Read some interesting reports including comments from Father Roy about stirring up the hornet's nest by preaching at ordination of woman priest.
Here
Keep watching the SOAW website at SOAW dot org
Monday, November 24, 2008
SOAW Rally Ends
Read some interesting reports including comments from Father Roy about stirring up the hornet's nest by preaching at ordination of woman priest.
Here
Keep watching the SOAW website at SOAW dot org
UPDATES: Bin Laden’s Driver To Be Released From Guantánamo
Citing “several US sources,” CNN reports that Salim Hamdan, a former driver for Osama bin Laden, who was convicted in a trial by Military Commission at Guantánamo during the summer for providing material support for terrorism, is to be flown out of Guantánamo on Monday, to serve the rest of his sentence in his native Yemen.
At the end of his trial, a military jury refused to convict Hamdan on the more serious charge of conspiracy, and gave him a five and a half year sentence. His judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, then decided to take into the account the time that Hamdan had already served since he was first charged, which meant that he was eligible for release by the end of the year.
Furious at the result, the Defense Department (which had been seeking a 30-year sentence) resorted to claiming that Allred was not entitled to reduce Hamdan’s sentence for time served, and called for the jury to be reconvened, but Allred dismissed these claims in a terse judgment on October 30, when, having “read the filings and legal citations, as well as reviewing the sentencing hearing transcript” (as the Wall Street Journal explained), he declared, simply, “The prosecution motion to reconsider, reassemble, reinstruct and re-announce a sentence is denied.”
If confirmed, Hamdan’s transfer to Yemen to serve the last month of his sentence will bring to an end an ugly rumor that the administration failed to quell at the time of his sentence: the suggestion that, if the authorities so desired, they could continue to hold Hamdan as an “enemy combatant,” even after his sentence was completed. As I noted in a recent article, for the administration even to contemplate doing so, after prosecuting him in a special court of its own devising, was “a notion which would surely shame all but the most hardened dictators.”
And if confirmed, Hamdan’s release also brings the closure of Guantánamo one step closer, as I explained at the time of his sentence:
If one of Osama bin Laden’s drivers gets a sentence of seven years and one month in total (five and a half years plus the 19 months of his imprisonment before he was charged) in a system specifically established by the administration to try and convict “terror suspects,” it is surely now inconceivable that those who planned the whole post-9/11 detention policy can maintain that they can still continue to hold … any of the 130 or so prisoners in Guantánamo who have not been cleared, and who are not scheduled to face a trial by Military Commission, beyond the end of the year.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press/the University of Michigan Press, and available from Amazon — in the US, the UK and Canada).
See Andy Worthington's site often!
Here
*****
I plan to continue to add updates to this breaking story which encompasses quite a few worrisome dynamics about the Cheney/Bush administration, the Military Commissions and the denial of so many Americans about GTMO. Here's one just in on the wires...
Here
...Note that Hamdan's was called by the wire article a "relatively light sentence" when it was five years already including torture...SEE ALSO A REPORT ON BBC WORLD NEWS SERVICE on this case around 2:45 am ET during last night November 25, 2008 - which should be archived soon.
At the end of his trial, a military jury refused to convict Hamdan on the more serious charge of conspiracy, and gave him a five and a half year sentence. His judge, Navy Capt. Keith Allred, then decided to take into the account the time that Hamdan had already served since he was first charged, which meant that he was eligible for release by the end of the year.
Furious at the result, the Defense Department (which had been seeking a 30-year sentence) resorted to claiming that Allred was not entitled to reduce Hamdan’s sentence for time served, and called for the jury to be reconvened, but Allred dismissed these claims in a terse judgment on October 30, when, having “read the filings and legal citations, as well as reviewing the sentencing hearing transcript” (as the Wall Street Journal explained), he declared, simply, “The prosecution motion to reconsider, reassemble, reinstruct and re-announce a sentence is denied.”
If confirmed, Hamdan’s transfer to Yemen to serve the last month of his sentence will bring to an end an ugly rumor that the administration failed to quell at the time of his sentence: the suggestion that, if the authorities so desired, they could continue to hold Hamdan as an “enemy combatant,” even after his sentence was completed. As I noted in a recent article, for the administration even to contemplate doing so, after prosecuting him in a special court of its own devising, was “a notion which would surely shame all but the most hardened dictators.”
