Court rules detainee's are not "persons" and torture is to be expected
my2hands
Posts: 17,117
the stripes are bending and the stars are dimming...
In Voiding Suit, Appellate Court Says Torture Is To Be Expected
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers
Friday 11 January 2008
Washington - A federal appeals court Friday threw out a suit by four British Muslims who allege that they were tortured and subjected to religious abuse in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a ruling that exonerated 11 present and former senior Pentagon officials.
It appeared to be the first time that a federal appellate court has ruled on the legality of the harsh interrogation tactics that U.S. intelligence officers and military personnel have used on suspected terrorists held outside the United States since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The detainees allege that they were held in stress positions, interrogated for sessions lasting 24 hours, intimidated with dogs and isolated in darkness and that their beards were shaved.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the detainees captured in Afghanistan aren't recognized as "persons" under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens held outside the United States. The Religious Freedom Act prohibits the government from "substantially burdening a person's religion."
The court rejected other claims on the grounds that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had certified that the military officials were acting within the scope of their jobs when they authorized the tactics, and that such tactics were "foreseeable."
"It was foreseeable that conduct that would ordinarily be indisputably `seriously criminal' would be implemented by military officials responsible for detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants," Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in the court's main opinion.
Judge Janice Rogers Brown dissented with parts of the opinion, saying that "it leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantanamo are not `person(s).'
'`This is a most regrettable holding in a case where plaintiffs have alleged high-level U.S. government officials treated them as less than human," Brown wrote.
After being held for more than two years, the four men were repatriated to Britain in 2004, where they were freed within 24 hours without facing criminal charges, said Washington lawyer Eric Lewis, who represented them along with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
Three of the men - Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed - say they traveled to Afghanistan from Pakistan in October 2001 to provide humanitarian relief but were seized by an Uzbek warlord in northern Afghanistan the next month and sold to U.S. troops for bounty money. The three said they were unarmed and never engaged in combat against the United States.
The fourth, Jamal al Harith, said he'd planned to attend a religious retreat in Pakistan in October 2001 but was ordered to leave the country because of animosity toward Britons. When he tried to drive a truck home via Iran and Turkey, he says, his truck was hijacked at gunpoint and he was handed over to the Taliban, who jailed him and accused him of being a spy. When the Taliban fell after the U.S.-led invasion, he was detained and transported to Guantanamo.
The detainees filed suit in October 2004 against former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and nine other senior military officers. They allege that the Pentagon officials violated the Alien Tort Statute, the Geneva Conventions, the religious freedom law and the Constitution with their harsh treatment.
In upholding a lower court's rejection of all the claims but those under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the circuit court said that the interrogation tactics, which Rumsfeld first authorized in 2002, were "incidental" to the duties of those who'd been sued.
"It is an awful day for the rule of law and common decency," said Lewis, the detainees' attorney, "when a court finds that torture is all in a day's work for the secretary of defense and senior generals. . . . I think the executive is trying to create a black hole so there is no accountability for torture and religious abuse."
Lewis said his clients intended to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/24654.html
In Voiding Suit, Appellate Court Says Torture Is To Be Expected
By Greg Gordon
McClatchy Newspapers
Friday 11 January 2008
Washington - A federal appeals court Friday threw out a suit by four British Muslims who allege that they were tortured and subjected to religious abuse in the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a ruling that exonerated 11 present and former senior Pentagon officials.
It appeared to be the first time that a federal appellate court has ruled on the legality of the harsh interrogation tactics that U.S. intelligence officers and military personnel have used on suspected terrorists held outside the United States since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The detainees allege that they were held in stress positions, interrogated for sessions lasting 24 hours, intimidated with dogs and isolated in darkness and that their beards were shaved.
The three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled that the detainees captured in Afghanistan aren't recognized as "persons" under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act because they were aliens held outside the United States. The Religious Freedom Act prohibits the government from "substantially burdening a person's religion."
The court rejected other claims on the grounds that then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had certified that the military officials were acting within the scope of their jobs when they authorized the tactics, and that such tactics were "foreseeable."
"It was foreseeable that conduct that would ordinarily be indisputably `seriously criminal' would be implemented by military officials responsible for detaining and interrogating suspected enemy combatants," Circuit Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson wrote in the court's main opinion.
Judge Janice Rogers Brown dissented with parts of the opinion, saying that "it leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantanamo are not `person(s).'
'`This is a most regrettable holding in a case where plaintiffs have alleged high-level U.S. government officials treated them as less than human," Brown wrote.
After being held for more than two years, the four men were repatriated to Britain in 2004, where they were freed within 24 hours without facing criminal charges, said Washington lawyer Eric Lewis, who represented them along with the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
Three of the men - Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Rhuhel Ahmed - say they traveled to Afghanistan from Pakistan in October 2001 to provide humanitarian relief but were seized by an Uzbek warlord in northern Afghanistan the next month and sold to U.S. troops for bounty money. The three said they were unarmed and never engaged in combat against the United States.
The fourth, Jamal al Harith, said he'd planned to attend a religious retreat in Pakistan in October 2001 but was ordered to leave the country because of animosity toward Britons. When he tried to drive a truck home via Iran and Turkey, he says, his truck was hijacked at gunpoint and he was handed over to the Taliban, who jailed him and accused him of being a spy. When the Taliban fell after the U.S.-led invasion, he was detained and transported to Guantanamo.
