NEW YORK - September 14 - The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) today released Faces of Guantánamo, a report offering a revealing glimpse of the lives of men currently detained at Guantánamo. While recent news has focused on information about the 14 "high-value" detainees recently transferred from secret CIA prisons abroad to Guantánamo, the realities for more than 450 detainees already imprisoned at the base have been pushed to the background. Faces of Guantánamo highlights the cases of nearly thirty men who have been held in Guantánamo for nearly five years-despite significant evidence that they are innocent of any wrongdoing.

Among the men profiled are:

• Haji Bismullah, an Afghan who fought against the Taliban and served as a provincial government official during the transitional Afghan government;
  
• Adel Hassan Hamad, a Sudanese relief worker, whose detention was described as "unconscionable" by a military official at his Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT);
  
• Dr. Hafizullah Shaba Khail, an Afghan who was the victim of a false arrest while serving on a local commission of elders attempting to root out government corruption; and
  
• Haji Nusrat, an eighty year old Afghan, arrested and transferred to Guantánamo after he protested his son's arrest.

Under two military commission bills currently being considered in the Senate, all of these men would no longer be able to contest their detentions in U.S. court. Both bills contain provisions that would retroactively strip U.S. courts of jurisdiction over the habeas petitions of the more than 450 men currently imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay. In addition, the courts would also be barred from hearing the habeas petitions of any future detainees. A simple determination that someone-even a U.S. citizen taken into custody abroad-is an 'enemy combatant' would be enough to detain them indefinitely.

The military commissions created by the legislation will try only those accused of violations of the laws of war; many of the men imprisoned at Guantánamo have been held for nearly five years without ever having been charged with a crime. These men depend on the right of habeas corpus to have their cases heard. By eliminating the power of the federal courts to hear pending habeas cases, the legislation would effectively render the McCain Amendment prohibiting cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment of detainees unenforceable and prevent any accountability for the torture or abuse of detainees.

CCR Staff Attorney Gitanjali Gutierrez said: "These bills would be a gross miscarriage of justice not only for these men but for the laws and values American is based upon. How can the President accuse one man of being a terrorist 'mastermind' and give him a trial while simultaneously authorizing the United States to lock up a Sudanese relief worker or a foreigner swept up in the fog of war for the rest of his life without any trial is incomprehensible. All detainees in U.S. custody must be able to contest their detention in a U.S. court. Otherwise, these innocent men may be trapped in Guantanamo, never to be heard from again. We as a country cannot afford to have this on our conscience."

About CCR
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a non-profit legal and educational organization dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights demonstrators in the South, CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change."

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