Guantanamo lawyers statement on this 10th anniversary

This statement is made by over 100 lawyers who have represented or currently represent men imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay in federal habeas corpus proceedings. We are solo practitioners, partners and associates in law firms, federal public defenders and former prosecutors, law professors and human rights activists who practice in nearly every area of the law. We hail from nearly every state in the Union. We stand here together on this, the tenth anniversary of the opening of the prison at Guantánamo, to call on our government to provide meaningful justice for the 171 men still held there.

Ten years ago, the first men and boys were shipped secretly from different parts of the world to Guantánamo, and ultimately the number grew to nearly 800. The government called these individuals “enemy combatants,” a term without legal meaning, in order to evade established rules of international law, to impose indefinite imprisonment without any legal process whatsoever and to employ unlawful interrogation techniques and even torture.  It tried to make the prison camp a “legal black hole” where the sanitizing light of due process and the rule of law would not penetrate. It said that all the Guantánamo prisoners were “terrorists” and even “the worst of the worst,” in order to justify their unjust incarceration.

As attorneys for the prisoners, we have worked hard to show that these government claims are wrong. We have litigated dozens of cases, filed thousands of legal briefs, fought all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court — three times so far — to establish that these men cannot be indefinitely imprisoned without due process of law and that this prison is not outside the law. We continue to fight for these fundamental principles enshrined by the U.S. Constitution and international human rights law.

These same principles animate our demands now. Every one of the 171 men remaining at Guantánamo deserves the due process of law. First, every one whom the government still holds captive should be charged criminally, and provided a fair trial, or released. The Constitution, as well as international human rights law, require no less. Second, over half of these men were cleared for repatriation to their home countries, some years ago, and they should be repatriated or resettled promptly. No law, no logic, can allow a government to continue to imprison individuals whom that government itself has said pose no threat.

We have shown why these men are not “the worst of the worst.” In court filings and in news articles, the evidence shows that many of them were sold for bounties, or falsely accused by those who were being tortured, or simply captured in the fog of war because they were at the wrong place at the wrong time. The fact that 600 of the nearly 800 men once imprisoned at Guantánamo were unilaterally released by the government proves that the rhetoric was false, base fear mongering. In any case, the important point is this — a court should determine each man’s guilt or innocence after a fair criminal trial, and a decade is too long to wait for such a trial.

We have learned and wish to remind the world of the human dignity of our clients, based on countless hours we have spent in conversation with them. They are not nameless, faceless “terrorists.” They are fathers, brothers, and sons to family members who have not seen them in a decade, and they feel the deepest pain from missing their loved ones back home. They have endured an unthinkable ordeal including, in a great many cases, torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. They have also endured prolonged isolation and other brutal conditions of imprisonment, causing many to deteriorate physically and psychologically. In addition, they face the most profound uncertainty about their futures and experience the daily grinding weight of the hopelessness that pervades Guantánamo. Yet they manage to preserve their humanity and dignity against all odds, in the most surprising and inspiring ways. We ask the world to remember our clients on this day and the remaining days of their imprisonment.

As Americans we know that the rule of law is one of the greatest accomplishments of our nation. We call on the government to respect the rule of law and end our disastrous and shameful legacy in Guantánamo Bay. We call on President Obama and our government to promptly repatriate or resettle the prisoners who have already been approved for release, and to provide prompt and fair criminal trials for those whom the government still holds. Our fundamental Constitutional principles require no less. Ten years is too long. We hope that this tenth anniversary of the Guantánamo Bay prison will be its last.

IN THE CATEGORY OF WTF???

I guess someone should mention this to the Afghani men being held at Guantanamo because of their connection to the Taliban.....

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday welcomed remarks from the Obama administration that the Taliban were not necessarily America's enemies.

Earlier this month, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview with Newsweek magazine that the Islamist militants did not represent a threat to U.S. interests unless they continued to shelter al-Qaida.

"Look, the Taliban per se is not our enemy. That's critical. There is not a single statement that the president has ever made in any of our policy assertions that the Taliban is our enemy because it threatens U.S. interests," Biden was quoted as saying by Newsweek....