And if confirmed, Hamdan’s release also brings the closure of Guantánamo one step closer, as I explained at the time of his sentence:
If one of Osama bin Laden’s drivers gets a sentence of seven years and one month in total (five and a half years plus the 19 months of his imprisonment before he was charged) in a system specifically established by the administration to try and convict “terror suspects,” it is surely now inconceivable that those who planned the whole post-9/11 detention policy can maintain that they can still continue to hold … any of the 130 or so prisoners in Guantánamo who have not been cleared, and who are not scheduled to face a trial by Military Commission, beyond the end of the year.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press/the University of Michigan Press, and available from Amazon — in the US, the UK and Canada).
See Andy Worthington's site often!
Here
*****
I plan to continue to add updates to this breaking story which encompasses quite a few worrisome dynamics about the Cheney/Bush administration, the Military Commissions and the denial of so many Americans about GTMO. Here's one just in on the wires...
Here
...Note that Hamdan's was called by the wire article a "relatively light sentence" when it was five years already including torture...SEE ALSO A REPORT ON BBC WORLD NEWS SERVICE on this case around 2:45 am ET during last night November 25, 2008 - which should be archived soon.
The Sunni/Shia Divide and the Future of Islam: Speaking of Faith award-winning radio
(This map is not from SOF)Speaking of Faith - Week of November 20, 2008 - Vali Nasr with engaging interviewer: Krista Tippett
Nasr is professor of international politics in the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. His latest book is The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam will Shape the Future.
Intro to this program from Speaking of Faith website (available in archives online and for podcast for extended time):
We seek fresh insight into the history and the human and religious dynamics of Islam's Sunni-Shia divide. Our guest says that it is not so different from dynamics in periods of Western Christian history. But he says that by bringing the majority Shia to power in Iraq, the U.S. has changed the religions dynamics of the Middle East.
Hear online this radio program and/or the unedited interview with Vali Nasr
The rhythmic chest-slapping and chanting heard in the program is part of a religious ritual commemorating Ashura. Watch the video of the popular Iranian singer Mahmood Karimi leading the audience in Tehran.
Listen/Interact...
Here
********
Notes not necessarily related to the SOF material and broadcast:
Most Shias in Iraq actually live in the South, not the North of the country.
The Shi'ite or Shi'a Crescent is a recent geo-political term used to describe a region of the Middle East where the majority population is Shi'a, or where there is a strong Shi'a minority in the population. It has been used to describe the potential for cooperation among these areas in Middle Eastern politics. The corresponding term is especially common in German, where it is known as Schiitischer Halbmond ("shia halfmoon"). This term was used by Abdullah II, king of Jordan, after which it became popular in political debates.
The nations where Shi'a Muslims form a dominant majority are Azerbaijan, Iran, Bahrain, Yemen and Iraq, a plurality in Lebanon and large minorities in Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kuwait,Saudi Arabia,India,UAE and Syria. The shape of these countries put together does in fact resemble a crescent moon or a half moon (see map).
Michael Bröning: The Myth of the Shia Crescent, in: Project Syndicate May 2008 (Text is also available in French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Czech)
Also find another interview with Vali Nasr here from Carnegie Council 2006
The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Trampling The Rights Of The Child: The Treatment Of Juveniles In Guantánamo
According to the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (on the involvement of children in armed conflict), to which the United States has been a signatory since January 23, 2003, juvenile prisoners — those under the age of 18 when their alleged crimes took place — “require special protection.” The Optional Protocol specifically recognizes “the special needs of those children who are particularly vulnerable to recruitment or use in hostilities”, and requires its signatories to promote “the physical and psychosocial rehabilitation and social reintegration of children who are victims of armed conflict.”In January 2003, four doctors in Guantánamo put together a fascinating document, entitled “Recommended Course of Action for Reception and Detention of Individuals Under 18 Years of Age” (PDF). This was clearly influenced by international agreements regarding the distinctions between adult and juvenile prisoners (including the Geneva Conventions, which were, in general, shredded by the administration), and it laid out, in painstaking detail, how juvenile prisoners held at Guantánamo should be treated.
