Last week the Center for Constitutional rights directly challenged the Bush administrations’ use of torture in violation of domestic and international law and the assertion that anyone can be held indefinitely anywhere in the world on the president’s word alone. The case also challenges the 2006 Republican Congress’s attempt to clear the way with its passage of the Military Commissions Act. (Senate Bill 3930)“The precedent set in past Guantanamo Supreme Court cases—that every person detained has the right to a fair hearing, including those jailed at the detention center for almost six years—is a necessity for any country calling itself a nation under law,†CCR President Michael Ratner.This case may determine once and for all whether there is a constitutional right to habeas corpus – that is, a fair hearing before a real court – for everyone detained by the U.S. government at Guantánamo.
Earlier this year Law and Disorder covered the case of Dr. Catherine Wilkerson. Police used excessive force when they attacked peaceful protestors who rallied at a University of Michigan event sponsored by the American Movement for Israel. As the senior medical professional on scene, Dr. Catherine Wilkerson took responsibility for the well-being of a middle-aged man who claimed he couldn’t breath and lost consciousness. She exhorted the police to get off of him, and was allowed to check his pulse and breathing.Wilkerson later protested when Emergency Medical Service (EMS) personnel breached ethical medical practices by forcing ammonia into the man’s nostrils and face. It was at this time that she was physically assaulted and detained by Ann Arbor police.No charges were filed until after Dr. Wilkerson wrote a complaint to authorities about the actions of the police officers. A week since writing the letter, Dr. Wilkerson was charged by the Washtenaw County Prosecutor Brian Mackie’s office, at the request of the UM police, with two attempted felonies—one against Officer Warner and one against the EMS personnel. Check out Counter Punch article.
Guest – Dr. Catherine Wilkerson,a physician who practices primary care at a clinic in Ann Arbor that providing care to underserved members of the community.
Today we welcome back author and journalist Adam Hochschild to talk with us about his recent book Bury the Chains. The book takes the reader back to the late 18th century when a small group of Englishmen put forward the radical notion that slavery was wrong.They proposed that Enlightenment ideals of equality and liberty should extend to African slaves held in British colonies.
Leading constitutional scholars David Cole and Jules Lobel have published a critique of the Bush administration’s post 9-11 policies. It’s called “Less Safe, Less Free: Why America is Losing the War on Terror.”
They point out how less than one-tenth of the detainees in Guantanamo Bay have been found to have links to Al Qaeda or the Taliban. Not one of the 80,000 Arab and Muslim men who underwent Special Registration has been convicted of terrorism-related crimes. Meanwhile, the department of homeland security continues to spend tens of millions installing surveillance camera systems in and throughout US cities.
One review of “Less Safe, Less Free: Why America is Losing the War on Terror.” writes – – “ At home and abroad, the administration has cut corners on fundamental commitments of the rule of law in the name of preventing future attacks—from “water-boarding†detainees, to disappearing suspects into secret CIA prisons, to attacking Iraq against the wishes of the UN Security Council and most of the world when it posed no imminent threat of attacking us.â€
A Question of Impeachment is the title for the Culture Project’s ongoing event series this month and into December. Authors, actors and luminaries gather to explore and debate the case for impeachment of President Bush and Vice President Cheney.
Guests – Olivia Greer, Culture Project Producer and and Allan Buchman, Creative Director at the Culture Project.
Vote down the Attorney General Nomination of Judge Michael Mukasey.
“Michael Mukasey professes ignorance as to whether water-boarding is a form of torture unless he knows “the actual facts and circumstances” of its use. The “facts and circumstances” of water-boarding are quite straightforward. When a person is water-boarded, their head is held under water until the person begins to involuntarily “inhale” water. At that point, the victim is certain they will drown if not allowed to get air. It is a technique from the Spanish Inquisition and illegal under international and domestic law. Instilling fear of imminent death as an interrogation technique is the very essence of torture, and no amount of legal analysis can come to any other conclusion.” Read full CCR Press Release.
