THE MORE THINGS STAY THE SAME...
Over the weekend, and less than a week after Trump rescinded Obama's executive order to close Guantanamo, Trump fired the man who oversaw the military commissions. Harvey Rishikof was originally put forward to oversee the military commissions by Obama- and of course Trump couldn't have an Obama person in the job. But perhaps more importantly Rishikof also is responsible for doing a few things that made sense- and Trump does not like making sense either.
READ THE REST HERE.
For example,:
"Rishikof also has recommended that the chief of the prison guard force build a new compound at Guantánamo for attorney-client meetings after Baker and others said the privileged conversations had been compromised." Rishikof was also responsible for suspending the contempt of court sentence of the chief defense counsel, Marine Brig. Gen. John Baker.
READ THE REST HERE.
GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA—Applauding and cheering as news spread that their beloved, longtime home had been saved by executive order, the inmates of Guantánamo Bay celebrated Thursday in a spontaneous outpouring of both joy and relief. “President Trump really came through for us, my brothers—he saved the one place we’ve ever truly been able to call our own!” said 16-year prisoner and former Afghani herdsman Ghassan Abdullah al Sharbi, one of the dozens of men at Guantánamo who have been imprisoned without warrant, interrogated without restraint, and due to recent opposition, faced the possibility of having to leave the war prison where they have spent so many of their formative years as detainees. “I was worried the ACLU or Amnesty International or even the previous administration would close this unique place where I’ve spent nearly half my life and made some great friends, but now I get to stay right here. Thank you, President Trump—it’s people like you that reaffirm everything I believe.” At press time, the residents of Guantánamo Bay were holding an impromptu “block party” during their weekly 15 minutes of outdoor time.
A new exhibit at the International Center for Photography combines photos with the soundtracks used while interrogating detainees at Guantanamo and other places.
First, Pardiss explains why we filed the motions in our habeas cases..."there has been absolutely no movement on Guantanamo at all" ... since Trump became president. Read her interview here.
(h/o to Walt)
Shortly after Pardiss's interview ended up in my in box two quite distressing stories followed:
First- a leaked document from the Trump people- Trump plans to sign an executive order to keep Guantanamo open. more here. More symbolic perhaps than anything else but it confirms that Trump has no intention on working to release the men that remain "detained" without charge.
Then, we learned that the men and women who worked on Guantanamo issues during the Obama administration (at the state department) are being retaliated against and after getting no relief through internal channels have now obtained their own attorneys: "A growing number of State Department employees are charging they are being put in career purgatory because of their previous work on policy priorities associated with President Barack Obama and in offices the Trump administration is interested in closing."
Read the rest here.
Apparently a few of our senators are looking into this retaliation.... I'm sure that will go far (not).
You may recall a few short months ago the defense team representing Nashiri resigned because of the ongoing interference into their attorney client relationship. The resignation led the chief judge to sentence the lead attorney to 21 days in the brig- at which time the lead attorney was forced to file his own habeas case. The only military attorney left representing Mr. Nashiri is not qualified to represent an individual facing the death penalty. This has led the judge and the prosecutors- who clearly know nothing about the qualifications to represent someone facing the death penalty- to belittle and attempt to bully the remaining attorney.. to no avail... the attorney is doing a good job of just ignoring them and staying focused on the injustice to his client.
Extrajudicial "renditions" are still with us, and Mr Trump is reportedly considering outsourcing overseas snatches to mercenaries, not unlike the corporate kidnappers who assisted George Bush's "national security" abductions.
The Bush bail-ups have recently been the subject of a Commission of Inquiry in North Carolina, and law profs from the University of North Carolina and Duke Universityparticipated in hearings on the role of a local CIA front company in the agency's torture program.
Testimony was duly taken, but nothing seems likely to embarrass or shame Aero Contractors Ltd, an NC-based aviation firm that still harbours one of its "torture taxis" in a North Carolina hangar subsidised with public funds.
In the 9/11 case, the military commission is still trying to decide when the war purporting to provide jurisdiction for the "war crimes" prosecutions actually began. The Pentagon claims its so-called war with al-Qaeda began in the 1990s, based on a unilateral bin Laden fatwa; in fact, only states can declare wars.
In a new military commission, the Pentagon has brought "war crimes" charges against the "Bali bomber" Riduan Isamuddin, with "overt acts" of conspiracy alleged to have begun even earlier, "in the mid-1980s".
Such arguments previously proved efficacious with chief judge James Pohl in the case of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, the severely-tortured man charged with "war crimes" that are unconnected to any war.
Backdated wars are logically consistent with "retroactive re-characterization" , one of the feints the US tried in its failed attempt to convert civilian "material support for terrorism" into a war crime. It also fits in with the Pentagon's opportunistic re-designation of Guantánamo artworks as government property.
Other new 9/11 commission developments include the production of the document the CIA gave to FBI agents who conducted so-called "clean team" interrogations, more here. The memo was produced after motions by Mustafa al Hawsawi, whose (shudder) "rectal rehydration" by CIA medicos resulted in permanent injuries requiring surgery.