Noting, in the first instance, that “all efforts should be made” to prevent juveniles from being imprisoned at Guantánamo, the doctors proceeded to explain that the exposure of juvenile prisoners to adult prisoners would “have a high likelihood of producing physical, emotional, and psychological damage,” and recommended that they be held separately from the adult population, with “a primary living space with a minimum space of 20ft by 30ft,” and an “open, outside recreation area,” measuring at least 50ft by 50ft, in which they “should be allowed to play” for at least three hours a day.”
The doctors also recommended that juvenile prisoners should be educated for four to six hours a day, and listed a large number of staff — interpreters, social workers, medical and psychiatric professionals, and a nutritionist — who should be assigned or on call to provide assistance to the prisoners. They concluded by stating that all personnel “should refrain from wearing military uniforms and utilize appropriate civilian attire.”
Although the doctors assumed that their “Recommended Course of Action” would become a “SecDef directive” (a directive from Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of Defense), all of their recommendations were ignored. The reality for the juveniles held at Guantánamo (twenty-two in total, according to the Pentagon’s own records) was detention in conditions akin to solitary confinement, in cells that measured 8 ft by 6 ft, little opportunity for exercise, and no educational facilities whatsoever. In addition, adult prisoners were held as their neighbors, no staff were provided with expertise in the requirements of juveniles, and their dealings with the prison’s personnel were always with people in military uniform.
As far as the administration was concerned, the age of the Guantánamo prisoners was completely irrelevant, and the premise for this was confirmed by Donald Rumsfeld at a press conference in May 2003, after the story first broke that juveniles were being held at Guantánamo. Rumsfeld stated, “This constant refrain of ‘the juveniles,’ as though there’s a hundred children in there — these are not children,” and General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, added that they “may be juveniles, but they’re not on the Little League team anywhere. They’re on a major league team, and it’s a terrorist team, and they’re in Guantánamo for a very good reason — for our safety, for your safety.”
Omar KhadrBehind this gleefully dismissive rhetoric, the truth was even darker. Guantánamo’s most celebrated juvenile, Omar Khadr, was severely wounded after a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002, when he was just 15 years old, but on arrival at the US prison at Bagram airbase, he was subjected to chronic abuse. According to his own account, reported by Amnesty International, he “asked for pain medication for his wounds but was refused,” said that “during interrogations a bag was placed over his head and US personnel brought military dogs into the room to frighten him,” and added that he was “not allowed to use the bathroom and was forced to urinate on himself.” Like many other prisoners, he was also hung from his wrists, and explained that “his hands were tied above a door frame and he was forced to stand in this position for hours.” An article in Rolling Stone, in August 2006, added further details, noting that he was “brought into interrogation rooms on stretchers, in great pain,” and was “ordered to clean floors on his hands and knees while his wounds were still wet.”
In Guantánamo, the abuse of Khadr continued. On his arrival, in October 2002, just a few weeks after his 16th birthday, he was immediately subjected to a regime of humiliation, isolation and abuse — including extreme temperature manipulation, forced nudity and sexual humiliation — which had just been introduced in an attempt to increase the meager flow of “actionable intelligence” from the prison. He told his lawyers that he was “short-shackled by his hands and feet to a bolt in the floor and left for five to six hours,” and that “occasionally a US officer would enter the room to laugh at him.” He also said that he was “kept in extremely cold rooms,” “lifted up by the neck while shackled, and then dropped to the floor,” and “beaten by guards.” In one particularly notorious incident, the guards left him short-shackled until he urinated on himself, and then “poured a pine-scented cleaning fluid over him and used him as a ‘human mop’ to clean up the mess.”
Mohammed El-GharaniOmar Khadr was not the only juvenile to receive brutal treatment in US custody. Mohammed El-Gharani, a Chadian national and resident of Saudi Arabia, who was just 14 or 15 years old when he traveled to Pakistan in October 2001 and was seized in a random raid on a mosque, has also been 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 — and has also been regularly abused by the Initial Reaction Force (IRF), a heavily-armored riot squad used to quell even the most minor infringements of the rules. On one occasion, an IRF team slammed his head into the floor of his cell, breaking one of his teeth, and on another occasion an interrogator stubbed out a cigarette on his arm. As a result of this violence he has become deeply depressed, and has attempted to commit suicide on several occasions.
Another juvenile, Mohamed Jawad, an Afghan who was 16 when he was seized after a grenade attack on a US jeep in December 2002, was also subjected to prolonged sleep deprivation, under the program known euphemistically as the “frequent flier program,” which involved moving prisoners from cell to cell every few hours to prevent them sleeping. In Jawad’s case, this took place 112 times over a two-week period in 2004.