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2076564/Taliban-enemy-says-Joe-Biden-US-negotiate-deal-end-Afghanistan-war.html

SETTING THE TONE FOR THE NEW YEAR

That is what the military is doing at Guantanamo right now....in a way they are only codifying what we all knew to be a fact: that the military commission system for trying the men at Guantanamo stinks to high heaven and has not a shred of legitimacy. The powers to be have now decreed that all legal mail between the detainees being tried in the military commission and their attorneys will be read by the military, department of justice, the janitor and whomever else is hanging about. Fitting start for the "new"....kinder, gentler....kangaroo system.
read the Order here.

From Roger Fitch and our Friends down under....

The Republican dream

ROGER FITCH ESQ • THURSDAY, DECEMBER 22, 2011

Congressional fat cats ... Corporate crime and financial defalcation ... Constitutional violations ... Gridlock on judicial and ambassadorial nominations ... Roger Fitch surveys the Washington landscape 

.....

Heedless of all this corporate crime and financial defalcation, Congress is busy stripping law courts of jurisdiction over citizens and others the government calls "enemy combatants" due to their "terrorism", although terrorism, like banking, is hardly a military matter. 

It's hard to count the ways the National Defense Authorization Act violates the Constitution, but one might start with Article III, Section 2:

"The Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment, shall be by Jury; and such Trial shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed."

That might permit a civilian trial at Guantánamo, except for the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution: 

"In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed..." 

Anyway, military jurisdiction over civilians isn't a given, according to law prof Steve Vladeck.

This latest Pentagon pre-emption of civilian justice is opposed - by the Pentagon, the Director of National Intelligence, the CIA, the FBI and the Justice Department.

Japanese-Americans don't think much of it, either, but nothing seems likely to stop Congressshort of a presidential veto. 

Senator Ayotte: more torture
One senator wants to bring back torture.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE WHOLE FITCH......

BE THERE OR BE SQUARE- OCCUPY DC JANUARY 2-12

ANTI-TORTURE ACTIVISTS TO “OCCUPY” 

WASHINGTON, JAN. 2-12

MARKING TENTH ANNIVERSARY OF GUANTANAMO, EVENTS TO INCLUDE 10-DAY FAST, COURTROOM SUPPORT FOR ACTIVISTS WHO SPOKE OUT IN CONGRESS, AND A HUMAN CHAIN FROM THE WHITE HOUSE TO CONGRESS

WASHINGTON, D.C. — January 11 will mark the tenth anniversary of the first detainees' arrival at the U.S.-controlled detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. To remember this travesty, Witness Against Torture is planning 10 days of activities in Washington, D.C. demanding an end to torture and indefinite detention at Guantanamo, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, and elsewhere, and that the president reject the just-passed National Defense Authorization Act.
Jan. 2-12: WAT sponsors Hungering for Justice, a 10-day fast highlighting the ongoing crimes at Guantanamo and Bagram. Dozens of activists are expected to participate in the fast in Washington as well as other cities. Locations of daily activities in support of the fast to be announced.

Jan. 3: The jury trial of 14 anti-torture activists is scheduled to begin in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, Moultrie Courthouse, 500 Indiana Ave., N.W. In June 2011, the 14 stood one by one in the Gallery of the House of Representatives to petition lawmakers to uphold the Constitution by not making funding for Guantanamo permanent. WAT will stand with the 14 in the court room, outside the courthouse, and around the city as their trial proceeds.

