Civil Liberties, Human Rights, Truth to Power
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Jena 6 Update
Today on Law and Disorder co-host Heidi Boghosian debriefs Eugene Puryear, Howard University student and key national political organizer for the Jena 6. They discuss the denying of a request to release Mychal Bell whose arrest in the beating of a white classmate sparked last week’s civil rights protest in Louisiana.
Defense lawyers also have complained that Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr. set a high bail for Bell — $90,000 — prior to his conviction in the Barker beating. Mauffray had cited Bell’s criminal record, which included juvenile arrests for battery and damage to property, in setting the bail.
Nearly 60 thousand protestors demonstrated in Jena, Louisiana, a town with the population of 3000. It was called the largest civil rights rallies in the South since the 1960’s. The protest was scheduled around the sentencing of Mychal Bell who was convicted by an all white jury.
The incidents began when three black high school students decided to sit under a shade tree in the school yard where usually white students sat. The next day three nooses were found hanging from the tree. Though the culprits who hung the nooses were discovered and recommended for expulsion by the principal, the school board chose to reduce their expulsions to a three-day, in-school suspension. After the entire black student body protested peacefully by sitting under the tree, Jena District Attorney Reed Walters informed the school in an assembly that he could take away the lives of the black students with a stroke of his pen.
In the following months several incidents occurred, including threats and acts of violence against black students to which DA Walters did not respond. However, after a white student was beaten up by black students in December, Walters charged six black students with second-degree attempted murder and conspiracy to commit murder. The white student was treated at the hospital, released that same day, and was seen at a social function that very night. Mychal Bell, originally charged with attempted murder for allegedly beating up a white student, was later charged with and convicted of aggravated second-degree battery and conspiracy to commit aggravated battery. The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals recently vacated Bell’s conviction, stating that Bell should never have been tried in an adult court because the alleged offense occurred when Bell was a minor. The Jena prosecutor has reportedly vowed to appeal the 3rd Circuit’s ruling.
The other five teens, Robert Bailey, Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and an unidentified juvenile, face charges ranging from aggravated second-degree battery to attempted second-degree murder. Most of the boys spent months in jail before being able to raise tens of thousands of dollars for bail. Bell was never able to raise the money to make bail, and remains in jail even after the overturning of his conviction. Related – Racism in Louisiana – BBC / FBI Probes Anti-Jena 6 Web Page
Guest – Eugene Puryear, Howard University student and key national political organizer for the Jena 6
Call for National Action Tuesday October 2, at 5pm/Justice Dept in Washington DC.
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Cuban Five Oral Arguments Update
A three-judge panel at the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta heard oral arguments earlier this month relating to the case of the Cuban Five. This is the third time in two years the Eleventh Circuit has heard appeals in the case of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, and Rene Gonzalez, who are serving a collective four life sentences and 75 years in prison.
Law and Disorder co-host Heidi Boghosian spoke at the rally and was at the hearing. “The court was filled with international observers jammed the court to observe both US government and defense attorneys deliver their arguments. Observers came from many countries including Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Ecuador, England, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Ukraine.”
We an excerpt from an interview on KPFK’s The Lawyer’s Guild Radio Show hosted by Jim Lafferty. In this interview Jim Lafferty talks with Len Weinglass, civil rights lawyer and defense attorney for Antonio Guerrero.
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You Have No Rights; Stories of America in an Age of Repression
In his recently published book, You Have No Rights; Stories of America in an Age of Repression, author Matthew Rothschild, cites dozens of personal stories that outline the big picture of repression in the United States. Hired goon squads of young republicans shout down protesters with chants of USA – USA – USA!! Remember the lawyer who was arrested at a local mall for wearing a “Give Peace A Chance†t-shirt? As Rothschild points out in his new book, the first, fourth, fifth, sixth and eighth amendments are under siege and very little is being done to protect them.
Guest – Matthew Rothschild author of You Have No Rights and editor of the Progressive Magazine since 1993. Previously the editor of Multinational Monitor, a magazine founded by Ralph Nader, he is the host of Progressive Radio.
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Michael Ratner’s Update on the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General.
It is shocking to see those who should know better supporting and in some cases practically fawning over the nomination of Michael Mukasey for Attorney General. There is simply no excuse for anyone who cares about fundamental rights and civil liberties to support Mukasey’s nomination. Read More
Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Iraq War, Military Tribunal, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power, Uncategorized
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(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.
Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Smith
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Guantanamo Bay Detainees Transfers and Abuse
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.
Guest – Emi Maclean, staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
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Flying While Muslim
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.