To make matters worse, both Khadr and Jawad have been put forward for trial by Military Commission, the system of trials for “terror suspects” conceived by Vice President Dick Cheney and his close advisers in November 2001, even though, as Khadr’s lawyers pointed out in February, if jurisdiction is exercised over Mr. Khadr, the military judge will be the first in western history to preside over the trial of alleged war crimes committed by a child. No international criminal tribunal established under the laws of war, from Nuremberg forward, has ever prosecuted former child soldiers as war criminals … A critical component of the response of our nation and the world to the tragedy of the use and abuse of child solders in war by terrorist organizations like al-Qaeda is that post-conflict legal proceedings must pursue the best interest of the victimized child — with the aim of their rehabilitation and reintegration into society, not their imprisonment or execution.
The examples above will hopefully suffice to demonstrate that, in the “War on Terror,” in which a rogue administration, devoted to unfettered executive power, has refused to be bound by the law, those seized and detained as juveniles were doubly unfortunate. After the scandal of the juvenile prisoners was revealed in 2003, the administration made a small concession to its international obligations (and to common decency) by holding three Afghan boys, who were aged between 12 and 14 at the time of their capture, in a separate block, Camp Iguana, where they received treatment that at least approached the requirements laid down by Guantánamo’s scorned doctors.
However, this was only until they were released in January 2004, and for the other 19 juveniles, including five who are still held, the administration’s disdain for the Optional Protocol, with its requirement to rehabilitate children caught up in war, has remained as pronounced as ever. It is one of many crimes that Barack Obama should address as urgently as possible.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press/the University of Michigan Press, and available from Amazon — in the US, the UK and Canada).
See Andy Worthington's website often as he is continually updating his book!
Here
As published exclusively in “Preventing Torture within the Fight against Terrorism,” Volume 2, Issue 6, November 2008, a bi-monthly newsletter published by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims (IRCT), based in Copenhagen, and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), based in Paris. The newsletter is available to download here. For further information, please email Brandy Bauer, IRCT Senior Communications Officer.
Marjorie Cohn: Guantánamo Justice Delayed Seven Years
(Find this item also posted on THE JURIST)
Since the Bush administration began transporting men and boys to Guantánamo Bay in January 2002, it has tried to prevent them from presenting their cases before a neutral federal judge. Indeed, the naval base was turned into a prison camp precisely to keep the detainees away from impartial courts. The government argued that federal courts had no jurisdiction over men detained on Cuban soil. Twice, the Supreme Court rejected that argument, finding that the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control over the Guantánamo Bay base.
Finally, on November 20, in a stunning development, U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ordered the government to release five Guantánamo Bay detainees “forthwith.” Finding that the government failed to prove the men were “enemy combatants,” the judge, in a rare comment, urged senior government leaders not to appeal his ruling. “Seven years of waiting for a legal system to give them an answer . . . in my judgment is more than enough,” he said.
The five detainees the judge ordered released are Lakhdar Boumediene, Mustafa Ait Idir, Hadj Boudella, Saber Lahmar and Mohammed Nechla. Judge Leon did, however, find that a sixth detainee, Belkacem Bensayah, was properly classified an enemy combatant.
It was the Supreme Court’s June 12, 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush (see Supreme Court Checks and Balances in Boumediene, http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2008/06/supreme-court-checks-and-balances-in.php) that allowed Judge Leon to review the enemy combatant classifications. The high court upheld the Guantánamo detainees’ constitutional right to habeas corpus and made clear they were “entitled to a prompt habeas corpus hearing.” Judge Leon adopted the definition of "enemy combatant" used by the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which is “an individual who was part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaeda forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. This includes any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces.”
The six detainees in this case are native Algerians who were residing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, over a thousand miles from the battlefield in Afghanistan. All six held Bosnian citizenship or lawful permanent residence as well as native Algerian citizenship. Arrested by Bosnian authorities in October 2001 for alleged involvement in a plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, they were ordered released from prison on January 17, 2002 and then turned over to U.S. personnel who transported them to Guantánamo on January 20, 2002. They have been there ever since.
