Issues About Iraq, Detention, Rendition & Justice We Need To Attend To

Three Canadians Tortured in Syria Seek Arar-Style Case Review

Just in case we were thinking that the Arar case was an isolated incident...

Three Canadian citizens supported by Amnesty International Canada demanded an official inquiry into their cases Thursday along the lines of that undertaken for Maher Arar to determine what role Canadian security forces played in their arrest and alleged torture in Syria between 2001 and 2004. Kuwaiti-born Ahmad El Maati, Syrian-born Abdullah Almalki and Iraqi-born Muayyed Nureddin each claim they were detained and tortured by Syrian military intelligence during trips abroad, with the complicit cooperation of Canadian officials. Almalki says he was kept in underground solitary confinement for 482 consecutive days and was whipped and beaten with electrical cable. He considers it interrogation and torture by proxy at the behest of the Canadian government.

And the allegations of abuse are coming from multiple sources...

Former Guantanamo Detainees Returned to Afghanistan Allege US Abuse

Sixteen Afghan men were reunited with their families Thursday after being released by the US military from four years of detention in Guantanamo Bay. The men denied links to Islamic terror groups and alleged abuse at the hands of their captors as they spoke at the offices of the National Peace and Reconciliation Commission in Kabul. Habibul Rehman, arrested four years ago when he was only 16, admitted that he had been carrying light weapons like many other Afghanis but that he never fought with the Taliban. He claimed that the men were subjected to practices such as mental torture and sleep deprivation. To date the White House has rejected all allegations of torture at Guantanamo, and says that the camp respects humanitarian law.

A single complaint might be dismissable. Several complaints from a single group might be dismissable. But multiple complaints from multiple sources needs to have independent and verifiable investigation.

80 Guantanamo Detainees Could Face Military Commission Trials

It seems to me that Bush and his gang have suckered congress into allowing only the facts that the administration wants entered into the record allowed to be brought forth. Since there is ample evidence that most of the detainees at Gitmo are not enemy combatants, and that fact is verifiable if evidence is allowed into the record, the only way to ensure that the policy of warrantless, indefinite incarceration can be justified is to strictly control the proceedings by which these folks are processed. It strikes me that we have violated our own basic values and set up a kangaroo court.

As many as 80 Guantanamo Bay detainees could face trial before military commissions, a US State Department legal adviser said Thursday. John Bellinger also said President Bush will sign Congress' recently-passed military commissions bill, on Tuesday, allowing military commission trials "finally to go forward."

Gee... One would think that at least one GOP leader in congress would raise the constitutional issues present in the detention and military commission process.

In a related development, US military officials said Thursday that representatives from the International Committee of the Red Cross have visited with the 14 high-value terror suspects who were transferred from secret CIA prisons to Guantanamo Bay in September.

Why only the 14 transferred from secret prisons that the Bush administration denied existed until recently? Why doesn't the IRC interview all of those that are being held at Gitmo? The answer is simple. The Bush administration wants to make it appear that they are complying with human rights approaches while not complying with them at all. Plus, with the mid-term elections less than a month away, the GOP does not want any more fuel added to the bonfire that is the GOP record to date.

UK Foreign Office Calls Guantanamo 'Unacceptable' in Human Rights Report

Now one has to consider that the UK has a lousy record of human rights and national security enforcement. Given the UK's proclivities of treating IRA members with less than a human rights approach--one that even the US has condemned in the past--we must assume that things are really bad at Gitmo if the UK is willing to dress the US down in a public forum.

British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett on Thursday called the "continuing detention without a fair trial" at the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay "unacceptable in terms of human rights" and "ineffective in terms of counterterrorism." In announcing the release of Britain's 2006 Report on Human Rights, Beckett reiterated calls for the US to close Guantanamo. She said the "existence of the camp is as much a radicalising and discrediting influence as it is a safeguard to security."

