The Pentagon announced yesterday that they have “incorrectly detained” a man for two and a half years at Gitmo, without access to an attorney or anyone else, and they will now be freeing him and sending him back to his home country. It turns out he is not an “enemy combatant”. Sorry about that! No hard feelings?
That’s two and half years in prison without charges, a hearing, or access to an attorney. Presumably we only now know about this because the Supreme Court has finally ordered the Bush Administration to provide some kind of hearings for the people locked away in the black hole of Guantanimo Bay.
Out of 600 held there, they have now held hearings for just 28 of them. So far, at least one of those 28 has been proven to be innocent. I wonder if there are any more wrongly held amongst the other 572 “enemy combatants” that have been charged with nothing, and have had access to neither trial nor attorney all of this time.
As one human rights worker described it: “This is just further evidence of the serious errors that occur when you ignore basic human rights and standards of international humanitarian law.”
Bush/Cheney ’04: Spreading “Liberty” Across the Globe! One detainee at a time!
Can I share a story? While I agree that security is very important (especially after 9/11), the way people & foreigners are being treated is really horrible.
Went to Niagara with a friend late in 2003. Her parents are Iranian but she was born in Canada. Never stepped foot in Iran. So we wanted to cross the border to see the American falls up close. Silly us.
Anyway so at the border, the ‘guy’ asked my friend where her name was from. She said she didn’t know. He asked her where her parents were from and she didn’t want to lie so she told them the truth. So he told her to go to Customs (I had to go to).
Anyway , in customs, they had me sit in the waiting room and stuck her in an interrogation room for 8 hours. They locked the door and kept her in there for the first 3. After 3 , I started to get worried and kept asking where she was. They told me they didn’t know. Everytime I’d go back up to them, they would pretend as if they didn’t know who I was talking about.
After 3 hours, they opened the interrogation room that she was in and would mutter things to her everytime they would walk by (she’s 25. Looks like a cute rabbit.) . When she kept asking what the problem was, they would tell her to shut up and when they would address her, they would call her "Iran". As in "Hey Iran, come over here. Sign this, do that. Shut up Iran."
When she broke down crying (after about 6 hours), they told her to shut up. They told her to more she cried, the longer they would keep her. They told her she should have "expected" this. They offered no reason as to why.
Needless to say, we didn’t go to the States and I haven’t been back since. As soon as they let her out, we drove right back to Canada.
Sorry if this has nothing to do with your original post and shouldn’t be compared to 2 horribly wasted years. But your "sorry, no hard feelings" comment really hit home.
Wow. Thanks for sharing that story, Johanna.
On behalf of my country, sorry about that!
Um…No hard feelings? 😉
Urgh…
(Strike up Alan Jackson here: "And I’m proud to be an American, cause at least I know I’m free"….Oh, brother)
This guy was the first of the detainees of 30 whose records were reviewed. This is one of the aspects of the story that is usually buried. In addition, two detainees (British subjects) were released BEFORE their oral arguments could be heard by US courts. This probably happened in order to prevent their allegations of physical abuse (in some cases requiring hospitolization) and video taped interrogations from being entered into evidence. By the way both of these guys claim that they made confessions on tape. Why release them if we have confessions?
Hey Brad,
No need to apologize at all. Its not you or even your country’s fault. That particular department is run by a bunch of 19 year olds on a power trip (oh, and who happen to talk to the picture of GWB on the wall. I forgot to mention that. They totally do. They call him Georgie).
My whole point is that the US had every right to tighten their security after 9/11 . It was the right thing to do. But that doesn’t mean they have to *treat* everyone like terrorists, you know? If they had just said something like : "Hey we’re really sorry about this, thanks for understanding, but this is routine now," we would have gladly sat there another 12 hours. Honest.
I wasn’t expecting tea and biscuits, but still….
Oh and no hard feelings. *LOL*
I love reading this drone speak
I’m sure you’ll erase this as soon as it’s posted, but who cares…
I say hold ’em ALL till they get cleared. If that takes 20 years, then so be it.
I love hearing you suckers cry because of this stupid crap, but when a suicide bomber kills someone, it’s nothing but crickets…
You know, it may have been 2 and a half years, but at least they’re letting him go now. If it was them holding one of our guys, I’m sure his head would have been cut off by now.
Things maybe slow, but they usually get done here in the land of the FREE…over there they held them till they were in the land of the DEAD.
It’s good to have watchdogs like you to keep things on the up and up, but at least our FREE country TOLERATES watchdogs…I’d like to see you go to the middle east and complain against one of their governments…lol.
Anyway, keep up the good work. I don’t agree with you about Gitmo, or on how things are here, but that’s what is good about this country…we don’t have to.