President Bush had withdrawn the alleged bomb plot as a basis for their detention. He argued instead that the men planned to travel to Afghanistan in late 2001 and take up arms against the United States and allied forces. Judge Leon found the government had failed to prove these allegations by a preponderance of evidence in the cases of all but Bensayah.
The judge said the Justice Department and intelligence agencies had relied solely on a classified document from an unnamed source. He wrote that “while the information in the classified intelligence report, relating to the credibility and reliability of the source, was undoubtedly sufficient for the intelligence purposes for which it was prepared, it is not sufficient for the purposes for which a habeas court must now evaluate it.” He added, “To allow enemy combatancy to rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this Court’s obligation under the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdi to protect petitioners from the risk of erroneous detention.”
The government did, however, present additional evidence which persuaded Judge Leon that Bensayah was “an al-Qaida facilitator” who planned to take up arms against the United States and facilitate the travel of unnamed others to do the same. That, wrote the judge, “constitutes direct support of al-Qaida in furtherance of its objectives” and “this amounts to ‘support’ within the meaning of the ‘enemy combatant’ definition governing this case.”
Bosnian authorities have indicated they are willing to take the five detainees once they are released.
In October, another federal district judge in Washington, Ricardo M. Urbina, ordered that 17 Uighur detainees be released from Guantánamo. The judge didn’t hold an evidentiary hearing because the government conceded the men were not enemy combatants. But the 17 men from western China languish in custody because the government has appealed Judge Urbina’s ruling.
President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to close the Guantánamo prison when he takes office. The National Lawyers Guild has urged Obama to ensure that the prisoners are released, repatriated, resettled, or brought to trial (if there is probable cause to believe they have committed a crime) in strict accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law, and the principles of fundamental justice pertaining to criminal proceedings. This includes but is not limited to, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United States has ratified all of these treaties which makes their provisions binding U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
The Guild opposes the creation of national security courts to try the detainees. Although Obama said in August, "It's time to better protect the American people and our values by bringing swift and sure justice to terrorists through our courts and our Uniform Code of Military Justice,” three Obama advisers told the Associated Press that the President-elect is expected to propose a new court system to deal with “sensitive national security cases.”
Concerns have been cited about disclosure of classified information in civilian courts and courts-martial. However, the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) provides an adequate method of protecting classified information in existing U.S. courts. CIPA allows a judge to assess the importance of sensitive evidence before it is disclosed in open court and, if necessary, create a nonclassified substitute for use at trial. Former federal prosecutors Richard B. Zabel and James J. Benjamin, Jr. studied the 107 post-9/11 cases and prepared a 171-page white paper for Human Rights First called In Pursuit of Justice: Prosecuting Terrorism Cases in the Federal Courts. They wrote, “[w]e are not aware of a single terrorism case in which CIPA procedures have failed and a serious security breach has occurred.” National security courts, they write, “would give the government more power and make it easier for the government to secure convictions.”
President-elect Obama should send those prisoners he intends to try to U.S. civilian and military courts, which are well-suited to protect national security concerns. He should eschew the creation of a new system of courts with reduced due process, which will raise many of the same concerns as Bush’s dreaded military commissions.
posted by Marjorie Cohn @ 9:49 AM Monday, November 24, 2008 You will find lots more from and about Law Professor Marjorie Cohn's writings at marjoriecohn dot com
Her book -Cowboy Republic- is a must read about the present administration's many crimes against humanity...
Since the Bush administration began transporting men and boys to Guantánamo Bay in January 2002, it has tried to prevent them from presenting their cases before a neutral federal judge. Indeed, the naval base was turned into a prison camp precisely to keep the detainees away from impartial courts. The government argued that federal courts had no jurisdiction over men detained on Cuban soil. Twice, the Supreme Court rejected that argument, finding that the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control over the Guantánamo Bay base.
Finally, on November 20, in a stunning development, U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ordered the government to release five Guantánamo Bay detainees “forthwith.” Finding that the government failed to prove the men were “enemy combatants,” the judge, in a rare comment, urged senior government leaders not to appeal his ruling. “Seven years of waiting for a legal system to give them an answer . . . in my judgment is more than enough,” he said.
The five detainees the judge ordered released are Lakhdar Boumediene, Mustafa Ait Idir, Hadj Boudella, Saber Lahmar and Mohammed Nechla. Judge Leon did, however, find that a sixth detainee, Belkacem Bensayah, was properly classified an enemy combatant.
