More Odds & Ends

• "I Hope It's Your Family Members That Die" - U.S. Representative, Dana Rohrabacher on those that question the Bush administration's detention policies in the "war on terror."

• Naomi Wolf offers ten-part instructions on how to close down an open society; step 2: create a gulag:

  Once you have got everyone scared, the next step is to create a prison system outside the rule of law (as Bush put it, he wanted the American detention centre at Guantánamo Bay to be situated in legal "outer space") - where torture takes place. Read More
  

• German-born Murat Kurnaz, has published a memoir, Five Years of My Life about his horrific experiences in Guantánamo.

Moroccan-Born British Resident May be Released

Ahmed Errachidi, a 41-year-old British resident, has been a imprisoned without charge since his capture by bounty hunters in late 2001. (Sound familiar?)

Errachidi has spent three of the last five years in solitary confinement (a psychologically devastating period of isolation). He has been denied due process for years; been beaten and periodically pepper-sprayed ... and now an Administrative Review Board has determined that he is not a threat and should be released.

Unfortunately, because Errachidi is not a British citizen, the U.K. has recused itself of any obligation to bring him home. Emily Thornberry, Mr. Errachidi's local Labour Party MP has this to say:

Guantanamo Bay is an affront to international law. While Ahmed Errachidi has been in Guantanamo he has been subject to appalling abuse and has suffered at least one severe mental breakdown. He should never have been in Guantanamo Bay and he certainly shouldn't be there for a moment longer.

It's completely unacceptable that Ahmed should be left in limbo like this, while the international community wrings its hands about the detainees the US no longer wants.

Surely he has more than sufficient compassionate grounds to be allowed to come back to Britain. Ahmed must be released immediately and I have written to George Bush to tell him so.

READ MORE
- Adrian Bleifuss Prados

Journalists Call for Release of Sami Al-Haj....

Sami Al-Haj, the cameraman held at Guantánamo, has now been on hunger strike for one hundred days.

The International Federation of Journalists, a trade union representing 500,000 of Al-Haj's professional colleagues around the world, has issued a press release calling on the U.S. to release Al-Haj:

IFJ Demands Release of Guantanamo Cameraman after 100 Days of Hunger Strike

17/04/2007

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) called on the US government to release Al-Jazeera cameraman, Sami al-Haj, who this morning started his 100th day of hunger strike after almost five-years of detention at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Centre. Al-Haj was first arrested crossing into Afghanistan with a legitimate visa on 15 December 2001. He was held by the US military at the Bagram base before being transferred to Guantanamo on 13th June 2002. Since then he has been interrogated over 150 occasions, tortured, and accused of terrorism offences. He has never been charged or brought to trial. READ MORE

- Adrian Bleifuss Prados

New on Hufington Post:

Candace's latest piece on Huffington Post discusses recent developments in her Libyan client, Al-Ghizzawi's sad story. Al-Ghizzawi has finally been allowed to see a doctor...but apparently the medical authorities at Guantánamo have no interest in treating his liver condition; the good doctor would only examine Al-Ghizzawi's leg. Mr. Al-Ghizzawi is despondent, his latest letter features this heart-breaking plea:

"Finally, I would like to ask from you the following: to request from the American Government to ship my body to Afghanistan, to my wife, so that I will be near her and my daughter and be buried there. If that was not possible, ask them to ship my body to my family in Libya. The important thing is that I won't be buried under any circumstance in Cuba."

Read more on Huff-Po.

Candace in the Chronicle:

The San Francisco Chronicle picked up a recent article from In These Times, featuring a crucial correction; the ghoulies that guard 'Azkaban,' the dreaded prison of the Harry Potter series, are called 'dementors' and not 'tormentors.'

Some Odds & Ends:

Photo: MSNBC

AP (via Miami Herald):

"Democratic hopefuls tutored on Guantánamo." Says John Edwards: 'The scandals of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and secret prisons have tarnished our moral standing and set a dangerous precedent for repressive regimes around the world ... The true tragedy is that -- as these military leaders make clear -- these steps have made us less safe, not safer."

Radio Australia:

"Former Guantanamo detainee sues Australian government for compensation"

Echo Online:

"Students Protest Guantánamo Bay"

AP (Via Courier Post):

Patti Smith records song about former GTMO-detainee, Murat Kurnaz

Pocono Record:

Letter to the editor: "History Will Shame U.S. on Guantanamo"

Stop Torture Taxis Protest

Here is more footage of demonstrations against Aero Contractors, the North Carolina-based company employed by the CIA to fly "torture taxis" to and from black sites.