Coming from Tony Blair's government, this seems to add a few nails to the coffin on the Bush Doctrine and the unlawful detention of the folks down in Gitmo.

But it appears that the right hand and left hand of the UK doesn't seem to know what the other is doing...

Guantanamo Detainees Lose Bid to Force UK Government to Help With Release

The UK Court of Appeal Thursday upheld an earlier High Court ruling and denied a bid by the families of three Guantanamo Bay detainees who were UK residents prior to their detention to require the British government to lobby the US for their release. The High Court ruled in May that the three detainees – Jordanian national Jamil el-Banna, Libyan national Omar Deghayes and Iraqi national Bisher al-Rawi – could not demand that the UK Foreign Office act on their behalf because the three detainees are not British citizens. The detainees' relatives appealed, arguing discrimination, breach of human rights, legal errors and irrationality. The Court of Appeal’s decision has already been met with disappointment by Amnesty International, which said Thursday that “the Court of Appeal has missed an opportunity to send a clear message to the UK government that it must fulfill its responsibilities towards all Guantánamo detainees, regardless of whether they are UK citizens or residents.”

Talk about your sense of cognitive dissonance.

ABA to Continue Fight Over Detainee Rights

Despite the reluctance of the legal profession from outside of the US, the American Bar Association seems willing to take on the Bush administration's assertions of powers and authorities not provided for in the Constitution, including the very basis for the detention at Gitmo.

The American Bar Association said last week it will continue to challenge key provisions of a federal bill authorizing military tribunals to try terrorism suspects, even though the legislation ultimately passed by a lopsided margin in the Senate.

ABA members say they are most concerned about sections of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that deny judicial review of habeas corpus claims filed on behalf of "enemy combatants" being held at facilities in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other locations.

"It's a sweeping denial of habeas, so that any alien who is detained by the U.S. can be detained forever without any hope of ever getting to a court. That's just wrong," said Neal Sonnett, a Miami attorney who chairs the ABA's Task Force on Treatment of Enemy Combatants.

Although some detainees may be intent on harming the United States or its interests, the Department of Defense's own records make it clear that "many of the people in Guantanamo Bay are not al-Qaida, not terrorists, and they're not dangerous," Sonnett said. "Unless they have an opportunity to contest their detention, there's no way for their innocence to be established."

According to Sonnett, the ABA could have another chance to help shape detainee rights if the upcoming elections create a Congress that is "friendlier to legislation" that would reverse the Military Commissions Act's habeas-related provisions. The ABA also needs to "monitor closely" the rules that the Department of Defense will be writing to put the legislation into practice, he said.

Dare I say that Shakespeare may have been right?

Then there is the trend for states to follow the example of the feds...


Five US States Allow Attack Dogs in Prisons: HRW Report

It strikes me as strange that the Canadians have a prison system that doesn't employ half of the tactics of control that the US and the states employ, have a humane policy toward treatment of drug and mental health disorders, and don't seem to have the same level of complaints against the guards or prisons. But ten percent of our nation seems to think that increasing the stress, using attack dogs, and failing to meet the basic human needs of prisoners is the way to go... Thay must be in favor of the Abu Ghraib abuses as well.

Five US states permit the use of dogs in prisons to control inmates, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report released Wednesday. Prison systems in Iowa, Connecticut, South Dakota, Utah and Delaware have policies that allow the use of dogs to control inmates in prisons and remove uncooperative prisoners from their cells. The procedures permit use of unmuzzled dogs and allow guards to order dogs to bite prisoners.

The HRW report says the US is the only known country that authorizes the use of dogs against inmates who refuse to leave their cells. There were 63 cases of dog use in prisons in Iowa during March 2005 to March 2006 and 20 cases in Connecticut during 2005, according to the report. Dogs were rarely used inside prisons in South Dakota, Utah and Delaware. The use of unmuzzled dogs in questioning detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq prompted two military dog handlers to be convicted on abuse charges.