Civil Liberties, Extraordinary Rendition, Guantanamo, Prison Industry, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Guantanamo Bay Detainee Dies : Alleged Suicide
Law and Disorder hosts Dalia Hashad, Michael Ratner and Michael Smith discuss the recent alleged suicide at Guantanamo Bay Prison in Cuba. The Saudi Arabian detainee died last Wednesday at Guantanamo Bay prison. The U.S. military says he apparently committed suicide.
“It’s conceivable he (the detainee) was murdered.” – – Michael Ratner, President of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
“This death demonstrates the urgent need to close Guantanamo Bay Prison.” – – Dalia Hashad, Amnesty International USA Program Director .
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Listen to the Pacifica National Special – The War on Immigrants – Co-hosted by our own Dalia Hashad.
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“War on Terror” Prisoners and Secret Detentions Update
Michael Ratner describes how the Bush Administration has been pushing coercive interrogations with limited resistance in Congress. He also points out the new laws that apply to prisoners in US military custody. Ratner says they are now required to obey the Army Field Manual on detainee treatment FM 34-52 that include almost 20 interrogation techniques that do not constitute torture. Those prisoners, alleged enemy combatants citizen or non-citizen in the custody of the CIA (secret prisons) are not subject to the Army Field Manual.
Anti-Torture Movement in Chicago Police Torture Case Gains Traction
The City Council will hold hearings on a special prosecutor’s “whitewash†report into police torture by former Chicago Police Lt. Jon Burge, thanks to a resolution co-signed today by 26 aldermen
The case includes a four-year investigation focused on allegations that 148 black men were tortured in Chicago police interrogation rooms in the 1970s and ’80s. The men say detectives under the command of Lt. Jon Burge beat them, used electric shocks, played mock Russian roulette and started to smother at least one to force confessions. Prosecutors described this type of criminal justice system where top officials in a position to put a stop to police torture appeared blind to the abuse. Among them, Mayor Richard Daley, when he served as Cook County state’s attorney.
Guest – Flint Taylor – Attorney with the People’s Law Office, leading the fight against covering up torture by the Chicago Police Department.
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Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine
Last month we heard author Joel Kovel discuss his book at the Brecht Forum. He recently joined Law and Disorder in the studio for a riveting interview that also looked into Kovel’s personal changes that led him to write Overcoming Zionism. Toward the end of the interview, co-host Dalia Hashad asks why Joel Kovel chose the word “overcoming” in his title.
“This book is absolutely fundamental for those who reject the unfortunate confusion between Jews, Judaism, Zionism and the State of Israel — a confusion which is the basis for systematic manipulation by the imperialist power system. It convincingly argues in favour of a single secular state for Israelis and Palestinians as the only democratic solution for the region.” Samir Amin, Director of the Third World Forum.
Guest – Joel Kovel author of Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine, has been engaged in struggles for peace and justice since the Vietnam War era. He has worked within the antiwar and antinuclear movements, the solidarity movements in Central America and the Caribbean, the movements for democratic media, and, increasingly, for ecological transformation. He lived in Nicaragua for a period in 1986, and accompanied Pastors for Peace as they broke the US blockade on Cuba in their 1994 Friendshipment. He has acted in films, worked frequently with the Bread and Puppet theatre, and lectured on four continents. Kovel joined the Green Party since 1990. In 1998, he was the Green Party candidate for US Senator from New York, and in 2000 sought their Presidential nomination.
Civil Liberties, Guantanamo, Military Tribunal, Supreme Court, Targeting Muslims, Torture, Truth to Power
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Why Did Pulitzer Ignore Juan Gonzalez’s Reporting on Air Quality at Ground Zero?
Co-hosts Michael Ratner and Michael Smith commend the valuable investigative journalism by columnist and Democracy Now cohost, Juan Gonzalez. Gonzalez had written extensively about the air quality at Ground Zero after September 11th. Read more here. Here is an archive of Juan Gonzalez’s columns.
Co-hosts also discuss Supreme Court partial birth abortion ruling (PDF) and Michael Ratner‘s trip to Paris and the follow up on the case brought against former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in Germany.
