NEW YORK and WASHINGTON - February 11 - Three prominent human rights groups involved in a lawsuit seeking the disclosure of government documents that relate to secret detention, rendition, and torture will hold a press teleconference tomorrow, Thursday, February 12 at 11:30am (Eastern Standard Time). The groups-Amnesty International USA, The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, and the Center for Constitutional Rights-will make public the most recent documents they have obtained through their lawsuit from the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) and U.S. Department of State (DOS). They will provide an overview of the case, the relevance of these most recent findings, and possible implications for future efforts to uncover details about the CIA program,

The 2007 lawsuit is based on Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests dating back to 2004. Previous government releases largely included documents already in the public record, including, in one instance, a copy of the Geneva Conventions. This new batch, however, contains documents that confirm the existence of secret CIA prisons at Bagram and in Iraq; affirm the DOD's cooperation with the CIA's ghost detention program; and show one case where the DOD sought to delay the release of Guantánamo prisoners who were scheduled to be sent home by a month and a half in order to avoid bad press.

What: Press Teleconference on DOD documents from FOIA lawsuit

Who: Meg Satterthwaite and Amna Akbar, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, NYU School of Law

Gitanjali Gutierrez, the Center for Constitutional Rights

When: 11:30 a.m., Thursday, February 12, 2009

How: Domestic Journalists: 866-793-1342

International Journalists: 703-639-1313

All relevant documents will be available online at the beginning of the call.