So today my colleagues in the Gitmo bar filed an emergency motion for access to our clients concerning the ongoing problems caused by the military that led our clients to the current hunger strike. Because the military has used the hunger strike as a vehicle to interfere with our representation we are once again asking-probably in vein - that the federal court stop being a door mat to the government/military and actually do something to show to both our clients and the world that we still have a judicial system in these here United States of America ----
Any guesses as to what will happen next????
Today, counsel for Saeed Mohammed Hatim filed an “
Emergency
Motion Concerning Access to Counsel,” both in the Yemeni detainee’s
recently reactivated habeas action, and in
In Re: Guantanamo Bay Detainee
Continued Access to Counsel, a separate matter on the district court’s
miscellaneous docket. In the latter, the filing was made both on Hatim’s behalf
and that of various other detainees, who suffered or might suffer infringements
on their
counsel
access rights.
The gist of the motion—which cites a
number
of declarations
and exhibits—is that certain GTMO protocols, including body search
procedures, chill detainees from meeting with lawyers. From Hatim’s filing:
Most Guantánamo detainees are held in two
closely-adjacent prisons, known as Camp 5 and Camp 6. (The so-called “high
value” detainees are held in a separate facility.) Historically, counsel have
met with their clients either in Camp 5 or Camp 6, i.e., in the prisons
where they are being held, or in a separate nearby facility known as Camp Echo.
Ex. A, Declaration of David H. Remes, ¶ 5 (“Remes Dec.”). Camp Echo contains
huts where meetings between detainees and counsel can take place. Compared to
meetings in Camp Echo, meetings with counsel in Camp 5 or Camp 6 are more
convenient for the detainee and the prison staff because they do not require
that the detainee be transported by van from his prison camp to Camp Echo.
Detainees have telephone calls with their lawyers in another facility, Camp
Delta. Id.
Counsel for Hatim travelled to Guantánamo in late
April 2013, to meet with Hatim and other clients. Ex. A, Remes Dec. ¶ 9. The
meeting with Hatim was to take place on May 1, two days before a prehearing
conference in Hatim’s habeas case. Among other things, counsel ntended to
consult with Hatim concerning his newly-reactivated habeas case. Id. The
Government scheduled the meeting for Camp Echo, which would require that Hatim
be transported by van from his cell in Camp 6. Hatim reported that he would
meet with counsel in Camp 6, but not at Camp Echo. Id. ¶ 10. Counsel was
ready, willing and able to meet Hatim in Camp 6, but the Government refused,
stating that it would not allow meetings in Camp 6 “in any circumstances.” Id.
¶¶ 11–12.
The Government neither then nor now has provided
any justification for its refusal to allow Hatim to meet with his counsel in
Camp 6, which constituted a reversal of long-standing practice.
As explained below, detainees have substantial
reasons for not meeting in Camp Echo, and it is now clear that many detainees
will forgo counsel access rather than meet in Camp Echo or have telephone calls
in Camp Delta.
First, as has widely been publicized, there is an
ongoing hunger-strike at Guantánamo, involving up to two-thirds of the
non-“high value” detainees. As a result, many of the prisoners are physically
weak and debilitated; indeed, at least 30 have gotten so close to death that
they are being force-fed through a tube shoved through the nose and down into
the stomach. See Exs. A–G. (declarations of detainees’ counsel). In
these conditions, a trip to Camp Echo or Camp Delta in a van may be so painful
that a detainee will decline to speak with counsel rather than to take the trip
to Camps Echo or Delta. The Government has recently made the trip even more
painful because it has begun using a smaller van, which forces the detainee,
while shackled, to be in a crouched stress position. Ex. A, Remes Dec. ¶¶
29–34; Ex. G, Declaration of Anne Richardson (“Richardson Dec.”) ¶ 9.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, the procedure
for a trip to Camp Echo has recently been changed in a highly significant way.
Under the new policy, any trip to Camp Echo (or Camp Delta) requires an
intrusive body search of the detainee, which involves touching and holding a
detainee’s genitals and buttocks. Ex. A, Remes Dec. ¶¶ 14–18. Detainees are
searched in this manner at least twice for each trip that they take from Camp 5
or Camp 6, and a guard told one detainee that he would be subjected to four
genital searches for each trip to Camp Echo or Camp Delta to talk with his
lawyer. Ex. B, Declaration of Jennifer R. Cowan (“Cowan Dec.”), ¶¶ 7–8, 12.
The Government had previously recognized that such searches offend and
humiliate Islamic detainees and had banned them at Guantánamo: “Due to cultural
sensitivities, modified frisk searching procedures are in place that respect
the detainee’s groin area, and guards are not allowed to conduct frisk searches
of this area. Guards are limited to grasping the waistband of detainees’
trousers, and shaking the pants.” Ex. A, Remes Dec. ¶ 37 (quoting Review of
Department Compliance with President’s Executive Order on Detainee Conditions
of Confinement, at 25 (2009)). The new search procedure, however, “does include
the buttocks and groin area” and applies whenever a prisoner leaves his camp to
go to another facility, such as Camp Echo or Camp Delta.2 It is obvious that
the new search procedures, another reversal of long-standing practice, are
intended to be an obstacle to counsel access. See Ex. A, Remes Dec. ¶¶
15–18; Ex. B, Cowan Dec. ¶¶ 10–16; Ex. C, Declaration of Erin Thomas (“Thomas
Dec.”) ¶ 9; Ex. D, Declaration of Darold W. Killmer (“Killmer Dec.”) ¶¶ 7,
13–14.
Posts