MAY DAY- CONTACT YOUR SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVE

When the Supreme Court announced it would not hear the latest guantantamo cases.... at least not now... it opened the flood gates for the judges to start throwing our clients cases out of court... I filed documents this past week in a desperate attempt to keep my two cases alive because only by keeping the cases alive can I hope to keep one of my two clients alive. He is dying of hepatitis and not being treated. As the government said in response to one of my court filings...

with the upholding of the military commissions act by the appellate court and the supreme court's failure to take the issue, no court has any right now to question anything that goes on at Guantanamo anymore.....
It should make you shudder.

The attorneys for the guantanamo detainees have decided it is time to pay a visit to our senators and representatives. Join us on May 1st, make appointments to see your own representatives and tell them it is time to restore habeas corpus and close the place.

If you can't join us on May 1st, send emails, make phone calls, send faxes, send telegrams.... and send primroses. Why primroses?

When my clientMr. Al-Ghizzawi was explaining to me his early years at Guantanamo, he told me about a flower that had appeared outside his cage in the spring of 2002. Just one little flower poking its beautiful leaves and petals out of the sand. He was describing the flower to me, but I couldn’t quite figure out what kind of flower it was. He called it a primrose and maybe it was. He said to me “I am like that little flower. It didn’t belong there…. I don’t belong here either.”

NOW THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO.

North Carolina: First in Flight, Not First in>Torture

Watch the video of this group in North Carolina that is targeting a local airline>services company, Aero Contractors, because that company has provided flights for the CIA program of "extraordinary rendition." Extraordinary rendition is a legalistic phrase for kidnapping people off the streets of countries like Italy and Bosnia, without warrants, and shipping them secretly to secret prisons. Often the people are tortured in those prisons.
These Tarheels' slogan: North Carolina: First in Flight, Not First in Torture.
8 were arrested at this protest as they tried to serve the company officials with "arrest warrants".

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7203324508630869946

If you want to know more about the CIA rendition program read Stephen Grey's book "GHOST PLANES".

Filing court papers, guantanamo style

It is fair to say that I posted this latest article on Huffingtonpost.com because of the frustration of having to go thru these annoying procedures everytime we file anything. .. But as I was sitting around stewing over the fact that I had to get a copy of my last filing from my opposing counsel I realized that it was also important to make a record of all of these procedures for the future... I guess that is the lawyer in me!


Filing Court Papers, Guantanamo Style

Yes, I know the government claims that there are big bad secrets in many of the documents that only we attorneys get to see and that the government needs to keep those documents out of the public eye (and if you ever get to see the documents you will know why!). Yes, there are lots of bad things in the documents that the government wants to keep a secret, but the bad things are what our government and military has done to these men. This is not about national security, this is about national shame.
(read the rest at Huffingtonpost.com or click on the link above.)

Reading Harry Potter in Guantánamo

Check out Candace's latest article in In These Times:

The prisoners at Guantánamo Bay—or Azkaban, as one of my clients, a Harry Potter fan, calls it—have had no access to a hearing in a court of law. Instead, Guantánamo’s inmates are subjected to two kangaroo procedures: Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRTs) and Administrative Review Boards (ARBs)... READ MORE.

More recent editorials:

The Philadelphia Inquirer:
"Justice is Painfully Slow"

The Nation (Kenya):
"Africa: Guantanamo is an Affront to Freedom And Justice"

Khaleej Times (UAE):
"The Guantanamo offence"

Miami Herald:
"Secrecy, coercion, torture: This is legal?"

ACLU Responds to Hunger Strike Revelations:

"This is a prime example of why Guantanamo Bay must close. These people are being held without charge in horrific conditions that violate the traditional American value of due process. The Defense Department admits that only several dozen of the nearly 400 prisoners being detained there will ever face charges"... READ MORE.

Jim Webb Calls for Closing Guantánamo

Associated Press via Fox:

Virginia Senator Jim Webb has called on the Bush administration to close down the Guantánamo Bay detention facilities.

Said Webb, "We can't just continue to hold people in limbo without charges for this period of time and still call ourselves Americans"... READ MORE.

The Globe Gets it Right

Today's editorial in the Boston Globe:

AS PRESIDENT Bush purports to export democracy to Iraq and other nations, he continues to deny it at home. He gained the support this week of six Supreme Court justices, who refused to hear the appeals of 45 detainees at the Guantanamo prison in Cuba. Each of the 45 has been held prisoner for more than five years without a criminal charge, and without legal protections that have been treasured by Americans as fundamental for 215 years ... READ MORE.