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For Immediate Release
July, 30 2009, 01:26pm EDT
Contact:
Rachel Myers (646) 206-8643 or (212) 549-2666; media@aclu.org
Judge Orders Release of Guantanamo Detainee Mohammed Jawad
ACLU Client to Be Returned Home to Afghanistan
WASHINGTON
WASHINGTON - A federal judge today
ordered the government to release Guantanamo detainee and American
Civil Liberties Union client Mohammed Jawad, who has been illegally
detained by the U.S. for almost seven years. The Afghan government has
indicated that it is prepared to receive Jawad immediately and
unconditionally. U.S. District Judge Ellen Huvelle gave the Justice
Department until August 21 to release Jawad from Guantanamo and
transfer him to the custody of the Afghan government.
Judge Huvelle also ordered the
Justice Department to inform Congress of its plans for returning Jawad
to Afghanistan by August 6, and to produce a report on the status of
his repatriation by August 24.
The following can be attributed to
Jonathan Hafetz, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project
and one of Jawad's lawyers in his habeas corpus case:
"Judge Huvelle made clear that Mr.
Jawad has been illegally detained and the government has no credible
evidence to continue holding him. We are pleased that the Justice
Department has expressed a commitment to getting him home so that this
nightmare of abuse and injustice can finally come to an end."
Judge Huvelle's order is available online at: www.aclu.org/safefree/detention/40543lgl20090730.html
More information about Jawad's case is available at: www.aclu.org/jawad
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
(212) 549-2666LATEST NEWS
Citing Scripture, Hegseth Compares Trump to Jesus and Journalists Covering Unpopular Iran War to the Pharisees
Hegseth has often used the Bible to sanctify violence against enemies he deems "ungodly." So far, more than 1,700 civilians have been killed in his and Trump's war in Iran.
Apr 16, 2026
Days after President Donald Trump elicited backlash with an artificially generated image likening himself to Jesus Christ, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth doubled down on the comparison, invoking scripture during a Pentagon press briefing.
Hegseth, an avowed Christian nationalist who has portrayed the war against Iran as part of a “crusade” against the Muslim world, has turned the Pentagon into a forum for proselytizing, with monthly prayer meetings featuring fundamentalist pastors.
And that posture has seeped into his regular briefings about the war, as it did on Thursday, when he likened reporters covering the war negatively to the “Pharisees,” who dismissed Jesus as a false prophet in the Bible.
“This past Sunday, I was sitting in church with my family, and our minister preached from the Book of Mark, the third chapter. And in the passage, Jesus entered a synagogue and healed a man with a withered hand," Hegseth said.
“The Pharisees came to watch, and as the scripture reads, they came to see whether He, Jesus, would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. You see, the Pharisees, the so-called elites of their time, were there to witness, to write everything down, to report. But their hearts were hardened,” he continued.
“Even though they witnessed a literal miracle, it didn’t matter. They were only there to explain away the goodness in pursuit of their agenda,” Hegseth continued. “I sat there in church, and I thought, ‘These press are just like these Pharisees.’ Not all of you, but the legacy, Trump-hating press.”
Trump's portrayal of himself as a messiah over the weekend was met with so much outrage, including from many of his Christian supporters, that it is one of the few posts he has deleted from social media.
Other reporting from Axios on Thursday revealed that the controversial image was perhaps more deliberate than previously thought, having been discussed with one of his closest advisers, housing finance chief Bill Pulte, shortly before it was posted.
And Trump has since posted another image of himself being embraced by Jesus, accompanied by a caption stating that "God might be playing his Trump card."
As for Hegseth's comments on Thursday, there was little ambiguity in his description of Trump as a Christlike figure.
The defense secretary begged the press to "open their eyes" to the "historic goodness" of the war effort and referred to the operations by the US military to rescue downed bomber pilots in Iran as a "miracle."
Hegseth has often used scripture to sanctify "overwhelming violence" against enemies he deems "ungodly." During a Christian service at the Pentagon late last month, he said a prayer for the US military to deliver violence upon those "who deserve no mercy."
“Behold now the wicked who rise against your justice and the peace of the righteous. Snap the rod of the oppressor, frustrate the wicked plans, and break the teeth of the ungodly. By the blast of your anger, let the evil perish,” Hegseth said. "Grant this task force clear and righteous targets for violence. Surround them as a shield, protect the innocent and blameless in their midst, make their arrows like those of a skilled warrior who returned not empty-handed. Let every round find its mark against the enemies of righteousness and our great nation."
Whatever overtures have been made toward protecting "the innocent," Hegseth's holy war has resulted in more than 1,700 dead civilians in Iran, including more than 250 children, according to the most recent casualty report from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA). More than 3 million people have been displaced from their homes, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency.
The war that Hegseth suggested the press should be covering positively has been broadly unpopular from the beginning, with 56% of respondents to a Marist poll in early March disapproving of military action.