It was the Supreme Court’s June 12, 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush (see Supreme Court Checks and Balances in Boumediene, http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/forumy/2008/06/supreme-court-checks-and-balances-in.php) that allowed Judge Leon to review the enemy combatant classifications. The high court upheld the Guantánamo detainees’ constitutional right to habeas corpus and made clear they were “entitled to a prompt habeas corpus hearing.” Judge Leon adopted the definition of "enemy combatant" used by the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which is “an individual who was part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaeda forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. This includes any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces.”
The six detainees in this case are native Algerians who were residing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, over a thousand miles from the battlefield in Afghanistan. All six held Bosnian citizenship or lawful permanent residence as well as native Algerian citizenship. Arrested by Bosnian authorities in October 2001 for alleged involvement in a plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, they were ordered released from prison on January 17, 2002 and then turned over to U.S. personnel who transported them to Guantánamo on January 20, 2002. They have been there ever since.
President Bush had withdrawn the alleged bomb plot as a basis for their detention. He argued instead that the men planned to travel to Afghanistan in late 2001 and take up arms against the United States and allied forces. Judge Leon found the government had failed to prove these allegations by a preponderance of evidence in the cases of all but Bensayah.
The judge said the Justice Department and intelligence agencies had relied solely on a classified document from an unnamed source. He wrote that “while the information in the classified intelligence report, relating to the credibility and reliability of the source, was undoubtedly sufficient for the intelligence purposes for which it was prepared, it is not sufficient for the purposes for which a habeas court must now evaluate it.” He added, “To allow enemy combatancy to rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this Court’s obligation under the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdi to protect petitioners from the risk of erroneous detention.”
The government did, however, present additional evidence which persuaded Judge Leon that Bensayah was “an al-Qaida facilitator” who planned to take up arms against the United States and facilitate the travel of unnamed others to do the same. That, wrote the judge, “constitutes direct support of al-Qaida in furtherance of its objectives” and “this amounts to ‘support’ within the meaning of the ‘enemy combatant’ definition governing this case.”
Bosnian authorities have indicated they are willing to take the five detainees once they are released.
In October, another federal district judge in Washington, Ricardo M. Urbina, ordered that 17 Uighur detainees be released from Guantánamo. The judge didn’t hold an evidentiary hearing because the government conceded the men were not enemy combatants. But the 17 men from western China languish in custody because the government has appealed Judge Urbina’s ruling.
President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to close the Guantánamo prison when he takes office. The National Lawyers Guild has urged Obama to ensure that the prisoners are released, repatriated, resettled, or brought to trial (if there is probable cause to believe they have committed a crime) in strict accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law, and the principles of fundamental justice pertaining to criminal proceedings. This includes but is not limited to, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United States has ratified all of these treaties which makes their provisions binding U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.
The Guild opposes the creation of national security courts to try the detainees. Although Obama said in August, "It's time to better protect the American people and our values by bringing swift and sure justice to terrorists through our courts and our Uniform Code of Military Justice,” three Obama advisers told the Associated Press that the President-elect is expected to propose a new court system to deal with “sensitive national security cases.”
Concerns have been cited about disclosure of classified information in civilian courts and courts-martial. However, the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) provides an adequate method of protecting classified information in existing U.S. courts. CIPA allows a judge to assess the importance of sensitive evidence before it is disclosed in open court and, if necessary, create a nonclassified substitute for use at trial. Former federal prosecutors Richard B. Zabel and James J. Benjamin, Jr. studied the 107 post-9/11 cases and prepared a 171-page white paper for Human Rights First called In Pursuit of Justice: Prosecuting Terrorism Cases in the Federal Courts. They wrote, “[w]e are not aware of a single terrorism case in which CIPA procedures have failed and a serious security breach has occurred.” National security courts, they write, “would give the government more power and make it easier for the government to secure convictions.”
President-elect Obama should send those prisoners he intends to try to U.S. civilian and military courts, which are well-suited to protect national security concerns. He should eschew the creation of a new system of courts with reduced due process, which will raise many of the same concerns as Bush’s dreaded military commissions.
posted by Marjorie Cohn @ 9:49 AM Monday, November 24, 2008 You will find lots more from and about Law Professor Marjorie Cohn's writings at marjoriecohn dot com
Her book -Cowboy Republic- is a must read about the present administration's many crimes against humanity...
