade. In fact, military officials had originally reported that another militant had thrown the grenade just before being killed.
HRF’s Deborah Colson told us that Obama’s plan to close GITMO will be further complicated if he “does not make an immediate decision to suspend all military commission proceedings, including the trial of Omar Khadr.”
Among the many complications surrounding the closing of Guantanamo is the question of what to do with detainees the U.S. Government has cleared for release.
In December 2008, the government attempted to halt the cases of approximately 20 detainees the Defense Department had cleared for transfer out of Guantanamo. A few weeks later, a federal court rejected the government’s action. The ruling, from Judge Thomas Hogan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, meant that lawyers for the detainees could go forward with attempting to seek their release from detention.
As recognized by the Supreme Court and by District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina in the case involving 17 Chinese Muslims – known as Uighurs -- remaining at Guantánamo, a core facet of the fundamental right of habeas is the ability of a federal court to order release in cases of unlawful detention. Judge Urbina ruled the Uighurs should be released from Guantanamo and admitted into the U.S. The government is appealing that decision.
“An administrative order that says that they are free to go is not relief after seven years of imprisonment,” says Emi MacLean, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. “These men need to be released from prison, and this relief is long overdue,” she says.
There are approximately 50-60 detainees at Guantánamo who cannot be sent to their home countries for fear of torture or persecution or because of statelessness. These include the 17 Uighurs from China as well as men from Azerbaijan, Algeria, Libya, Palestine, Russia, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan.
Human rights groups are hailing reports that President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba. But they are urging him to provide details on when and how it will be done and what will happen to those now imprisoned there.
In a teleconference today with reporters, Caroline Frederickson, the chief legislative representative of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said closing GITMO would mean little if detainees were simply moved to some other location. She also said she needed reassurance that the Obama Administration would not propose a system of “preventive detention.”
“It is not enough to simply close Guantanamo or even to suspend the Military Commission trials currently taking place there,” she said. She called on Congress to repeal the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which gave the president authority to detain people, including U.S. citizens, indefinitely without charges or trials.
Deborah Colson of the Law and Security Program of the legal advocacy group Human Rights First (HRF) told us that closing Guantanamo will “show the world we are serious about our values.” But, she added, it “will require embracing time-tested procedures for criminal prosecution of suspected terrorists in our federal courts.”
Closing Guantanamo is unlikely to be completed quickly. One official of the Obama transition team reportedly said it would take several months to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, decide how to try suspects and deal with the many other legal challenges posed by closing the camp. However, transition officials have said president-elect Obama is committed to ordering an immediate suspension of the Bush administration’s military commissions system for trying detainees.
In addition, the incoming administration has reportedly rejected a proposal to seek a new law authorizing indefinite detention inside the United States. The Bush administration had insisted that such a measure was necessary to close the Guantánamo camp and bring some of the detainees to the U.S.
Meanwhile, the fate of a number of GITMO detainees continues to play out in the courts. Today the ACLU filed a petition for habeas corpus in federal court in Washington, challenging the detention of Mohammed Jawad, who has been held at Guantanamo for more than six years. Jawad, now about 23 years old, was captured at the age of 16 or 17 and is one of two Guantánamo prisoners the U.S. is prosecuting for acts allegedly committed when they were juveniles. He is accused of throwing a hand grenade at two U.S. service members and their interpreter in Afghanistan.“It would be a miscarriage of justice for President-elect Obama to continue Mr. Jawad’s unlawful detention in Guantánamo, particularly considering that Mr. Jawad was captured as a teenager and detained based on alleged confessions obtained through torture,” said Hina Shamsi, an ACLU attorney.
“The Bush administration compounded this injustice by using torture-derived evidence to prosecute Mr. Jawad for war crimes in the unconstitutional military commissions. The government’s continued detention and prosecution of Mr. Jawad violates America’s values and the Constitution, as well as this country’s binding obligations under the Geneva Conventions and human rights law,” she said.In September, the military’s prosecutor resigned from the military commissions because he did not believe he could ethically proceed with the case. He told the court there was “no credible evidence or legal basis” to justify Jawad’s detention and prosecution, and that the commission system’s flaws make it impossible for anyone “to harbor the remotest hope that justice is an achievable goal.”
A month later, Army judge Col. Stephen Henley held that evidence collected while Jawad was in U.S. custody could not be admitted in his trial because it had been obtained under duress. Among various forms of abusive treatment, Jawad was a victim of the military’s so-called “frequent flyer” program, in which detainees at Guantánamo were subjected to sleep deprivation for extended periods of time.
In May 2004, a few months after Jawad tried to commit suicide in his cell, prison officials deprived him of sleep for two weeks by moving him 112 times in 14 days – after having been ordered by their commanding general to discontinue this practice.
The government told the judge that Jawad's alleged confessions were the centerpiece of its case against him. “The fact that the government persists in trying to use evidence obtained through torture says everything you need to know about the integrity of its case,” said U.S. Air Force Major David J. R. Frakt, who represents Jawad. The Bush administration is appealing the Guantánamo military judge’s decision to throw out the “tainted” evidence.
In a separate case, the trial of another “child soldier,” Canadian citizen Omar Ahmed Khadr, is scheduled to begin January 26. Khadr was captured by American forces when he was 15, following a four-hour firefight with militants in a village in Afghanistan. He has spent six years in Guantanamo charged with war crimes and providing support to terrorism after allegedly throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier.
But in February of 2008, the Pentagon accidentally released documents that revealed that while Khadr was present during the firefight, there was no evidence that he had thrown the grenade. In fact, military officials had originally reported that another militant had thrown the grenade just before being killed.
HRF’s Deborah Colson told us that Obama’s plan to close GITMO will be further complicated if he “does not make an immediate decision to suspend all military commission proceedings, including the trial of Omar Khadr.”
Among the many complications surrounding the closing of Guantanamo is the question of what to do with detainees the U.S. Government has cleared for release.
In December 2008, the government attempted to halt the cases of approximately 20 detainees the Defense Department had cleared for transfer out of Guantanamo. A few weeks later, a federal court rejected the government’s action. The ruling, from Judge Thomas Hogan of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, meant that lawyers for the detainees could go forward with attempting to seek their release from detention.
As recognized by the Supreme Court and by District Court Judge Ricardo Urbina in the case involving 17 Chinese Muslims – known as Uighurs -- remaining at Guantánamo, a core facet of the fundamental right of habeas is the ability of a federal court to order release in cases of unlawful detention. Judge Urbina ruled the Uighurs should be released from Guantanamo and admitted into the U.S. The government is appealing that decision.
“An administrative order that says that they are free to go is not relief after seven years of imprisonment,” says Emi MacLean, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. “These men need to be released from prison, and this relief is long overdue,” she says.
There are approximately 50-60 detainees at Guantánamo who cannot be sent to their home countries for fear of torture or persecution or because of statelessness. These include the 17 Uighurs from China as well as men from Azerbaijan, Algeria, Libya, Palestine, Russia, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia, and Uzbekistan.
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