What to Do With the Guantanamo Prisoners?

[DaSangarTalib]

William Fisher,


Foreign policy and human rights experts appear to agree with a United Nations report calling on the US to shut down its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba — but most believe that simply closing it misses a larger point: What to do with the prisoners?

The report released on Feb. 16 found that US treatment of Guantanamo detainees violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture. It urges the US to close the facility and bring the captives to trial on US territory, charging that Washington’s justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.

Compiled by five UN experts who interviewed former prisoners, detainees’ lawyers and families, and US officials, the report is the result of an 18-month investigation.

While the UN team was refused access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, it concluded that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques “must be assessed as amounting to torture.”

“We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government,” said Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture and one of the experts. “There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture.”

Nowak, a member of the International Commission of Jurists, is professor of constitutional law and human rights at the University of Vienna and director of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights (BIM). Since 1996, he has served as judge at the Human Rights Chamber for Bosnia and Herzegovina in Sarajevo.

Human rights and legal advocates hope the UN’s conclusions will add weight to similar findings by rights groups and the European Parliament. Prof. Erwin Chemerinsky of the Duke University Law School shares that hope. He said: “I believe that the existence of the prison in Guantanamo and the treatment of the detainees there violates international law. However, if the base at Guantanamo should be closed, it is essential that something worse not replace it. For example, it would be much worse if the prisoners are then transferred to prisons in foreign countries beyond American courts’ jurisdiction.”

This view was echoed by Gabor Rona, international legal director of Human Rights First (HRF), a New York-based advocacy group. He says: “Whether or not Guantanamo stays open or is closed addresses only one symptom of a larger question: What will happen to the detainees? If closing GITMO simply means shipping the detainees off to other places and fates where their rights continue to be violated, that would be no step at all.”

Barbara J. Olshansky, director counsel of the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), said, “With each day (GITMO) remains open, it presents a very ugly picture to the world of the US decision to cast aside the rule of law and trample the most fundamental human rights.”

She added, “Guantanamo has become the symbol for our country’s decision to deny human dignity. At the same time, however, we remain very concerned about the actions the US might take if it were to close the base. It has taken a great deal of effort to ensure that detainees are not transferred to indefinite detention or to detention under torture from Guantanamo.”

According to Jonathan Turley of Georgetown University and a widely recognized authority on US Constitutional and international law, “Closing Gitmo will mean little if the underlying abuses continue at a dozen less visible locations.”

The report focuses on the US government’s legal basis for the detentions as described in its formal response to the UN inquiry: “The law of war allows the United States — and any other country engaged in combat — to hold enemy combatants without charges or access to counsel for the duration of hostilities. Detention is not an act of punishment, but of security and military necessity. It serves the purpose of preventing combatants from continuing to take up arms against the United States.”

But the UN team concluded that there had been insufficient due process to determine whether the more than 750 people who had been detained at Guantanamo Bay since January 2002 were “enemy combatants,” and determined that the primary purpose of their confinement was for interrogation, not to prevent them from taking up arms.

The report said the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques — prolonged solitary confinement, exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light; forced shaving and other techniques that exploit religious beliefs or cause intimidation and humiliation — constituted inhumane treatment and, in some cases, reached the threshold of torture.

[Kittygyal]

omg!!! to much to read :)

[DaSangarTalib]

:) no need to be lazy :)

[miseshayek]

Well, I think it is pretty obvious what should be done. Something like the following should be done:

(1) The federal government should be given one day of court time per prisioner [with at least 25 such proceedings going simultaneously] to make a case before a federal judge that each prisioner is in fact connected with a terrorist organization. If they can't make out such a case[which they won't be able to in 90% of the cases] the following should immediately be put into effect. If they can, then a full federal trial should be initiated on an accelerated basis. The feds have had at least 3 years now to gather their evidence on these "detainees," plenty of time for them to make out a prima facia case for continued incarceration.

