"Guantanamo is not a prison, it's a concentration camp" according to Thomas Wilner, a managing partner at Sherman and Sterling LLP, an international law firm, and the lead counsel for Kuwaiti detainees in Rasul vs Bush. His point: the detainees are not charged, do not receive a fair hearing, are emprisoned indefinetely, and are subjected to abuse.
He was one of the speakers at the national Guantanamo teach-in hosted by Suton Hall Law School on the same day that demonstrators took to the streets in many American cities to protest the new law on torture and military commissions.
Laywers, doctors, clergy, and military discussed the situation of the detainees, and the evolution of the administration's policies.
Colonel Dwight H. Sullivan, a Marine and the Chief military defense counsel, military commissions, was one of the many critics - expressing his personal view - of the past system, and of the new law. "We prevented a great deal of harm", he said of the military lawyers who "upheld the highest values of our country when those in government have not".
He underscores that there is no justification for stripping 450 detainees from access to the courts. Their possible "frivolous lawsuits" would not add a terrible burden to a national system that already deals with 2 million prisoners in its jails. Besides, he adds: "I am detained at Guantanamo when I have done nothing wrong would not be a "frivolous lawsuit". He also makes the point that the worry about "over-reaching judges" is overblown. "They have been modest", he says, citing judge Robertson who found that some Chinese Muslim detainees should not be held, but added that there was nothing he could do about it. (they were subsequently released, and resettled in Albania).
"The legalization of torture will define the Bush era for posterity, it is a new milestone in the degradation of American democracy", insisted George Hunsinger, a professor of theology at Princeton. Reminding the audience that a government that takes off the gloves will not put them back on, he insisted that torture is a moral and religious issue, and started a campaign to reach the active minority in every faith and congregations.
He was one of the speakers at the national Guantanamo teach-in hosted by Suton Hall Law School on the same day that demonstrators took to the streets in many American cities to protest the new law on torture and military commissions.
Laywers, doctors, clergy, and military discussed the situation of the detainees, and the evolution of the administration's policies.
Colonel Dwight H. Sullivan, a Marine and the Chief military defense counsel, military commissions, was one of the many critics - expressing his personal view - of the past system, and of the new law. "We prevented a great deal of harm", he said of the military lawyers who "upheld the highest values of our country when those in government have not".
He underscores that there is no justification for stripping 450 detainees from access to the courts. Their possible "frivolous lawsuits" would not add a terrible burden to a national system that already deals with 2 million prisoners in its jails. Besides, he adds: "I am detained at Guantanamo when I have done nothing wrong would not be a "frivolous lawsuit". He also makes the point that the worry about "over-reaching judges" is overblown. "They have been modest", he says, citing judge Robertson who found that some Chinese Muslim detainees should not be held, but added that there was nothing he could do about it. (they were subsequently released, and resettled in Albania).
"The legalization of torture will define the Bush era for posterity, it is a new milestone in the degradation of American democracy", insisted George Hunsinger, a professor of theology at Princeton. Reminding the audience that a government that takes off the gloves will not put them back on, he insisted that torture is a moral and religious issue, and started a campaign to reach the active minority in every faith and congregations.
posted by Eloise Sand at 11:18 AM
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