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Protest on Arbitrary Detention in Name of the 'War on Terror'
Groups Exercise Right to Free Speech as Court Hears Case to Deny Rights to Due Process
On April 28, 2004, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in the cases of Jose Padilla and Yaser Esam Hamdi regarding the ability of a U.S. President to designate U.S. citizens as "enemy combatants" and to deny them the ability to challenge the lawfulness of their detention. Amnesty International, working with a coalition of local and national groups, held a demonstration in front of the court. This was the second time the groups have demonstrated the President's claim of virtually unlimited "wartime powers": the first was on April 20th.
Samina Faheem Sundas, Executive Director of American Muslim Voice, among the speakers who addressed the April 20th San Francisco rally against arbitrary detentions. Here is text of Samina’s speech:
The United States has routinely condemned gross transgressions of basic due process rights when committed by other governments because they violate binding international law to which the U.S. government and over 140 other governments have subscribed. For example, the United States has:
- Criticized the military courts in Peru that convicted U.S. citizen Lori Berenson for terrorism without adequate due process; indeed, the State Department called on Peru to retry the case "in open civilian court with full rights of legal defense, in accordance with international judicial norms."
- Condemned Nigeria for convicting and executing author and environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight other activists after a trial before a special military court appointed by the government.
- Criticized the manner in which military tribunals are used to try accused terrorists in Egypt, pointing out in its most recent annual report on human rights in that country that 'military courts do not ensure civilian defendants' due process before an independent tribunal.
- Expressed great concern about trials of foreigners, including Americans, for espionage before closed tribunals in Russia.
- They have criticized many other countries for human rights violations. We have called ourselves the superpower, the civilized society, the champion of human rights and a free country. It makes me wonder, what are we doing here today?
- More than 600 detainees are being held in the American military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Most were captured in Afghanistan while American troops were fighting the Tali-ban forces there. Most of them were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Innocent men were handed over by bounty hunters as terrorists in order to claim rewards. The Supreme Court will hear a pair of cases today that will help set the ground rules for the war on terror. Detainees at Guantánamo, some of whom have been held for more than two years under inhumane conditions, are seeking an opportunity to challenge their confinement. The Bush administration insists, however, that they can be imprisoned indefinitely. That position is legally and morally wrong.
Some of the families say that their family members were not involved with Al Qaeda or engaged in military action against the United States.
The detainees are seeking only the most basic elements of due process: to be informed of the charges against them, to meet with their families and lawyers, and to have a forum for contesting their imprisonment.
Should the Rights of People Simply Disappear by Presidential Order?
What does it mean when the President of the United States can designate a citizen in the U.S. as an “enemy combatant,” and order the military to hold that person indefinitely and without charges? The U.S. Supreme Court is now deciding whether the courts even have the right to question the President’s action. What does it mean when the U.S. military can literally snatch people off the street, designate them as “enemy combatants,” and assert that they are beyond the reach of either U.S. or international law?
If the Supreme Court upholds these actions, it will condone the President’s claim of virtually unlimited “wartime powers” without a formal declaration of war by the Congress, and with zero or extremely limited oversight by the courts or the Congress.
Today April 20 the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the President’s alleged right to create a “law free zone” at the Guantanamo detention center in Cuba. And on April 28, the Court will hear oral arguments on the President’s asserted right to designate citizens as “enemy combatants,” hold them at the U.S. Navy base in Charleston, SC, and deny them the ability to challenge the lawfulness of their detention.
We believe that no one, not even the President of United States, should be allowed to create a “legal Black Hole” into which people are dropped with no recourse to the courts or to international law. We all agree that this dangerous new president-designated category of “enemy combatants” who have no legal rights is unjust, illegal, immoral and completely un-American. Rather than help America's defense, it makes the nation more vulnerable and cannot be allowed to stand. The Supreme Court should rule for the detainees.
Our future and the future of hundreds of anonymous detainees now hangs in the balance. This is a watershed event in history. What is at stake is just how much the President will be allowed to get away with.
Our silence will be taken as assent.
Please join us to say enough is enough and demand our administration to uphold our Constitution and the international law, to be the human rights champion that we claim to be.
Sources: NLG, HRW
PARTICIPATING ORGANIZATIONS:
American Friends Service Committee
American Muslim Voice
Amnesty International USA
Arab American Institute
Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Blue Triangle Network
Cambios Planetarios
Community Solutions Foundation Trust, LLC.
Council on American-Islamic Relations
Equal Justice USA/Moratorium Now!
First Amendment Foundation
Freedom Socialist Party
Guantanamo Human Rights Commission
Japanese American Citizens League
La Resistencia
Muslim Civil Rights Center
National Committee Against Repressive Legislation
(NCARL) National Lawyers Guild
Not in Our Name Project
Oct. 22nd Coalition to Stop Police Brutality, Repression and the Criminalization of a Generation
Pax Christi USA, Proposition One Committee
Radical Women
Refuse & Resist!
Solidarity USA, Two- Edged Sword Incorporated
United for Peace and Justice
The call to action can be found at: http://www.nlg.org/eccases/ http://www.usnewswire.com/
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