Guest – Lyra Porras Garzon
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Watch trailor for Flying While Muslim below:
Human Rights, Prison Industry, Torture, Truth to Power
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Children In Conflict With The Law: The U.S. Leads The World In Sentencing Children To Life Without Parole.
There are more than 2000 child offenders serving life without parole sentences in U.S. prisons for crimes committed before they reached the age of 18. The United States is one of few countries in the world that permit children to serve a life sentence without parole. Forty-two states currently have laws allowing children to receive life without parole sentences. The Convention on the Rights of the Child, ratified by every country in the world except the United States and Somalia, forbids this practice, and at least 132 countries have rejected the sentence altogether.
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have published a 130 page report on this topic called The Rest of Their Lives (PDF). The statistics are staggering and includes four juvenile offenders in South Africa, one in Tanzania and five in Israel. It is based on self-reported cases found in these countries’ reports to the U.N. International Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). While many of the child offenders are now adults, 16 percent were between 13 and 15 years old at the time they committed their crimes. An estimated 59 percent were sentenced to life without parole for their first-ever criminal conviction.
Alison Parker historically references where these laws came from. In the United Kingdom the sentence was known as “Detention During Her Majesty’s Pleasure”, the only sentence available to the courts for a person convicted of murder who was aged over 10 but under 18 at the time of the offence.
Guest – Alison Parker, Senior Researcher at Human Rights Watch. Alison says she is among many helping to change the legislation that incarcerate children permanently without rehabilitative options.
Guest – David Berger, attorney with O’Melveny & Myers. David is a former researcher for the Amnesty International report.
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Bernadine Dohrn
Bernadine Dohrn joins Law and Disorder to discuss juvenile justice and the development of Draconian laws for children in conflict with the law. Bernadine is a clinical professor at the Children and Family Justice Center at Northwestern University in Chicago. Bernadine is also the former leader of the Weathermen. She now serves on the board of numerous human rights committees and teaches comparative law. Since 2002, she has served as a Visiting Law Faculty at the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.
Civil Liberties, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Mohammed Salah Sentenced to 21 Months
Here on Law and Disorder we’ve followed the pivotal moments in the Mohammed Salah case. Earlier this year, Salah was cleared of terrorism charges but recently convicted of lying about his ties to the Palestinian group Hamas. He faces nearly two years in prison. The sentence for a minor charge of obstruction of justice comes as a major setback for prosecutors who have spent a decade investigating charges that could have put Salah behind bars for life.
Guest – Michael Deutsch, Mohammed Salah’s attorney with the People’s Law Office in Chicago.
David Cole – The Grand Inquisitors
In his latest article in the New York Review of Books, David Cole, professor of law at Georgetown University reviews several books including, John Ashcroft’s Never Again: Securing America and Restoring Justice, General Ashcroft: Attorney at War by Nancy V. Baker and It Can Happen Here: Authoritarian Peril in the Age of Bush, by Joe Conason and also Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror by Frederick A.O. Schwarz Jr. and Aziz Z. Huq.
These publications create an outline of how former Attorney General John Ashcroft helped create a platform that allowed the Bush administration to torture, allow coerced confessions and hold defendants indefinitely without trial.
Guest – Georgetown Law Professor David Cole
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Law and Disorder Series: Lawyers You’ll Like – Peter Weiss, Vice President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Peter Weiss is Vice-President, former President, of the International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms and its US affiliate, the Lawyers’ Committee on Nuclear Policy; Vice-President, Federation Internationale des ligues des Droits de l’Homme; and Vice-President, Center for Constitutional Rights. Mr. Weiss is a graduate of Yale Law School and has lectured and written widely on the international law of war and peace, nuclear weapons and human rights. He was the principal author of the draft brief on the illegality of threat or use of nuclear weapons used by many countries in making written submissions to the International Court of Justice in the 1996 nuclear weapons advisory opinion, and served as counsel to Malaysia at the hearings.
He has published several articles on the ICJ opinion, including in the fall 1997 issue of Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems. Mr. Weiss is also a leading human rights lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights, and litigated the seminal case establishing the right of victims of torture to sue their torturers in US courts (Filartiga v. Pena-Irala). Since his retirement in 1996 from Weiss Dawid Fross Zelnick & Lehrman, a leading trademark firm, he has been Senior Intellectual Property Counsel to The Chanel Company Limited. He is also a founder and former President of the American Committee on Africa and former Chairman of the Board of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. He has also long been an activist for peace in the Middle East and is currently a member of the Arab-Jewish Peace Group in New York and of the Executive Committee of Americans for Peace Now, which supports the Peace Now movement in Israel.