Gitmo Attorneys File Major New Challenge to Trump’s Guantánamo
Trump’s Blanket Refusal to Release Any Detainee Amounts to
Arbitrary Detention, Lawsuit Says
January 11,
2018, Washington, D.C. – Today, on the 16th
anniversary of the Guantánamo prison’s opening, the Center for Constitutional
Rights (CCR), Reprieve, and co-counsel filed a major challenge to Donald
Trump’s continued detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay. The collective
filing, on behalf of 11 men, argues that Trump’s proclamation against releasing
anyone from Guantánamo, regardless of their circumstances, which has borne out
for the first full year of the Trump presidency, is arbitrary and unlawful and
amounts to “perpetual detention for detention’s sake.”
“It’s clear
that a man who thinks we should water-board terror suspects even if it doesn’t
work, because ‘they deserve it, anyway’ has no qualms about keeping every last
detainee in Guantanamo, so long as he holds the jailhouse key,” said CCR Senior
Staff Attorney Pardiss Kebriaei, who represents Sharqawi
Al Hajj, one of the prisoners
participating in today’s filing. “Continuing, still indefinite detention after
all this time is unprecedented and experimental. Another three or seven years
under President Trump may mean a death sentence for men like Sharqawi Al Hajj,
who is in poor health and damaged by past torture.”
The filing
argues that continued detention is unconstitutional because any legitimate
rationale for initially detaining these men has long since expired; detention
now, 16 years into Guantánamo’s operation, is based only on Trump’s raw
antipathy towards Guantánamo prisoners – all foreign-born Muslim men – and
Muslims more broadly. CCR notes that Donald Trump’s proclamation that he will
not release any detainees during his administration reverses the approach and
policies of both President Bush and President Obama, who collectively released
nearly 750 men. Trump’s blanket policy guarantees three, or even seven, more
years of imprisonment unless the courts intervene now.
“President
Trump has said torture works. He’s wrong. Prisoner abuse like waterboarding,
sleep deprivation, dog leashes, sexual humiliation all send us tumbling into
the filth where our sworn enemies live, and it legitimizes their struggle in
the eyes of their followers even as it delegitimizes us in the eyes of the
world,” said Mark Fallon, former NCIS Deputy Assistant Director for
Counterterrorism, who served as the Deputy Commander of the DOD task force
President Bush established to bring suspected terrorists to justice before
Military Commissions at Guantanamo Bay, and author of Unjustifiable Means:
The Inside Story of How the CIA, Pentagon and US Government Conspired to
Torture. “Guantanamo Bay serves as a symbol of torture, injustice and
oppression. The prison should be shuttered, the rule of law should be restored
and we should adhere to our obligations to hold those responsible accountable.”
Some of the
men participating in today’s filing have been detained in Guantánamo for nearly
16 years without charge or trial—detention that has spanned three presidential
administrations and five presidential terms. Two of the petitioners have in
fact been approved for transfer, narrowly missing their chance at release in
the final days of the Obama administration.
Reprieve
attorney Shelby Sullivan-Bennis, who represents prisoners at
Guantánamo, said, “Since Guantánamo opened, it’s been clear to all –
including U.S. officials – that the detainees were being held on the basis of
mistakes, faulty evidence, and forced ‘confessions’. The U.S. has had 16 years
to build a case against these men, and yet 28 of 41 prisoners are held without
charge or a trial of any kind – a shocking violation of America’s founding
principles. If the president won’t close Guantánamo, then the other branches of
government must take action instead to finally restore the rule of law.”
Speakers at a
press conference this morning announcing the filing included Ms. Kebriaei; Mr.
Fallon; Center for Constitutional Rights Legal Director Baher Azmy; and habeas
attorney Thomas Anthony Durkin, Partner, Durkin & Roberts, Chicago,
Illinois. Ambassador Lee Wolosky, former U.S. Special Envoy for Guantanamo
Closure, was also present and addressed Guantanamo policy generally. Neither
Ambassador Wolosky nor his law firm, Boies Schiller Flexner LLP, is involved
with the court filing, nor is Mr. Fallon.
Also today,
human rights activists, torture survivors, Guantánamo attorneys, 9/11 family
members, and members of diverse faith communities rallied outside the White
House to mark the 16th anniversary and the continued operation of the
Guantánamo Bay prison. Read the coalition press release about today’s rally here.
Read today’s
filing here and visit CCR’s
resource page for more information, bios,
and graphics.
The Center
for Constitutional Rights has led the legal battle over Guantánamo for 16 years
– representing clients in two Supreme Court cases and organizing and
coordinating hundreds of pro bono lawyers across the country, ensuring that all
the men detained at Guantánamo have had the option of legal representation. CCR
is responsible for many Guantánamo cases in many venues, representing men in
their habeas cases in federal court and before the military commissions and
Periodic Review Boards, the families of men who died at Guantánamo, and men who
have been released and are seeking accountability in international courts.
