World Marks GTMO’s Sixth Year
January 11th marks six years of imprisonment for the more than 300 prisoners at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. Last year on Law and Disorder we had taken listeners through a brief history of the Guantanamo Bay Prison, how they got there and what it means for civil liberties in the United States. We continue to examine the civil liberties issues and we’ll look at how attorneys and activists are involved in getting prisoners released.
Hosts Update: Settlement on Use of Central Park’s Great Lawn – Congratulations to NLG members Mara Verheyden-Hilliard and Carl Messineo in this important victory for the First Amendment in NYC! In addition to rescinding the rule limiting public events on the Great Lawn, the National Council of Arab Americans and ANSWER will each receive $25K and the City will reimburse $500,000 in attorneys costs and fees.
Many organizations and activists are staging powerful demonstrations this week protesting the sixth anniversary of the US detention camp at Guantánamo Bay and demanding the release of the men held there. Protesters will again don masks and the trademark orange suits associated with the prisoners and shuffle through public spaces.
Guest – Jumana Musa a human rights attorney and activist. She is currently the Advocacy Director for Domestic Human Rights and International Justice at Amnesty International, where she addresses the domestic and international impact of the Bush administration’s “war on terror” on human rights. She has also served as Amnesty International’s legal observer at military commission proceedings at the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Though this sixth anniversary is a day of acknowledgment of the illegal imprisonment and torture of prisoners in Guantanamo, it also a call on governments across the world to lobby for the release of their residents. About 100 Yemenis are being held at Guantanamo, making them the biggest group among the approximately 275 detainees there, according to Yemen’s media.
A conference held in Yemen this week is aiming to secure the release of more Yemeni prisoners from Guantanamo. The conference is encouraging a wide coalition of religious leaders, NGOs and family members of prisoners to press for the release of the men. Since 2002, 12 Yemeni prisoners have been released from Guantanamo Bay prison. More than a third of Guantanamo prisoners are from Yemen. Yemen is on the Arabian Peninsula in Southwest Asia, bordered by Saudi Arabia to the North and the Red Sea to the West.
Guest – Pardiss Kebriaei, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights. She specializes in international litigation, working within the Inter-American, European and UN human rights systems, and in foreign jurisdictions including the Philippines, India, Nepal, Thailand, and Colombia.
Accounts of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment have been condemned by the United Nations, Human Rights Watch and other reputable bodies. The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the effort to get Guantanamo closed down and get prisoners the rights they’re entitled under International Law and the U.S. Constitution.
Guest – Vince Warren, executive director of the Center for Constitutional Rights was at one the many demonstrations in Washington DC. He spent seven years as national senior staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), where he led national constitutional and impact litigation to advance civil rights and civil liberties.
On this last day of 2007, Law and Disorder will look at the stories that have taken civil liberties in this country many steps in the wrong direction. We start with the question of impeachment, what happened, why it stalled, we’ll look at damaging supreme court decisions and draconian legislation that took large bite out of the right to free speech and dissent in this country.
Co-host Michael Ratner enumerates several key stories of torture in 2007, including the destruction of the CIA videotapes, the Mahar Arar case, and the confirmation of Attorney General Michael Mukasey who says he’s not certain if water-boarding is torture.
Law and Disorder hosts then talk about the recent Supreme Court arguments regarding the remaining Guantanamo Bay Cuba detainees and the horrible failure to restore habeas corpus. 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.
Increases in surveillance powers were also on the list of wrong-turn stories this year, co-host Heidi Boghosian points out the legislation that extends the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. In the wake of Congress approving a dramatic expansion of U.S. warrant-less wiretapping powers, the Center for Constitutional Rights has argued that the NSA’s program is unconstitutional and should be struck down. The argument in CCR v. Bush comes after Congress and the Bush administration passed the Protect America Act of 2007 which broadly expands the government’s power to spy on Americans without getting court approval.
The 5-4 ruling that race cannot be a factor in the assignment of children to public schools. Free speech not an option for students regarding (Bong Hits For Jesus).
Campaign Finance Reform – The Supreme Court has thrown out part of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance law that placed restrictions on corporations and unions from buying television ads close to elections
The citizens’ ability to challenge government violations of the separation of church and state, Hein v. Freedom from Religion Foundation 5-4, the Justices ruled that taxpayers do not have standing to challenge the White House program on federal aid to faith-based organizations.
“One of the country’s foremost defenders of human rights and civil liberties, Michael Ratner has led the fight to demand due process for Guantánamo detainees, adequate safeguards against intrusive government surveillance, and an end to torture and extraordinary rendition.”
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.
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.
James Lafferty is currently the Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild in Los Angeles and host of The Lawyers Guild Show, a weekly public affairs program on Pacifica radio station KPFK, 90.7 FM.
He has served as a chief officer of, and spokesperson for, various national anti-war coalitions, including the National Peace Action Coalition, the anti-Vietnam War coalition that organized the largest protests during that war; the National Coalition for Peace in the Middle East; and, the National Campaign to End U.S. Intervention in the Philippines. In the ‘60s and ‘70s, his law firm, Lafferty, Reosti, Jabara, Papakian & Smith, represented virtually all of the left political movements in and around Detroit, Michigan, during which time he became one of this nation’s leading experts on Selective Service law and military law.
In the early ‘80’s, Mr. Lafferty founded and chaired the largest A.C.L.U. Chapter in the State of Michigan. In New York City, in the late 80’s and early ‘90s, he traveled the world organizing on behalf of the labor rights of merchant seafarers. During this time he also taught a course at the New School for Social Research, entitled, Vietnam: The War at Home and Abroad. More recently, he was the Coordinator of the L.A. Coalition to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal, as well as a member of the national steering committee of the Campaign to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
He currently serves on the Board of the L.A.-based Office of the Americas and on the steering committee of the anti-war coalition, International ANSWER/L.A. Mr. Lafferty has recently been elected as a Fellow of the L.A. Institute for the Humanities, at the University of Southern California.
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Government Aims to Block Accountability for Illegal Spying on Americans
The law effectively removes oversight for spying from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court or FISA court and leaves it up to the Executive Branch to monitor itself, with Attorney General Gonzales having the primary responsibility for oversight. The arguments are being heard at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco
In our ongoing coverage of racial profiling and religious bias since 9/11, we go now to look at a case that ended in a big verdict for an employee who was fired for wearing a head scarf. Recently, a federal jury in Phoenix awarded more than 280 thousand dollars in a religious discrimination suit against Alamo Car Rental. The suit was brought by U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Alamo Car Rental was charged on a post-9/11 backlash discrimination based on religion.
The case involved Bilan Nur, a woman of Somali descent who was let go from her customer service position in December 2001 after the Alamo car rental office she worked at in Phoenix refused to let her wear a headscarf to work.
Guest – Valerie Meyer, EEOC Attorney in Phoenix, Arizona.
Recently, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that former Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller may be sued from ethnic and religious discrimination after 9/11. Former detainee, Javaid Iqbal was among the hundreds of muslims rounded up after 9/11 being held in maximum security conditions after they were identified as being of high interest to the investigation.
Iqbal, a Pakistani Muslim, was arrested at his Long Island home on Nov. 2, 2001, and was charged with nonviolent federal crimes unrelated to terrorism. Two months later, he was moved to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, where he was held in solitary confinement for more than 150 days without a hearing, his lawsuit alleged.
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan recently recognized that Iqbal had the right not to be subjected to needlessly harsh conditions of confinement, the right to be free from the use of excessive force and the right not to be subjected to ethnic or religious discrimination.
