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Critics question domestic,
overseas detentions
By RAJU CHEBIUM
Gannett News Service
Gannett News Service
WASHINGTON — A year after the
deadliest attacks on U.S. soil, at least 147 people remain in
custody in this country, and the Pentagon wants to add 200
cells to the 600 nearly filled with foreign detainees at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The detainees — many Muslim
noncitizens living permanently or temporarily in this country
— were among an estimated 1,200 rounded up under the
government’s post-Sept. 11 secret arrests, detentions and
interrogations, a policy that worries civil liberties advocates
and human rights groups.
Al-Badr Al-Hazmi, a Saudi-born doctor, was
picked up Sept. 12. The government initially refused to let him
seek legal counsel. Then Immigration and Naturalization Service
agents moved the San Antonio resident to New York for intensive
questioning to find out if he was involved with the attacks.
Two weeks later, the FBI cleared him of terrorism and set him
free, his lawyer, Gerald Goldstein, told Congress.
Federal agents “not only violated my
client’s rights, they deprived themselves of valuable
information and documentation that would have eliminated many
of their concerns,” he said. “The
government’s current dragnet-style investigation —
characterized by ethnic profiling, selective enforcement of
criminal and immigration laws, and pretrial detention for petty
offenses — heightens the important role counsel
plays.”
Military officials say they would like to
add 200 cells to the nearly 600 that house foreign detainees at
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. (Jim Hudelson, The Times at Shreveport,
La.)
Like Al-Hazmi, most domestic detainees
were questioned and released. Many were deported. The
government won’t say how many.
Nearly a year after the attacks in New
York and suburban Washington, 74 noncitizens still were in
custody on immigration violations, an additional 73 people on
secret federal criminal charges, and an undisclosed number as
“material witnesses,” according to recent Justice
Department court filings.
Internationally, nearly 600 people from
Afghanistan, Pakistan and 30 other nations were captured by
U.S. soldiers and taken to the U.S. naval base in Guantanamo
Bay where they remain, and an undisclosed number are being held
at a U.S. air base in Bagram, Afghanistan. Lt. Cmdr. Barbara
Burfeind, a Defense Department spokeswoman, said the military
wants to add more than 200 cells at Guantanamo by October
because space is running out.
Secrecy criticized
Critics say a nation that lectures the
rest of the world about civil and human rights shouldn’t
be engaging in secretive arrests and indefinite detentions.
None of the 1,200 domestic detainees has been charged with a
terrorism-related crime, they note.
Geoffrey Stone, a constitutional scholar
at the University of Chicago law school, said he understands
why federal authorities targeted Middle Eastern and South Asian
immigrants inside this country. Fundamentalist Muslims
affiliated with Saudi native Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida are
believed to have carried out the attacks.
But, Stone asked, why were so many
immigrants detained for weeks and months if it was clear they
had nothing to do with terrorism?
“We don’t know if these people
have been allowed to consult lawyers. We don’t know how
many of them have been deported. It’s hard to understand
why any of that has to be secret,” Stone said. “I
think that’s pretty disturbing. That is difficult to
square with responsible government.”
The Justice Department has said
identifying the detainees is not a good idea. They say suspects
would be reluctant to cooperate if they knew their names would
be publicized, innocent people could be linked unfairly to
Sept. 11, and terrorists would know which of their associates
were in U.S. custody.
Assistant Attorney General Viet Dinh said
government agents are making sure all detainees are afforded
the “full panoply” of rights under the
Constitution.
“We try to accommodate the media and
the public’s need for information,” he said.
“But at the same time, we will not allow the information
to be misused by the terrorists. ... I don’t see this as
a tradeoff between liberty and security.”
Judges’ verdicts mixed
However, U.S. District Judge Gladys
Kessler agreed with civil rights groups that the names
don’t need to be secret.
In an Aug. 2 ruling, she ordered the
government to identify domestic detainees and their lawyers
before the end of the month. The Justice Department has
appealed.
The government’s interest in
preventing future attacks and finding all those connected with
the past attacks is understandable, Kessler wrote.
However, “the first priority of the
judicial branch must be to ensure that our government always
operates within the statutory and constitutional restraints,
which distinguish a democracy from a dictatorship,” she
wrote. “Difficult times such as these have always tested
our fidelity to the core democratic values of openness,
government accountability, and the rule of the law.”
Critics of the Guantanamo detentions lost
a legal round Aug. 1 when another U.S. district judge, Colleen
Kollar-Kotelly, ruled the Cuba detainees don’t have a
right to U.S. court hearings. That decision, which came in two
lawsuits filed on behalf of 14 of the detainees, allows the
military to hold them indefinitely without filing charges.
Interactive documentary:
CLEARING THE SKIES
CLEARING THE SKIES
Interactive documentary:
A YEAR OF RECOVERY
All contents copyright 2002,
Gannett News Service
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All contents copyright 2002,
Gannett News Service