(2) If the feds cannot make out a prima facia case against a detaineee, the detainee should temporarily be put up in a first class hotel with his room and room service fully paid for. He should receive psychological and spirtual counseling of his choice for several months under such conditions but should otherwise be treated as a free person.

(3) During the above period his family should be located and any indigent members should immediately be provided for. Upon his or their request, they should be flown at no cost to visit him.

(4) As soon as the former detainees psychological and spiritual advisors certify him as restored as to near a normal frame of mind as is possible after such abuse, he should be returned to his family with appropriate compensation for his ordeal. I would recommend at least three times per annum what he was making prior to his kidnapping.

(5) A written apology should be given to him and his family by the President of the United States - the man most directly responsibly for this tyrannical arrangement. The President should also get on nationwide television and apologize to the American people for having abused his office by conducting such an unAmerican program. A Congressional inquiry should be initiated to determine whether he was fit to continue to hold office or whether he should be impeached and removed from office.

That is what should be done.

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[imaad_udeen]

(2) If the feds cannot make out a prima facia case against a detaineee, the detainee should temporarily be put up in a first class hotel with his room and room service fully paid for. He should receive psychological and spirtual counseling of his choice for several months under such conditions but should otherwise be treated as a free person.

;D

(3) During the above period his family should be located and any indigent members should immediately be provided for. Upon his or their request, they should be flown at no cost to visit him.

;D

(4) As soon as the former detainees psychological and spiritual advisors certify him as restored as to near a normal frame of mind as is possible after such abuse, he should be returned to his family with appropriate compensation for his ordeal. I would recommend at least three times per annum what he was making prior to his kidnapping.

;D

(5) A written apology should be given to him and his family by the President of the United States - the man most directly responsibly for this tyrannical arrangement. The President should also get on nationwide television and apologize to the American people for having abused his office by conducting such an unAmerican program. A Congressional inquiry should be initiated to determine whether he was fit to continue to hold office or whether he should be impeached and removed from office.

That is what should be done.

;D

But seriously, stop your heart from bleeding so bad.

[miseshayek]

I think you may confused. There is a distinct difference between being a "bleeding heart" and having a normal sense of simple justice.

What would you consider as reasonable if you had been picked up somewhere in Ohio, anonymously held in a 5X8 foot cage for over three year with no privacy and no notification to anyone of where you were, "examined" about three times a week for several hours as to why you were such an evil person interspaced with demand that you identify those who you were conspiring with to kill innocents, said examinations being carried out through methods that the Red Cross and UN have characterized as torture, and never ever allowed to see a lawyer or have a chance at a hearing before any tribunal?

What would be reasonable justice for such treatment according to a "nonbleeding heart" like you?

[Hisbul_Aziz]

TO MUCH WORDS Ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!!:uhwhat :uhwhat :uhwhat :uhwhat


CAN U USE ALL THOSE WORDS IN ONE TO TWO SENTENCES WASALAM


fI_AMANALLAH

[abdul Majid]

Ok Thats Nice And All, But What About The Sisters That Have Been Raped???? And So Forth???? What About Them Give Them A Nice Hotel Room??? Try Again!!

[miseshayek]

Ok Thats Nice And All, But What About The Sisters That Have Been Raped???? And So Forth???? What About Them Give Them A Nice Hotel Room??? Try Again!!

Well, I'm not aware of any Sisters that have been raped, and I don't believe that either the Red Cross or the UN has made such a report.

However, I'm curious as to what you would suggest as reasonable and feasible?

As an attorney, I can tell you that the principle on which American tort law works is that the plaintiff should be restored to his original condition with damages paid for the damage done to him. I can also tell you that as a matter of law and practicality you are not going to manage to bring Bush up on criminal charges. There is this thing called legal immunity ....

[imaad_udeen]

I think you may confused. There is a distinct difference between being a "bleeding heart" and having a normal sense of simple justice.