The detainees filed suit in October 2004 against former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, former Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, who was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, and nine other senior military officers. They allege that the Pentagon officials violated the Alien Tort Statute, the Geneva Conventions, the religious freedom law and the Constitution with their harsh treatment.
In upholding a lower court's rejection of all the claims but those under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the circuit court said that the interrogation tactics, which Rumsfeld first authorized in 2002, were "incidental" to the duties of those who'd been sued.
"It is an awful day for the rule of law and common decency," said Lewis, the detainees' attorney, "when a court finds that torture is all in a day's work for the secretary of defense and senior generals. . . . I think the executive is trying to create a black hole so there is no accountability for torture and religious abuse."
Lewis said his clients intended to ask the Supreme Court to overturn the ruling.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/24654.html
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Comments
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
Yes, peace. Please.
Various articles detainees on the infamous place called Guantanamo. Guantanamo: A Look Back at Six Years of Imprisonment, Torture and Suicide and the beat goes on for those who maybe innocent and without representation to prove their innocence.
This is not the America I know who does not allow a person his rights to prove his innocence.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
That's what truly bothers me... If someone has carried out attacks on soldiers or innocent people or whoever, in all honesty I could care less what happens to them. It's hard for me to loose sleep or feel sympathy for them.
But, for the countless people who were just rounded up in raids or turned in by other people with no proof or anything, the idea that our country can just hold these people indefinitely, and subject them to basically anything we want with out ever charging them of anything truly makes me sick.
was like a picture
of a sunny day
“We can complain because rose bushes have thorns, or rejoice because thorn bushes have roses.”
― Abraham Lincoln
iraqi civilian deaths are never talked about... almost as if they are not people... with us only focusing on soldiers deaths...
people are being held with out charge or reason... and are not allowed to challenge it...
people are being tortured... and it is being excused or explained...
countries are being invaded based on reasons that continue to be proven false or outright lies...
some scary shit going on around here... real scary...
and no one seems to give a shit
countries? you mean Iraq. well that was 5 years ago. you make it sound like it happens monthly.
Iraqi civilian deaths are always talked about. at least when I watch the news. and furthermore I'm glad american soldiers death take precedence. seems like common sense to me.
and you want enemy combatants to have the same rights as you? well their are 2 sides to the argument, you just choose not to listen to both.
things arent so bad. lighten up
The shit that comes out of your mouth sometimes...
Hearts and minds... spreading freedom and killing thousands...
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22578010/
Speak the truth bry, I agree with you here. The people turned in by others through jealously or revenge and your life can possibly come to an end and there's nothing you can do about it.
I'd want to commit suicide too. I pray for the forgotten few.
Peace
*MUSIC IS the expression of EMOTION.....and that POLITICS IS merely the DECOY of PERCEPTION*
.....song_Music & Politics....Michael Franti
*The scientists of today think deeply instead of clearly. One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite INSANE*....Nikola Tesla(a man who shaped our world of electricity with his futuristic inventions)
No kidding on that one.
There is a blueprint for everything that is going on right now. It's called Project for A New American Century. All the f-ing nutheads and wankjobs that wrote it are zionists, currently in positions of power, that have infiltrated the US govt and are carrying out the "project" as closely and as quickly as they can. It is their bible, it is their raison d'etre.
The motivation is religious, and the greed part pays off very handsomely. The perk is that "gods chosen people" are getting to kill off the "non chosen" people.
If I hear one more goofball say it's to spread democracy, and freedom, I'm going to puke.
Democracy at the end of a gun barrel, is hypocrisy, not to mention evil as hell.
Those who support it are...well...quite honestly....f-ed up.
and reveling in it's loyalty. It's made by forming coalitions
over specific principles, goals, and policies.
http://i36.tinypic.com/66j31x.jpg
(\__/)
( o.O)
(")_(")
i actually have an entire copy printed at my office...
That's sick. How is that common sense? What makes an American soldier more important than an Iraqi civilian?
An Iraqi civilian is a person like you, me, your brother, your mother, your child. They die for nothing.
Yet the American soldier's death is more important. In fact, it would seem common sense would dictate that the Iraqi civilians who died should get prominence on the news. Because after all, the US soldiers chose a risky business, death is an accepted risk they take. The civilians however did not choose to go to war, they did not choose to be fired at, they did not choose to be bombed, ...
The US should never have been in Iraq. Every single death, American or Iraqi, is senseless. Every death means another family will have to mourn because of this bullshit war.
To come back to your 'common sense', say a country invades the US and the enemy military kills five soldiers and five civilians, which would incense you the most, the five trained soldiers who chose to figth and accepted the risk of getting killed, or a family of five?
naděje umírá poslední
I get the enemy combatants are a difficult thing to deal with. I mean unlike previous wars where when the war was over you could just send them back to their country. In this case who knows when the "war on terror" is going to be over. The thing I don't get is that since the people in power can't decide what to do they have decided that doing nothing is the best course of action. Now if one of these people being held is a terrorist I have no problem with locking them up, personally I really don't have that much problem with them being held without bail for a certain amount of time while an actual investigation is going on (similar but not exactly the same as a regular criminal trial). But I don't see what would be so bad about giving these people being held trials to at least try and find out if they actually are enemy combatants and not just some guy who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. What is really so bad about a trial?