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Drug Provision of the Higher Education Act
A coalition of groups including criminal justice, drug treatment, health organizations are seeking to repeal the Drug Provision of the Higher Education Act. It’s a 1998 law that delays or denies federal financial aid to people convicted of state or federal drug offenses. Since the law took effect in 2000, 200 thousand students have been denied financial aid. According to the Department of Education, that’s one in every 400 students rejected who apply for federal aid.
As a result, these young students, having already been punished for their offenses are now dropping out of school or reducing courses. Today, there are more than 300 organizations working to overturn this law.
Guest – David Borden, Executive Director of the Drug Reform Coordination Network. David’s been very active lately in lobbying to repeal the Drug Provision of the Higher Education Act (also known as the “Aid Elimination Penalty)
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Amnesty Report on Guantanamo Bay Prison Conditions
Earlier this month, Amnesty International released a report detailing the horrid prisoner conditions at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The report includes descriptions such as extreme isolation, sensory deprivation, solitary confinement 22 hours a day, and 24 hour lighting. Eighty per cent of the approximately 385 men currently held at Guantánamo are in isolation. Amnesty International also reports that the cells have no windows to the outside or access to natural light or fresh air.
Amnesty International is also calling on the government to allow independent health care professionals into Guantánamo to examine detainees in private and to allow visits by independent human right organizations and UN human rights experts.
Co-host and Amnesty International Director of the USA program, Dalia Hashad reads an excerpt from Bisher al-Rawi’s moving letter to free Guantanamo prisoners.
Guest – Shane Kadidal, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.
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Civil Liberties, Surveillance, Targeting Muslims, Truth to Power
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Communication Lockdown – Communication Management Units
The Justice department has quietly opened a new section of a prison that detains mostly Arab muslims with a strict lock down on communication to the outside world. The Communications Management Unit or CMU is located in Terre Haute, Indiana. All communication with the outside is strictly monitored at the medium-security facility.
In April of last year, the US Federal Bureau of Prisons, part of the Department of Justice, proposed a set of strict new regulations and, as required, there was a period of public comment. Human rights and civil liberties groups voiced strong concerns about the constitutionality of the proposed program.
The program originally proposed was said to be applicable only to terrorists and terrorist-related criminals. The American Civil Liberties Union, however, along with a coalition of other civil liberties groups, objected to the language of the regulation as too broad, and potentially applicable to non-terrorists and even to those not convicted of a crime but merely being held as “witnesses, detainees, or otherwise.”
Guest -Howard Kieffer, a defense lawyer and Executive Director of the Federal Defense Associates.
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Co-Host, Dalia Hashad Speaks About The CMU At The Left Forum 2007
The panel was titled, Bush and Company’s War on Civil Liberties and What It Means for Our Future. Here Dalia describes aspects of the communicaton lockdowns at the CMU. The CMU is a secretive new prison program segregating “high-security-risk” Muslim and Middle Eastern prisoners, tightly restricting communications with the outside world.
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Newark Public School District Holds Graduation at Baptist Church – NJACLU Sues
The ACLU of NJ is suing the Newark public school district for holding graduation ceremonies in a Baptist church. One plaintiff in the case, he’s a Muslim student, says he’s not going to enter into the building because of the religious images. Forced to choose between entering the Baptist church or missing graduation, he missed his graduation. When the ACLU of NJ threatened to sue the Newark school district previously for this same issue, they promised to move the graduation ceremony. The New Jersey ACLU says the case is a living example of why the New Jersey Constitution makes it clear that the government should neither favor nor discriminate against religious practice.
Guest – Ed Barocas, Legal Director of the New Jersey ACLU and lead attorney on the case.
Guest – Rob Boston, Assistant Director of Communications for Americans United for Separation of Church and State.
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Hi-Tech Surveillance, Eroding Civil Liberties and Dissent – Michael Steven Smith
We hear an excerpt from a speech delivered by co-host Michael Smith at the Left Forum 2007. The panel was titled, Bush and Company’s War on Civil Liberties and What It Means for Our Future. In his speech, Michael Smith describes the wider picture of how hi-tech surveillance together with eroding civil liberties and police spying has seriously affected dissent.