Recently, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives took a major step toward ending U.S. complicity in Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide. Despite an intense campaign of threats and intimidation by the Turkish government and its lobbyists in Washington, DC the Committee adopted HR 106, the Armenian Genocide Resolution.
Introduced on January 30, the resolution calls on the President to ensure that the foreign policy of the United States reflects appropriate understanding and sensitivity concerning issues related to human rights, ethnic cleansing, and genocide documented in the United States record relating to the Armenian Genocide.
One day after the House Foreign Affairs Committee approved the resolution, 27-21, Turkey withdrew its ambassador for consultations, and Turkish legislators on October 17 authorized the use of military force against Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, a step that may further destabilize Iraq and disrupt oil supplies. Despite overwhelming evidence documenting the Genocide, the Republic of Turkey continues to pursue a well-funded campaign – in Washington, DC and throughout the world – to deny and ultimately erase from world history the 1.5 million victims of Ottoman Turkey’s and later the Republic of Turkey’s systematic and deliberate massacres and deportations of Armenians between 1915 and 1923. According to the International Association of Genocide Scholars, the historical record on the Armenian genocide is quote – unambiguous.
Since 1982, successive U.S. Administrations, fearful of offending Turkey, have effectively supported the Turkish government’s revisionism by opposing passage of Congressional Armenian Genocide resolutions and objecting to the use of the word “genocide” to describe the systematic destruction of the Armenian people.
Hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Steven Smith interview Henri Alleg for the first half hour. Alleg, a French journalist living in Paris, supported Algerian independence during the French Algerian War (1954-1962). He was arrested by French paratroopers during the Battle of Algiers in June 1957 and interrogated.
Henri Alleg describes to Law and Disorder hosts in this exclusive interview how he was questioned hung from his feet and tortured with a similar brutality and sadism often described by prisoners in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. Alleg’s republished book The Question is a moving account of that month of interrogation and his triumpj over his torturers. Jean-Paul Sartre has written the preface that remains a relevant commentary on the moral and political effects of torture on the both the victim and perpetrator.
Guest – Henri Alleg, a French-Algerian journalist, director of the “Alger républicain” newspaper, and a member of the French Communist Party. After Editions de Minuit, a French publishing house, released his memoir La Question in 1958, Alleg gained international recognition for his stance against torture, specifically within the context of the Algerian War.
His speech is titled Imperialism in the American Century. Viveck describes what “progressives can expect in the near future in terms of basic principles of justice. Viveck also references how the (PNAC) Project for the New American Century draft is shaping foreign policy.
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Co-hosts Heidi Boghosian and Michael Smith discuss the recent news – The military is accusing two attorneys for Guantanamo detainees of smuggling underwear to their clients. Michael and Heidi also read the two letters detailing the dispute. Read Shane Kadidal’s blog post here: Underwear Gnomes Infest Guantanamo
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Michael Ratner’s letter published in the New York Times Oct. 10, 2007 – Torture and the Shame of a Nation.Responding to this New York Times Editorial: On Torture and American Values.To the Editor:“On Torture and American Values†lets Congress off the hook too easily regarding the torture and secret detention program. As with the Iraq war, many Republicans and Democrats were and still are willing to be misled (or claim to have been so) rather than appear to be perceived as weak on terrorism. Sadly, Congress by its actions and inactions is the handmaiden of the torture program. Despite the publicly revealed memos authorizing torture and the testimony of its widespread use, Congress, even under the Democrats, has yet to hold even one hearing regarding the responsibility of high administration officials. Perhaps had it done so, the administration would not have felt emboldened to continue the program.Instead, Congress affirmatively aided the torture program. Examples abound: removing habeas corpus from detainees and failing in its restoration (habeas is key to protecting against torture — lawyers and courts have access to detainees); granting amnesty to officials who may have violated the torture and war crimes provisions of our law; allowing a defense for future abusers if they relied upon legal advice; authorizing the president to redefine cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; and permitting the use of evidence derived from torture and coercion.Now with the nomination of a new attorney general, Congress again has an opportunity to make its voice heard: no attorney general who does not clearly and unequivocally repudiate the new torture memos and the secret sites at which torture is carried out should even be considered for the job. Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights
In a recent essay A System of Wholesale Denial of Rights published in the Monthly Review, Research Professor of Law, Michael Tigar describes how the term enemy combatant was created through the rulings in the anti-terrorist case Padilla v. Rumsfeld and the implications for civil liberties and human rights in the United States. Implications that support a system whereby the president can lock up anyone he chooses and never have to explain why to a court.
