December, 10 2019, 11:00pm EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Jen Nessel, Center for Constitutional Rights, (212) 614-6449, jnessel@ccrjustice.org
Attorneys Urge Court to Change Ground Rules for Guantanamo Cases
Without Due Process, Detainees Face Detention for Life, Lawyers Warn
WASHINGTON
Today, attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights urged a federal appeals court to overturn a lower court ruling against Abdul Razak Ali (aka Saeed Bakhouch), who has been detained at Guantanamo without charge since June 2002, and to rule more broadly that the fundamental protections of the Due Process Clause apply to detainees and limit otherwise limitless detentions there. Mr. Ali had filed a petition for release together with ten other Guantanamo detainees, arguing that their ongoing detention is arbitrary and unlawful, particularly in light of Donald Trump's stated policy that no one should be released from the prison regardless of the facts of their case. A lower court held that "the [Constitution's] due process clause does not apply in Guantanamo," which attorneys say defies Supreme Court precedent.
"During the Bush administration, the Supreme Court twice struck down attempts to gut Constitutional protections against arbitrary detention at Guantanamo, but since then the lower courts have made it effectively impossible to win a case in court no matter how weak the government's evidence is," said Shayana Kadidal, Senior Managing Attorney of the Guantanamo project at the Center for Constitutional Rights, who argued today. "Today's hearing asks the court to finally provide detainees the fair process the Supreme Court envisioned ten years ago."
In its landmark 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush, the Supreme Court held that Guantanamo "is, in every practical sense, not abroad," and because of that the right to challenge one's detention in federal court could not be denied. Today, Kadidal argued that the same principle requires that "due process"--the fundamental substantive and procedural protections guaranteed by the constitution--should also apply at Guantanamo.
Attorneys further argued that Mr. Ali's continued detention does, indeed, violate the Due Process Clause. He remains detained--for what will soon be eighteen years--based primarily on an eighteen day stay in a guesthouse in Pakistan associated with a suspected jihadi leader. Today, Kadidal told the court that after this length of detention, the government must demonstrate that there is a continued purpose for detaining Ali, using more reliable evidence than it has produced to date, and meeting a higher burden of proof.
"My client lost his first appeal six years ago even though, in the words of one of the judges, he 'never planned, authorized, committed or aided any terrorist attacks,' because the burden of proof on the government is lower than what's required in traffic court," said H. Candace Gorman, a Chicago-based attorney who has represented Ali for 13 years. "If the legal status quo doesn't change, Ali will die in prison without ever having been charged with a crime."
Forty men remain detained at Guantanamo. Twenty-eight of them have never been charged. Twenty-seven were held by the CIA at some point during their detention. Five have been unanimously cleared for release by all relevant agencies (including the State Department, FBI, and the military).
For more information, visit the Center for Constitutional Rights' case page.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
(212) 614-6464LATEST NEWS
UN Expert Demands EU Suspend Trade Deal With Israel Over Gaza Genocide
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Apr 10, 2024
Pointing out a significant "disconnect" between the European Union's political class and the public regarding Israel's assault on Gaza, the top United Nations expert on the occupied Palestinian territories on Wednesday said E.U. officials must suspend trade relations with the Israeli government.
Francesca Albanese, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, toldEuronews that the E.U. has an "obligation" to suspend its association agreement with Israel because the document bars participants from committing human rights violations like those detailed in Albanese's recent report on the bombardment of Gaza.
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With Israel's European allies continuing to trade with the country, Albanese said, the right-wing Israeli government "has no incentive whatsoever to change conduct."
"Israel has the political, financial, economic means to continue operating business as usual," she said. "Europe is the main trading partner—which accounts I think for 30% of Israel's trade—so it has a huge power and it should use that power. In the end, this is not an option, it's an obligation because Article 2 of that association agreement foresees the suspension in case of violations of human rights."
Albanese's demand came nearly two months after Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and Irish politician Leo Varadkar, who resigned as prime minister this week, called on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to conduct an "urgent review" of whether Israel is complying with its obligations under the association agreement.
Last week, Irish Social Democratic lawmaker Gary Gannon condemned the E.U. for not acting on Sánchez and Varadkar's demand.
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Time after time, the European Council refuses to trigger the humanitarian clauses of the EU's trade deal with Israel.
Its pathetic response to genocide is shameful and outrageous.
If Israel is not in breach of these clauses, we may as well rip them up, says @GaryGannonTDÂ pic.twitter.com/DJK4NL9rTh
— Social Democrats (@SocDems) April 2, 2024
Public outcry in E.U. countries over Israel's bombardment of Gaza has intensified as the war has gone on for more than six months, with 44% of French people expressing condemnation of Israel in a poll this month—up from 35% in October.
A group of German civil servants wrote to Chancellor Olaf Scholz this week demanding that Germany—which along with the U.S. provides an estimated 99% of Israel's foreign military aid—"cease arm deliveries to the Israeli government with immediate effect." The civil servants cited the International Court of Justice's interim ruling in January that Israel's assault on Gaza amounts to "plausible acts of genocide."
At The Guardian on Wednesday, E.U. affairs columnist Shada Islam wrote that the bloc's "collective failure to denounce Israel's unrestrained ferocity in Gaza" is "even more egregious" considering the E.U.'s outrage over human rights violations in China, Myanmar, and other countries.
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Gun control advocates, including families of mass shooting survivors, condemned Tennessee Senate Republicans for a 26-5 vote along party lines on Tuesday to advance legislation allowing teachers and staff to carry concealed firearms in public schools.
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The Senate GOP passed the bill despite objections from parents of children who survived the shooting at the Covenant School, a private Christian institution. It now heads to the state House of Representatives, which has just 24 Democrats and 75 Republicans—who, over the past year, have ignored demands for stricter gun laws and tried to silence lawmakers who fight for them.
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\ud83d\udde3\ufe0f @SenatorLamar: \u201cTeachers don\u2019t even want this. This bill is dangerous... look at that gallery. Those mothers are asking you not to do this.\u201d\n\nWith a baby in her arms. Powerful. But every Senate Republican voted yes anyway, as troopers dragged out the moms above.— (@)
Bobbi Sloan, a volunteer leader with the Students Demand Action chapter at Vanderbilt University, said that "as a student studying to be a teacher, I know that managing a classroom is already tough enough without adding a deadly weapon into the mix."
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During the Senate debate, gun reform advocates filled the gallery—though after several disruptions, Lt. Gov. Randy McNally (R-5) ordered state troopers to clear the area of all but a group of Covenant School mothers, according to The Tennessean.
Beth Gebhard, whose 9-year-old daughter Ava and 12-year-old son Hudson survived the Covenant shooting, opposes the bill. Clearing the Senate gallery was "cowardly," she told the newsaper. "If they are supposed to be representative of our voice and they are dismissing these people... they are not for us and it is appalling... It's so upsetting. It makes me want to move."
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The chief executive of the U.S. oil giant Chevron saw his pay jump by more than 12% in 2023 as continued emissions from fossil fuel corporations helped push global temperatures to record heights.
Citing a new securities filing, Reutersreported Wednesday that Chevron CEO Mike Wirth received $26.5 million in total compensation last year. Chevron, the second-largest oil company in the U.S. by revenue, reported $21.3 billion in profits in 2023—a haul it used to lavish shareholders with buybacks and dividends.
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