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Visit Michael Ratner’s Blog for news on the progressive frontlines.
Civil Liberties, Criminalizing Dissent, Death Penalty, Human Rights, Iraq War, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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Troy Anthony Davis Update: 90 Days Stay of Execution
The Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles granted a 90-day stay of execution to Troy Davis. On July 16, less than 24 hours before Troy Davis was scheduled to be executed in Georgia, the state Board of Pardons and Paroles issued a stay of execution, to be not longer than 90 days, “for the purpose of evaluating and analyzing” the information submitted to it during the clemency hearing earlier in the day. Act today to ensure that the the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles grants Troy clemency!
Fax your message to: State Board of Pardons & Paroles – 404-651-8502.
Troy Davis was sentenced to death in Georgia, for the murder of a police officer. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimonies that were full of inconsistencies, even at the time of trial. Since then, all but two of the states’ nine non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted their testimony. Many state in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis. Listen to Law and Disorder interview with Troy’s sister Martina Correia.
Vatican Urges Georgia To Spare Inmate
Where is the justice for me? The case of Troy Davis facing execution in Georgia
Dalia Hashad, co-host and Director of Amnesty International’s USA program gives us this update.
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National Lawyers Guild Report: Punishing Protests – Government Tactics That Suppress Free Speech
Co-Host Heidi Boghosian and National Lawyers Guild members publish a powerful report chronicling government tactics employed on city, state and federal levels aimed at suppressing public dissent. The report outlines the hierarchy of government attacks on free speech, from sophisticated data collecting agencies to arresting demonstrators without probable cause. Order yours here $3
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Marjorie Cohn – Cowboy Republic, Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law.
National Lawyers Guild President, legal scholar and co-author of Cameras in the Courtroom: Television and the Pursuit of Justice, Marjorie Cohn has written a new book titled, Cowboy Republic, Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law. She provides an in-depth analysis of six significant ways in which the Bush administration has undermined the rule of law in this country. Professor Cohn details the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq; the policy of torture; war crimes; the kangaroo courts of Guantanamo; unconstitutional laws; and the unlawful surveillance of American citizens. Her book contains practical ways to strengthen the rule of law domestically and internationally, including both political and legal remedies.
Guest – Marjorie Cohn – President of the National Lawyers Guild.
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Visit Co-Host Michael Ratner’s Blog – JustLeft.org
Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Habeas Corpus, Human Rights, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Laying the Foundation for a Police State – Part 1 – Building Blocks
Since July of 2004, Law and Disorder has brought Pacifica listeners the voices of activists, authors and attorneys from the front lines.
In the weeks to come, Law and Disorder hosts will examine in a four part series, the foundation for what many see as a police state in the United States. In this series they will talk with guests about the post 9/11 blueprint of this dictatorship/ police state and how the nefarious turn to war, the use of torture and the domestic propagation of fear unfolded.
Law and Disorder hosts have covered at length topics such as torture, domestic surveillance, criminalizing dissent, racial profiling, indefinite detentions and the destruction of constitutional rights as vital information to bring an understanding to listeners as to how it happened and where we go from here.
In this first series, the hosts begin with a look back at where they were on the day of September 11th, and how the Patriot Act was pushed through the Legislature immediately after the attacks on that day. They look at the racial profiling and roundup of Muslims and the rush to invade Afghanistan and Iraq using the Authorization for Use of Military Force.
Co-host Dalia Hashad describes her experiences as an attorney formerly with the ACLU right after September 11th as thousands of Muslim-Americans were rounded up or corralled because of their ethnicity or political affiliation.
Tracked in America – Samina Sundas
Samina Sundas with American Muslim Voice helped her fellow Muslims and Pakistani-Americans integrate into mainstream American society, and her role intensified after 9/11. When the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS, also known as the Special Registration program) was instituted in September 2002, Muslims all over the United States contacted her confused and worried about how it would affect them. She couldn’t get clear answers from federal immigration officials despite several meetings. After that, she set up an ad hoc hotline that has since become part of an organization called American Muslim Voice.
Framework of Police State laws since 9/11
Co-host Michael Ratner leads the way through the timeline from setting up the legal basis for a global war on terror to justifying a secret system of prisons and interrogation techniques that evade historic safeguards in the Geneva Convention.
Guest – Scott Horton, Chair of International Law Committee at the New York City Bar Association and adjunct Professor of Law at Columbia University. He is also the author of over 200 articles and monographs on legal developments in nations in transition.
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Law and Disorder Co-host Michael Ratner Launches Blog:Â Just Left