Jan. 11: A dramatic Human Chain from the White House to the Capitol Building marks the
10^th anniversary of detention at Guantanamo. WAT joins a broad coalition of human rights groups in sponsoring this vigil, which will begin after a noontime rally in Lafayette Park. During the rally and vigil, activists will be wearing orange jumpsuits and holding signs and other visuals demanding that the detention center be closed.
“Despite his campaign pledge to shut down Guantanamo, President Obama has continued the Bush administration's practice of indefinite military detention there and at Bagram,” says Jeremy Varon, professor of history at the New School and an organizer with WAT. “Now, Obama says he will sign the National Defense Authorization Act, which extends this abusive regime by allowing the president to order U.S. citizens, as well, to be held indefinitely without due process on American soil. Not one more year – not one more day – of such policies is acceptable. Witness Against Torture is here in Washington to add our message to the 'Occupy' movement's call for a return to a just political and economic system by demanding an end to the national disgrace that is Guantanamo.”
Witness Against Torture is a grassroots movement that came into being in December 2005 when 24 activists walked to Guantanamo to visit the prisoners and condemn torture policies. Since then, it has engaged in public education, community outreach, and non-violent direct action. January 2012 will be the sixth year the group has “occupied” Washington, DC to call for justice, accountability and mercy. To learn more, visitwww.witnesstorture.org

Amnesty International on Guantanamo

Follow this link to Amnesty's latest report on Guantanamo....a decade of damage to human rights.

Defense department authorization act.....

For those of you who are wondering exactly how bad this new law is...the one that Obama is going to sign into law very soon I will put some links to things to read that will bring you up to date. The bottom line is that Obama not only bought into Guantanamo but has now expanded the concept to include U. S. citizens....This has been a slippery slope since 2001 but instead of slowing things down Obama has put soap on the slide.

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/16/three_myths_about_the_detention_bill/singleton/

Emptywheel has a few good posts about it...start here:


 http://www.emptywheel.net/2011/12/14/obama-will-not-veto-defense-authorization/

The talking dog has some thoughts on this too:
http://www.thetalkingdog.com/archives2/001603.html

As Senator Franken said, this was not a good way of celebrating the birthday of the bill of rights.....

INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS DAY- so sorry my country doesn't believe in human rights anymore....

93-7

what a fucking mess.  Emptywheel has more here.

From Roger Fitch and our friends down under at Justinian

Land of the brave

Monday, November 21, 2011
Justinian in Roger Fitch Esq

Former general counsel of the CIA under investigation over drone attack "murder" remark ... War crimes don't need a war (apparently) ... Novel offences likely to remain on the books ... Ideological Republican circuit judges flout the Supreme Court ... Our Man in Washington reports  

"Aside from the humanitarian aspects, it is well known that, under excruciating torture, a prisoner will admit almost any suggested crime. Such confessions are, of course, not admissible in trials in civilized nations... Some of our leaders have found that it is easy to forgo human rights for those who are considered to be subhuman, or 'enemy combatants'." 

  Jimmy Carter, the last American president moderately attached to human rights

Click here to continue....

Military commissions are nothing more than second-class "justice" for non-citizens

JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE AND ASIAN AMERICAN LEGAL GROUPS FILE AMICUS APPEAL IN HAMDAN CASE TO D.C. CIRCUIT

Charges that Military Commissions are an Unconstitutional Second-Class System of Criminal Justice for Non-Citizens

A number of Japanese and Asian groups have filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Court of Appeals, Washington, D.C. in United States v. Hamdan, charging that Congress has created a second-class system of criminal justice for non-citizens through its much-maligned military commissions.

The brief was filed by the Japanese American Citizens League, Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund, National Asian Pacific American Bar Association, and the Asian Law Caucus, and was authored by law professors Jonathan Hafetz and Jenny Carroll of Seton Hall University School of Law, lawyers from Gibbons P.C., Lawrence S. Lustberg and Jonathan Manes, and Professor David Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center.

The brief charges that a system of criminal adjudication, such as the military commissions, which discriminates based upon citizenship, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution. The brief places the commissions within the context of a legally dubious and at times shameful history of discrimination against non-citizens, including the internment of more than one hundred thousand Japanese-Americans during World War II, for which the United States government ultimately paid monetary reparations and issued an apology.

Seton Hall University School of Law Professor Jonathan Hafetz, co-author of the brief, stated, “The Court has a chance in this case to reaffirm the rule of law and put an end to an ad hoc system of adjudication—unequal and unconscionable—which undermines the principles for which this country and its Constitution stand.”

