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.
This week Law and Disorder hosts update on Guantanamo Bay demonstrations, assess the violence and death amid the illegal wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and acknowledge the 49th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. Hosts also find out where our own Dalia Hashad has been for the last few months.
Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Smith discuss the 49th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution. We also hear the next 2 speeches from the Brecht Forum event, Who Killed Che’. Author and historian Jane Franklin and attorney/civil rights activist Len Weinglass deliver compelling talks on Cuba’s history, a background on the Cuban Five and accounts from the quiet US war.
Co-host Michael Ratner discusses presidential candidates views on torture and “soft facism.”
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.”
Incarcerating 2.3 million people isn’t cheap. Paul Wright unearths astonishing facts on the private prison industry and it needs to maintain occupancy rates to make a profit. Prison Profiteers will tell you where your tax dollars are going as you help to bankroll the biggest prison machine the world has ever seen. Prison Profiteers was also written by Tara Herival, co-editor of Prison Nation.
37,000 Americans asked CCR to send a copy of the U.S. Constitution to George W. Bush as an early holiday present in the hope that he might actually read it. Santa made the trip down from the North Pole in his sleigh to try to deliver the law.
Law and Disorder hosts discuss details of this story. Articles say the CIA has destroyed hundreds of hours of video tapes of the likely 2002 water torture of three men. Although the CIA has not acknowledged that the videos are of water torture. The Justice Department and the Central Intelligence Agency have launched a joint probe into the CIA’s destruction of at least two videotapes documenting prisoner interrogations at a secret CIA prison. House Votes to Outlaw Waterboarding.
As we all now know, the CIA has destroyed hundreds of hours of video tapes of the likely 2002 water torture of three men, allegedly involved with al-Qaida, by its agents. Although the CIA has not acknowledged that the videos are of water torture – often known euphemistically as “waterboarding†– a former CIA agent, John Kiriakou, has said that the waterboarding was authorised from the highest levels of the Bush administration. Read More at Just Left.
“In accepting this remarkable award I do not stand here alone. I stand with the generations that have gone before—those particularly at the Center for Constitutional Rights that have always been willing to upend the status quo and take personal and political risks. I stand especially on the shoulders of our founders of 40 years ago—William Kunstler, Morton Stavis, Arthur Kinoy, and Ben Smith. Read also Michael Ratner’s article in the Guardian UK
Hosts examine the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act with former National Lawyers Guild President Peter Erlinder. Peter says the legislation appears an effort to re-create the House Committee on Un-American Activities, which was a standing commission in the fifties and sixties to root out “un-American” ideas among political activists.
RADICALIZATION– The term ‘radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically-based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.
IDEOLOGICALLY-BASED VIOLENCE– The term ‘ideologically-based violence’ means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual’s political, religious, or social beliefs.
Professor Marnia Lazreg’s new book, links the use of torture to the demise of empire using two examples. France in Algeria and the United States in Iraq. Lazreg also points out how occupying nations justify the use of torture as a regrettable but necessary means of saving Western civilization from those who challenge their rule. She traces back most of the brutal torture techniques as borrowed material from totalitarian movements throughout history. One review writes how Torture and the Twilight of Empire holds disturbing lessons as the War on Terror is carried out.
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.