The Bush Administration has taken the language from those in favor of slavery and oppression of Native Americans. Instead of prisoner, instead defendant, instead of person they create a category of enemy combatant. (Non-People – Invoking the characterization of someone not entitled to claim justice.) Tigar says this is a tactic of repressive governments. Tigar says, the term enemy combatant doesn’t exist in the Constitution or within International Law, therefore enemy combatants have no rights, are denied access to courts and fall under military regime.
Michael Tigar in his article points out the historic parallels such as the Dred Scott case, Japanese internment and the Cherokee Nation.Frederick Douglas and several anti-slavery people thought that it would be possible to make an argument that slavery so violated the norms of the constitution that it had to be illegal everywhere. The Cherokee Nation, says Tigar was classified as “subject people.” Subject People is not found in Article 3 in the Constitution. Therefore, “subject people” are not entitled to sue in federal courts.
Michael Tigar is a Research Professor of Law at Washington College of Law at American University in Washington, D.C., where he teaches Federal Courts, International Human Rights, and Criminal Law. Tigar argued seven cases in front of the US Supreme court, he’s represented many controversial clients since then such as Angela Davis, Terry Nichols, Lynne Stewart and members of the Chicago Seven. He is the author of the recent book, Thinking About Terrorism: The Threat To Civil Liberties in a Time Of National Emergency.
We mark the 40th anniversary of Che Guevara’s murder. He was captured in Bolivia during a military operation supported by the CIA and the U.S. Army Special Forces. Guevara was summarily executed by the Bolivian Army in the town of La Higuera near Vallegrande on October 9, 1967.
Guest – author and professor John Tito Gerassi, about Che Guevara’s influence. Gerassi describes how he was poisoned by the CIA while dining with Fidel Castro and about his guerilla training with Che.
Gerassi currently teaches at Queens College of the City University of New York. Gerassi, born in France in 1931, is the author many books including the Great Fear in Latin America and The Premature Antifascists, the only authorized biography of Jean Paul Sarte.
(CCR) attorneys and co-counsel submitted a ground-breaking brief to the Supreme Court in the case that will determine whether detainees at Guantánamo possess the fundamental constitutional rights to due process and habeas corpus.
“These men have been held unlawfully in abusive conditions while the courts and Congress debate whether they should have any rights,” said CCR President Michael Ratner. ” Read more.
The US Supreme Court said it would not prevent Ahmed Bel Bacha, an Algerian army veteran detained at Guantanamo Bay from being transferred to his home country. Bel Bacha, who has been held at Guantanamo for five years, had argued he would be tortured if turned over to Algerian officials. He is one of nearly 20 Guantanamo detainees who say they will face abuse if sent back to their country. Human Rights Watch article.
Recently, Isa Al Murbati was returned home after six months in Guantanamo Bay’s Camp Six. He was kept under the most cruel conditions of the prison, they include communication lock downs and sleep deprivation.
Lyra Porras Garzon is a documentary filmmaker and creator of the recent film Flying While Muslim. This film explores the personal stories and debates surrounding racial profiling post 9/11 in the United States. As Lyra researched the many personal stories, she unearthed countless reports of racial profiling from detainment in airports to illegal detention of Muslims, Arabs and even South Asians. This, along with the imprisonment of those individuals without access to lawyers or the right to habeas corpus.