The appellant, Salim Hamdan, was the subject of the landmark 2006 Supreme Court decision, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, in which the Court ruled that the military commissions as constituted were illegal because, among other things, they did not meet the minimum standards of fairness required by the Geneva Conventions. Although since revised, the military commissions still afford fewer procedural protections and fair trial guarantees than either U.S. federal court trials or military courts-martial. U.S. citizens are not tried by military commission, thereby setting up an unconstitutional two-tiered system. This new appeal will be the first time a federal court decides whether the new commissions are legal. After the Supreme Court’s decision, Hamdan himself was recharged under a revised Military Commission scheme and found guilty of one count of providing material support to a terrorist organization, but was not found guilty of supporting any specific terrorist plot or act. He was sentenced to 5 months beyond the 61 months he had already served at Guantánamo. Hamdan has since finished serving his sentence and returned home to Yemen, but continues to appeal the legality of his trial and conviction.

Brief co-author Jonathan Manes, a John J. Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest in Constitutional Law, Gibbons P.C., noted, “After the Supreme Court found the military commissions to be unconstitutional, Congress tried to revise them but failed to address critical deficiencies, so that they continue to target noncitizens for inferior treatment. The courts must now intervene to correct this fundamental flaw."

Seton Hall Law Professor and brief co-author Jenny Carroll agreed, stating: “Creating a process that treats citizens differently from non-citizens not only cuts against the Constitution's core promise of due process for all, but undercuts fundamental fairness and justice. You need only consider “separate but equal” and the Japanese internment policies to know that, if nothing else, the Constitution demands that our system of  justice be fair and that it apply equally to us all— not just a select few.”

Click here for a copy of the Amicus brief or visit http://law.shu.edu/ProgramsCenters/PublicIntGovServ/policyresearch/loader.cfm?csModule=security/getfile&pageid=248939

Contact your senators now.....

Provisions in the Defense Authorization bill would make it even harder..to close Guantanamo and send the men home who are not going to face trial.
Senator Udall has proposed an amendment which is pretty much the best we can do. This is summary of Udall's amendment No. 1107:

Here’s a summary of the Udall Amendment:

The amendment by Senator Mark Udall would strike all of the detention provisions from the Defense Authorization bill and, in their place, mandate a process for Congress to use an orderly process to consider whether any detention legislation is needed.  Under the Udall amendment, the Administration would have 90 days to report to Congress on its detention authority and any deficiencies, and Congress would have 45 days to hold hearings and another 45 days to report out any needed legislation.  Instead of the rushed and confused process that has created the current convoluted and harmful bill, Congress would follow regular order and carefully review the issue.   This is the type of approach (even if it may be opposed by sponsors of the NDAA, who don’t want the detention provisions stripped at all) that should be able to draw wide support even from Senators who may be on the fence about the merits of the issues. 

The consensus of those opposing the detainee provisions of the Defense Authorization bill is that the best course now is to throw all effort into urging Senators to support the Udall Amendment, rather than seeking tweaks to the language of any of the detainee provisions.  If you get any feedback from the Senators’ offices re where they stand on the Udall Amendment, please shoot me an e-mail to let me know so I can pass it on to those working on this.

If you make calls, you might also urge the Senators to vote against an amendment offered by Susan Collins (we don’t have the Amendment #) that would make permanent some of the onerous transfer restrictions.   

Life in the kennel at Guantanamo

T/h to Jason Leopold at Truthout who has more on the Pentagaon's propaganda here.

Former Gitmo military commission chief prosecutor Davis speaks out

Moe Davis was the Chief Prosecutor for the military at Guantanamo under the Bush administration-until he wasn't. Moe, who was once a fan of the commission process, changed his mind about the process after witnessing first hand the political shenanigans going on behind the scenes. Since resigning from the position in October 2007 Moe has  spoken out against the commission process on numerous occasions. In an interview with Truthout Moe points the finger at the current problem----our president. As Moe explains- "a pair of testicles fell off the president after election day." Although I agree with Moe that the president definitely didn't have the testicles after election day-having viewed him as my senator prior to his becoming president I wonder if he ever did....
Click on the link and read the whole article

Good news from North of the Boarder

These things happen to rogue nations.....like the US.
Now if we could just get his little brother out of Guantanamo and up there.
t/h the talking dog