Just 24% of Americans said in a Reuters/Ipsos poll this week that the war has been worth the costs and benefits, with a divide even among Trump's core supporters. Twenty percent of Republicans said the war has not been worth it, and 24% were unsure.
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'This Is Not Self-Defense': UN Experts Condemn Israel's Criminal Assault on Lebanon
"We are witnessing the continuing utmost contempt for the international legal order," said a group of two dozen United Nations special rapporteurs.
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A group of two dozen United Nations experts issued a scathing joint statement on Wednesday condemning Israel's ongoing assault on Lebanon as "a blatant violation of the UN Charter, a deliberate destruction of prospects for peace, and an affront to multilateralism and the UN-based international order."
"We are witnessing the continuing utmost contempt for the international legal order, for diplomacy, and above all for the lives of civilians and the environment in Lebanon," the experts said. "Israel has chosen the very moment a ceasefire was announced—one that its Pakistani mediator stated included Lebanon—to unleash the largest coordinated wave of strikes on the country since 1980."
Despite signals in recent days that the Israeli and Lebanese governments are engaged in their highest level of diplomatic talks in decade, Israel's military continues to ferociously bomb southern Lebanon, devastating entire towns—including homes and schools—and killing civilians. On Wednesday, according to Lebanese officials, Israeli forces killed three paramedics in a "triple-tap" airstrike on the town of Mayfadoun.
“This is not self-defense," said the UN experts, including special rapporteur on the right to education Farida Shaheed, special rapporteur on the right to food Ben Saul, and special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories Francesca Albanese.
“The issuance of blanket evacuation orders, combined with the destruction of urban and village housing that displaced persons would have returned to, is consistent with the pattern of domicide that was initiated during the genocide in Gaza,” the experts continued. "Forced displacement of a civilian population constitutes crimes against humanity and is a war crime under international law."
More than a million people, over a fifth of Lebanon's population, have been displaced since Israel ramped up its assault on the country in early March, claiming to target the political and militant group Hezbollah.
UNICEF USA said Thursday that at least 600 children have been killed or wounded by Israeli attacks on Lebanon since March 2, and more than 390,000 have been forced from their homes. Overall, Israel's assault on Lebanon has killed more than 2,000 people since early march.
"Nowhere is safe for children in Lebanon," the organization said.
In their statement on Wednesday, the UN experts demanded that Israel "immediately cease all military operations in Lebanon" and urged the United States—Israel's leading ally and arms supplier—to "use its influence" to ensure Israel stops the bombing.
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Israeli Journalist With Deep Ties to IDF Admits West Bank Violence 'Looks Like... Ethnic Cleansing'
West Bank settler attacks on Palestinians are "rather sophisticated, organized, and funded systematic actions," with the goal of "cleansing" the entire region, said journalist Ron Ben-Yishai.
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An Israeli war correspondent who has been described as having deep ties to the Israel Defense Forces said that intensifying settler violence in the occupied West Bank appears to be "ethnic cleansing."
In an column published by Ynet titled "This looks like blue and white ethnic cleansing," journalist Ron Ben-Yishai wrote that, during a recent tour of the West Bank, he observed "a disturbing reality" of Israeli teenagers "who go on 'intimidation tours'" in Palestinian villages, attacking Palestinians while members of the Israeli military frequently either stand by or actively join in the attacks.
"In some cases, these are reservists who also identify ideologically with the rioters, and therefore stand by and do not prevent them from going wild—and sometimes even help them," explained Ben-Yishai. "Even in the regular IDF units stationed in the territories, there have been quite a few cases in which commanders and fighters have deviated from the norms and the IDF's code of ethics for religious-nationalist reasons."
In conversations with Israeli settlers, Ben-Yishai often found that they believed they were entitled by God to take all land where Palestinians reside.
"The confident reliance on God's command as the answer to all moral and practical questions and concerns," he wrote, "gave me a disturbing feeling that this was a type of Jewish terrorism motivated by religious and nationalist motives."
Ben-Yishai also described ways in which Israeli settlers surround Palestinian communities "in order to prevent them from moving freely and strangle them economically."
Taken as a whole, Ben-Yishai concluded that the Israel settler attacks on Palestinians are a "rather sophisticated, organized, and funded systematic actions—with the long-term strategic goal being to 'cleanse' most of" the West Bank and Gaza of Palestinian presence.
In a social media post, geopolitical analyst Shaiel Ben-Ephraim explained how significant it was for someone like Ben-Yishai, whom he said has "the deepest ties to the IDF of any reporter," to describe West Bank settlers' actions as ethnic cleansing.
"Observers have been saying for years that what is happening in the West Bank is ethnic cleansing," he wrote. "But now voices from the heart of the Israeli consensus are admitting it as well."
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