5 Reasons Why We Must Keep Fighting After Bush Leaves Office
1. The damage done to constitutional protections, civil liberties, and human rights is extensive. Repairing the damage will be a long slow process, especially with the new administration focusing on the economy and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
2. Historically, executive powers are often expanded but rarely reduced. It takes enormous pressure from the people to convince Congress and the President to reinstate the checks and balances required by the Constitution.
3. Congress has been complicit in the Bush administration’s constitutional violations. To reverse these policies, implemented in the name of the “war on terror,” we must educate our congressional representatives and hold them accountable to their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution.
4. President-Elect Obama has promised to close Guantánamo Bay detention center, but creating a process for trying and releasing the more than 250 remaining prisoners that is constitutional, timely, and safe will be complicated and difficult after years of the Bush administration’s fear-mongering. We must provide vocal support for such efforts to counteract this culture of fear.
5. If we don’t fight to undo the damage to civil liberties, human rights, and other constitutional protections now, it will only get worse in the future.
This was posted recently on The Bill of Rights Defense Committee Website
bordc dot org
2. Historically, executive powers are often expanded but rarely reduced. It takes enormous pressure from the people to convince Congress and the President to reinstate the checks and balances required by the Constitution.
3. Congress has been complicit in the Bush administration’s constitutional violations. To reverse these policies, implemented in the name of the “war on terror,” we must educate our congressional representatives and hold them accountable to their oaths to protect and defend the Constitution.
4. President-Elect Obama has promised to close Guantánamo Bay detention center, but creating a process for trying and releasing the more than 250 remaining prisoners that is constitutional, timely, and safe will be complicated and difficult after years of the Bush administration’s fear-mongering. We must provide vocal support for such efforts to counteract this culture of fear.
5. If we don’t fight to undo the damage to civil liberties, human rights, and other constitutional protections now, it will only get worse in the future.
This was posted recently on The Bill of Rights Defense Committee Website
bordc dot org
ACTION: No Expansion of the Military Comissions!
With less than 60 days left in the Bush presidency, the chief prosecutor at Guantanamo Bay, Col. Lawrence Morris, has threatened publicly to bring additional charges against detainees before the military commissions. Act today to demand that no new military commissions charges be filed! CCR is asking you to write to the Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates, and to Representatives John Conyers, William Delahunt, and Jerrold Nadler and Senators Patrick Leahy and Richard Durbin, to stop the expansion of the military commissions.
The incoming Obama administration has rejected this system unequivocally. President-elect Obama stated earlier this year that trials for Guantanamo prisoners "are too important to be held in a flawed military commission system that has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks and that has been embroiled in legal challenges." Further, the Obama transition team stated earlier this month that the President-elect believes "that the legal framework at Guantánamo has failed."
It is disgraceful that Col. Morris is attempting to preempt the results of the election by expanding the fiasco of the military commissions at the last minute. Any effort to expand the military commissions at this point is an attempt to further institutionalize these illegitimate tribunals and to prevent the next administration from acting quickly to put the military commissions to an end.
Write (Call/Fax) today : the Secretary of Defense, Reps. Conyers, Delahunt and Nadler, and Sens. Leahy and Durbin and call for an immediate end to any further charges before the military commissions.
Thank you for taking action today!
Sincerely,
Vincent Warren
Executive Director
Center for Constitutional Rights
The incoming Obama administration has rejected this system unequivocally. President-elect Obama stated earlier this year that trials for Guantanamo prisoners "are too important to be held in a flawed military commission system that has failed to convict anyone of a terrorist act since the 9/11 attacks and that has been embroiled in legal challenges." Further, the Obama transition team stated earlier this month that the President-elect believes "that the legal framework at Guantánamo has failed."
It is disgraceful that Col. Morris is attempting to preempt the results of the election by expanding the fiasco of the military commissions at the last minute. Any effort to expand the military commissions at this point is an attempt to further institutionalize these illegitimate tribunals and to prevent the next administration from acting quickly to put the military commissions to an end.
Write (Call/Fax) today : the Secretary of Defense, Reps. Conyers, Delahunt and Nadler, and Sens. Leahy and Durbin and call for an immediate end to any further charges before the military commissions.
Thank you for taking action today!
Sincerely,
Vincent Warren
Executive Director
Center for Constitutional Rights
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