What would you consider as reasonable if you had been picked up somewhere in Ohio, anonymously held in a 5X8 foot cage for over three year with no privacy and no notification to anyone of where you were, "examined" about three times a week for several hours as to why you were such an evil person interspaced with demand that you identify those who you were conspiring with to kill innocents, said examinations being carried out through methods that the Red Cross and UN have characterized as torture, and never ever allowed to see a lawyer or have a chance at a hearing before any tribunal?

What would be reasonable justice for such treatment according to a "nonbleeding heart" like you?

You are very naive if you think the people being held in Camp Delta are not very dangerous criminals who, if left to their own devices, would try to kill as many innocent people in terrorist attacks as they possibly could.

[north_malaysian]

Well, I think it is pretty obvious what should be done. Something like the following should be done:

(1) The federal government should be given one day of court time per prisioner [with at least 25 such proceedings going simultaneously] to make a case before a federal judge that each prisioner is in fact connected with a terrorist organization. If they can't make out such a case[which they won't be able to in 90% of the cases] the following should immediately be put into effect. If they can, then a full federal trial should be initiated on an accelerated basis. The feds have had at least 3 years now to gather their evidence on these "detainees," plenty of time for them to make out a prima facia case for continued incarceration.

(2) If the feds cannot make out a prima facia case against a detaineee, the detainee should temporarily be put up in a first class hotel with his room and room service fully paid for. He should receive psychological and spirtual counseling of his choice for several months under such conditions but should otherwise be treated as a free person.

(3) During the above period his family should be located and any indigent members should immediately be provided for. Upon his or their request, they should be flown at no cost to visit him.

(4) As soon as the former detainees psychological and spiritual advisors certify him as restored as to near a normal frame of mind as is possible after such abuse, he should be returned to his family with appropriate compensation for his ordeal. I would recommend at least three times per annum what he was making prior to his kidnapping.

(5) A written apology should be given to him and his family by the President of the United States - the man most directly responsibly for this tyrannical arrangement. The President should also get on nationwide television and apologize to the American people for having abused his office by conducting such an unAmerican program. A Congressional inquiry should be initiated to determine whether he was fit to continue to hold office or whether he should be impeached and removed from office.

That is what should be done.

Good ideas (especially the first class hotel):okay:

I believe that there should be no detention without trial.

P/S - Hey Muslims, miseshayek is a proof that Jewish do have heart and brain like anyone else.:statisfie

[knuckles]

You are very naive if you think the people being held in Camp Delta are not very dangerous criminals who, if left to their own devices, would try to kill as many innocent people in terrorist attacks as they possibly could.

It's Camp X-Ray and you're right. I would start trial immediately. All of those that are convicted of aiding the enemy would then be summarily hung in the courtyard. All others are to be released to their home countries with a warning that the home country is now responsible for them and any attack against US forces will be considered their responsibility.

[imaad_udeen]

It's Camp X-Ray and you're right.

X-Ray was the name of the temporary facility initially used to hold high profile prisoners.

Camp Delta is the name given to the permanent facility, five miles away from X-Ray, which now houses the detainees. X-Ray was closed on April 29, 2002.

[miseshayek]

You are very naive if you think the people being held in Camp Delta are not very dangerous criminals who, if left to their own devices, would try to kill as many innocent people in terrorist attacks as they possibly could.

Really, and you know this how?

Presumably you realize that the Bush Administration has done everything within its power to keep these guys from receiving any sort of independent hearing, including the formality of a hearing before a military tribunal?

Presumably you realize that when the U.S. Supreme Court finally ordered such hearings that 7 out of the original 12 "detainees" were released as no threat? [Congress then enacted a fix that stopped any further hearings.]

But you know that "the people being held in Camp Delta are not very dangerous criminals who, if left to their own devices, would try to kill as many innocent people in terrorist attacks as they possibly could." My, my, very impressive. Do you also read tea leaves and palms?

[miseshayek]

Good ideas (especially the first class hotel):okay:

I believe that there should be no detention without trial.

P/S - Hey Muslims, miseshayek is a proof that Jewish do have heart and brain like anyone else.:statisfie

Nice until the last sentence, but I forgot, "offense" is a one way street.