The Center
for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights
guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights
movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization
committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
Visit www.ccrjustice.org and follow @theCCR.
Reprieve is an international human rights
organization. Reprieve’s media team can be contacted on media@reprieve.org.uk,
or +44 (0) 207 553 8140.
On January 11, 2018 my client Razak Ali joined the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and 10 other "detainees" in asking the Court to step in and finally set them free. My client has never been charged with a crime and never will be. The sole reason my client has been detained all of these long years is that he was in a guest house where another man- a man my government wrongly thought was a member of al qaeda- came to stay a few short days before their arrest.
Below is the press release from the CCR and below that are links to several of the pleadings filed today:
On January 11, 2018, the Guantánamo Bay prison starts its 17th year. The prison has now spanned three administrations and five presidential terms. Forty-one men remain detained at Guantánamo. All but one has been imprisoned for more than a decade, and the overwhelming majority of prisoners have not been charged with any crime.
Donald Trump has already demonstrated his hostility towards Muslims and his impetuous policy-making in the name of national security with initiatives like the Muslim Ban. Trump has said he will not release any prisoners, and boasts that he will transfer new terror suspects to the island prison. Unlike previous administrations, which purported to base detentions on individualized determinations about national security, this is yet another example of a policy position based on little more than executive hubris and open animus.
On January 11, CCR and co-counsel filed the first major challenge to Trump’s Guantánamo policies, in federal court in Washington, DC. This collective filing is on behalf of nearly a dozen prisoners who are detained without charge, all for more than a decade. In this court filing, we argue that the petitioners’ perpetual detentions violate the Constitution and the Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), and ask the court to intervene on behalf of the men who have been deemed “forever prisoners.”
In recent weeks the U.N. special rapporteur on torture is still trying to get in to visit the men being held at Gitmo because the torture continues. My country (of course) continues to block the visit.
Human
rights activists, torture survivors, Guantánamo attorneys, 9/11 family members,
and members of diverse faith communities will gather to rally at Lafayette
Square, at the north side of the White House, to commemorate the 16th
anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo Bay prison. The event will begin with
an interfaith vigil, and the program will begin at noon. We’d love to see
counsel turn out (with signs?!) in support. Looks like it’ll be a warm
afternoon.
Washington, DC: Guantanamo Under Trump
WHEN: January 11th, 2:30 pm – 4:00 pm
WHERE:
New America, 740 15th St., NW, Suite 900, Washington, DC 20005
Andy Worthington – Karen Greenberg – Thomas B. Wilner – Moderated by Peter
Bergen
“What
will happen to the prison and its detainees in the remaining years of the Trump
administration? Will Donald Trump reverse course and increase the number of
detainees held there? Will the prison ever close?” RSVP
on the New America website.
Boston: Interfaith Vigil to
Close Guantánamo and Stop Torture
WHEN:
January 11, 6:00 – 7:00 PM
WHERE:
Phillips Brooks House, 1 Harvard Yard, Cambridge MA
Manhasset,
NY:
Observance of a Week of Action to Close Guantanamo
WHEN:
January 11 from 7:30 – 9:00 pm
WHERE:
UU Congregation at Shelter Rock, 48 Shelter Rock Road, Manhasset.
Co-sponsored by the Reconstructionist Synagogue of the North Shore, the Islamic
Center of Long Island, The Interfaith Institute of the Islamic Center of Long
Island, and the Social Justice Committee of the UU Congregation at Shelter
Rock.
New
York City:
Against a Forever Cage: 16th Anniversary of Indefinite Detention
Seattle: “Guantanamo,
Lawlessness, and the Myth of American Exceptionalism”, an evening with Jonathan
Hafetz, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Center for Democracy
WHEN:
January 11, 7-9 pm
WHERE:
University of Washington Law School, Room 138; 4293 Memorial Way Northeast,
Seattle, WA
Today when the men who have charges at the military commission were being brought to court they were subjected to searches of their genital area. This was a tactic the military used a few years ago to dissuade the men from seeing their attorneys. It was eventually stopped.
It is ridiculous to think that the men have anything hidde on their bodies- they are under constant surveillance. This is just another tactic to harass the men- and perhaps convince them to stay away from the military commission hearings.
Probably the most important book of 2014 as it gives a comprehensive look at the extent this country of mine has creeped into the bedrooms of all of us across the world-and the importance of hero EDWARD SNOWDEN- in risking his freedom to let all of us know. What we do with that knowledge will say alot about all of us...
If you have not read Ron's book then you do not have the whole story about what I have been doing to try to get my clients out ofGuantanamo. Ron kept up with my activities and even followed me around on occasion to get the full story... then he weaved my story in with the stories of other individuals who are concerned with the direction of the United States. I recommend the book to all of you out there who also care about the direction that the US has gone these past eight years and want to work to change things.
Flying high at Gitmo's Camp Justice
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