For nearly two years, US President George W. Bush's administration has kept hundreds of prisoners of the war on terror at its naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba, leaving them in a legal void that is beginning to worry US lawyers.
"A rogue justice!" exclaims Michael Ratner, an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, playing off the State Department's expression "rogue states" for countries that support terrorism.
One of his clients, a British national captured in Afghanistan, insists he has been able to see the sun for only seven minutes in the last seven months and does not even know he has an attorney.
"Moazzam Begg was allowed to read only one letter sent by his parents," says Ratner, who is also defending Australian prisoner David Hicks.
Begg is among the 660 people from 42 countries, kept behind barbed wire at the camp, whose fate is unclear. The Bush administration has refused to grant them prisoner of war status as outlined by the Geneva conventions.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has made it clear that people will remain in detention until the war on terror ends.
"The prisoners find themselves in a gray zone where military justice overlaps with civil law, because the Bush administration is working on procedural issues to justify these extended detentions without due process," explains American University professor Emilio Vianno, a specialist in international law.
This argument is refuted by the military, which insists that war-time cases can be handled by military tribunals.
Law professor Jonathan Turley from George Washington University calls the military rules "laughable."
"They give the appearance of legal process without any substance," Turley continues. "The tribunal is in fact designed to guarantee convictions."
More than 20 months after the prison camp was established in Guantanamo in the wake of September 11, and after the US government announced its intention to use military tribunals, the prisoners cannot meet their lawyers, no legal procedure has been established, and no date for opening trials has been set.
"It is not by chance that the US chose Guantanamo for this camp," argues professor Vianno. "It allows the government not to apply to these prisoners the basic rights spelled out in the US Constitution."
The detainees are subjected to "continuous interrogations with the promising of a reward system, promising some ridiculous thing like a hamburger," says Michael Ratter.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese