Accountability Report Release Event

Human Rights USA would like to remind you about Friday's luncheon and panel discussion launching the recently released report, Indefensible: A Reference for Prosecuting Torture and Other Felonies Committed by US Officials Following September 11th. Please note this event will be held on Friday, January 27th from 12PM-1:30PM at American University Washington College of Law. Please RSVP to Gineen Cargo, cargo@wcl.american.edu, at your earliest convenience.

The panel, which will be moderated by HRUSA's Allison Lefrak, will include Professor Benjamin Davis of the University of Toledo School of Law (author of Refluat Stercus: A Citizen's View of Criminal Prosecution in US Domestic Courts of High-Level US Civilian Authority and Military Generals for Torture and Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment); Professor David Crane of Syracuse University College of Law (founding Chief Prosecutor of the Special Court for Sierra Leone, former member of the Senior Executive Service who held numerous key managerial positions during his three decades of public service); John Sifton, Asia Advocacy Director at Human Rights Watch (one of the primary authors of Getting Away with Torture: The Bush Administration and Mistreatment of Detainees); and Professor Richard Wilson of Washington College of Law (founding director of the International Human Rights Law Clinic at WCL, one of the oldest human rights law clinics in the US).

Free parking is available for panelists and attendees in the Washington College of Law parking garage at 4801 Massachusetts Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20016 (entrance to the garage is located on Massachusetts Ave., immediately passed the law school).

Metro Directions - After going up the escalators at Tenleytown (Red Line), follow the signs in the metro station for the AU shuttle. After exiting the metro station, cross 40th street where there will be an AU sign. Take the red route AU shuttle which comes every 15 minutes. There will be a red
sign on bus indicating red route/WCL. There will be 4 stops before the shuttle arrives at WCL, the fifth and last stop.

Bus Directions - The N3, N4, N6, and N8 stop at 48th street and Massachusetts Ave. NW.

More details below. The report can be downloaded here.

Waiting For Her Son's Freedom, A Mother Loses Hope

In a January 11, 2012 article, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty describes the continued detention of Human Rights USA's client, Ravil Mingazov, in Guantanamo Bay despite the May 2010 federal court order of his release.

By RFE/RL

January 11, 2012

CHALLY, Russia -- Ravil Mingazov was supposed to be a free man by now. Instead, he remains at Guantanamo Bay, with the dubious distinction of being the last Russian citizen in U.S. custody at the notorious detention center.

In May 2010, a U.S. federal court ordered him released within six weeks, ruling that the government no longer had any reason to detain the 42-year-old Tatar. That decision has since been reversed in what some critics say was a politically motivated legal challenge.

More than nine years ago, Mingazov was classified as a terrorist-in-training for Al-Qaeda after U.S. military forces picked him up at a house in Pakistan they said belonged to suspected terrorist Abu Zubaydah.

His protests that it was a guest house for refugees, and his denials of any ties to Zubaydah or Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden fell on deaf ears.

Zuhra Waliullina says she doesn't think she'll see her son again. ​Now his mother, 75-year-old Zuhra Waliullina, says she has lost hope of ever seeing her son again.

"I last spoke to him on December 22. He's doing well there. They get good food. They have TV and sports facilities. They're not drowning in tuberculosis like all the inmates here," she says.

"But I've lost my hope [of ever seeing him again]. I don't trust Obama. I don't have the strength to write any more letters asking for help. This is how I am now."

Once, Mingazov was a ballet dancer in a folk ensemble in the Russian Army. But he left the country after he re-embraced Islam, because he feared persecution.

His mother told RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service that in the time he has spent at Guantanamo Bay, his wife has remarried and the son they had together, Yusuf, has grown up without a father.

The boy now lives in Syria, where Mingazov's wife fled after Russian authorities began to pressure and imprison some of the other seven former Guantanamo inmates who returned to Russia after their release.

Their experiences have struck fear in Mingazov, whose mother told RFE/RL last year that he was afraid to come home.

One former Russian detainee, Rasul Kudayev, was arrested -- and according to his lawyer and family, beaten and tortured -- after a militant attack in Nalchik in October 2005.

Another, Ruslan Odizhev, joined a North Caucasus insurgent group and was killed in 2007.

Two fellow Tatars, Timur Ishmuradov and Ravil Gumarov, were convicted and sentenced in May 2006 to several years in prison for taking part in a January 2005 attack on an oil pipeline. They both denied the charges, saying they were fabricated by Russian security services.

Mingazov has reportedly applied to Germany for asylum, and two cities in Massachusetts have offered him residency after his release.

When that will happen is anyone's guess.

Gafiulla Gazizov of RFE/RL's Tatar-Bashkir Service contributed reporting.

Tenth Circuit Affirms District Court’s Preliminary Injunction against Oklahoma State Election Board

The Tenth Circuit unanimously concluded that the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma did not abuse its discretion in granting a preliminary injunction against the Oklahoma State Election Board to prevent the adoption of a constitutional amendment. The so-called “Save Our State Amendment” would have prohibited Oklahoma state courts from considering Sharia and international law.

By singling out Sharia law, the federal appellate court held that the constitutional amendment likely would violate the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment by discriminating against Islam and by making “explicit and deliberate distinctions between different religious organizations.” The court rejected the state’s argument that there was a compelling interest in banning Sharia and international law from its court system, explaining that the state could not “identify any actual problem the challenged amendment seeks to solve.” The state had admitted that “they did not know of even a single instance where an Oklahoma court had applied Sharia law or used the legal precepts of other nations or cultures, let alone that such applications or uses had resulted in concrete problems in Oklahoma.”

In disagreeing with the state’s contention that the constitutional rights of voters outweighed the plaintiff’s, the Tenth Circuit concluded that the plaintiff’s federal constitutional rights outweighed an unconstitutional law which the voters enacted. The court discussed standing in Establishment Clause cases and found that the plaintiff had standing to challenge the Save Our State Amendment because the amendment “expressly condemns his religion and exposes him and other Muslims in Oklahoma to disfavored treatment.” “The harm alleged by [the plaintiff] stems from a constitutional directive of exclusion and disfavored treatment of a particular religious legal tradition.”

The Save Our State Amendment would also ban the application and consideration of international law in Oklahoma state courts. “International law is part of U.S. law,” explained Lynsay Gott, Acting Executive Director of Human Rights USA. “The Constitution expressly recognizes treaty law as the law of the land. We are bound by customary international law.” Ms. Gott cautioned that “U.S. jurisprudence also strongly influences the development of jurisprudence in other countries and international jurisprudence. Removing the U.S. from international law dialogue would threaten to take away our voice in the rest of the world.”

View the opinion here. More information can be found here.

Guantánamo Prisoners Stage Peaceful Protest and Hunger Strike on 10th Anniversary of the Opening of the Prison

Original posting of this article available here.

Today, prisoners at Guantánamo will embark on a peaceful protest, involving sit-ins and hunger strikes, to protest about their continued detention, and the continued existence of the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, three years after President Obama came to office promising to close it within a year, and to show their appreciation of the protests being mounted on their behalf by US citizens, who are gathering in Washington D.C. on Wednesday to stage a rally and march to urge the President to fulfill his broken promise.

Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University of New York, and one of the attorneys for Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo, said that his client, who is held in isolation in Camp 5, told him on his last visit that the prisoners would embark on a peaceful protest and hunger strike for three days, from Jan. 10 to 12, to protest about the President’s failure to close Guantánamo as promised.

He explained that the men intended to inform the Officer in Charge ahead of the protest, to let the authorities know why there would be protests, and added that the prisoners were encouraged by the “expression of solidarity” from US citizens planning protests on Jan. 11, the 10^th anniversary of the opening of the prison.

Kassem also said that another of his clients, in Camp 6, where most of the prisoners are held, and where, unlike Camp 5, they are allowed to socialize, stated that prisoners throughout the blocks were “extremely encouraged” by reports of the protests in Washington D.C.

The prisoner, who does not wish to be identified, also said that banners and signs had been prepared, and that there would be peaceful sit-ins in the communal areas. He added that the prisoners were concerned to let the outside world know that they still reject the injustice of their imprisonment, and feel that it is particularly important to let everyone know this, when the US government, under President Obama, is trying to persuade the world that “everything is OK” at Guantánamo, and that the prison is a humane, state of the art facility.

He also explained that the prisoners invited the press to come to Guantánamo and to request interviews with the prisoners, to hear about “the toll of a decade” of detention without charge or trial, and said that they “would like nothing more” than to have an independent civilian and medical delegation, accompanied by the press, be allowed to come and talk to the 171 men still held.

In Camp 5, Shaker Aamer and the other men still held there will not be able to stage a sit-in, as they are unable to leave their cells, but they will participate in the protests by refusing meals.

No one knows how the authorities will respond to the protests, especially as the new commander of Guantánamo, Navy Rear Adm. David Woods, has gained a reputation for punishing even the most minor infractions of the rules with solitary confinement.

According to Kassem, prisoners have complained that the new regime harks back to the worst days of Guantánamo, between 2002 and 2004, when punishments for non-cooperation were widespread.

Of the 171 men still held at Guantánamo, 89 were “approved for transfer” out of Guantánamo by a Task Force of career officials and lawyers from the various government departments and the intelligence agencies, and yet they remain held because of Congressional opposition and President Obama’s unwillingness to tackle his critics. 36 others were recommended for trials, and 46 others were designated for indefinite detention without charge pr trial, on the basis that they are too dangerous to release, but that there is insufficient evidence against them to put them on trial.

That is a disgraceful position for the government to take, as indefinite detention on the basis of information that cannot be used as evidence indicates that the information is either tainted by torture, or is unreliable hearsay. It remains unacceptable that President Obama approved the indefinite detention of these men in an executive order last March, even though he also promised that their cases would be subject to periodic review.

Just as disgraceful, however, is the fact that all of the 171 prisoners still at Guantánamo face indefinite detention, as none of them can leave the prison given the current restrictions. That ought to trouble anyone who cares about justice and fairness, and the protests by the prisoners, on the 10^th anniversary of the opening of Guantánamo, ought to convey, more eloquently than any other method, why the pressure to close the prison must be maintained.

Note: For further information, to sign up to a new movement to close G, and to sign a new White House petition on the “We the People” website calling for the closure of Guantánamo, visit the new website, “Close Guantánamo.”

IACHR Presents Report on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of Women

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) published a report that addresses the discrimination against women in the job market and in receiving social security, in addition to the higher rates of illiteracy among women and girls, extreme feminization of poverty, and women’s exclusion from society and political sphere. The report, The Work, Education and Resources of Women: The Road to Equality in Guaranteeing Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, identifies the deep-rooted and systemic discrimination against women and argues that structural inequalities between men and women are widespread in all social sectors. In areas like the economy, education, labor, health, justice, and decision-making, women have fewer opportunities to access economic resources, inhibiting the protection of their human rights. Women remain vulnerable to physical and sexual violence and often are denied access to legal remedies to seek justice for violations of their rights.

Human Rights USA served as an editor of the IACHR report by reviewing compiled data submitted by several organizations. Civil society groups, academics, public defenders, and ombudspersons’ offices answered questionnaires, circulated by the IACHR, that discuss various forms of discrimination against women. These organizations included experts from: Argentina’s Office of the Public Defender General; Campaña Mujeres Vida y Derecho Law School, Human Rights Institute; Equipo Latinoamericano de Justicia y Género (Natalia Gherardi and Laura Pautassi); Human Rights Watch (Marianne Mollmann); International Women’s Human Rights Clinic, the City University of New York School of Law; Legal Momentum; National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV); National Women’s Law Center; Oficina Jurídica de la Mujer (Bolivia); Verónica Cruz Sánchez, Director of the Centro las Libres, Mexico; and Human Rights USA.

In addition, Human Rights USA, Human Rights Institute at Columbia Law School, International Women’s Human Rights Clinic at The City University of New York School of Law, Legal Momentum, and National Network to End Domestic Violence (NNEDV) submitted information that indicated that the Reauthorization of the Federal Violence Against Women Act introduced “new legal protections for women victims of domestic violence where their right to housing was concerned.”

Moving forward, the Commission recommends that Organization of American States (OAS) Members investigate discrimination against women in the workplace, in education, and in access to economic resources in order to develop a comprehensive approach to promote women’s economic, social and cultural rights in the inter-American system.

View the report here.

Guantanamo: Ten Years and Counting

We encourage you to read this article published in The Nation by David Cole where he makes the important point that we can no longer point the finger only at President Bush who has been out of office for three years now while Guantanamo is still in existence and where 171 men continue to be detained. Responsibility lies with Congress, the Courts, and with us as U.S. citizens. http://www.thenation.com/article/165443/guantanamo-ten-years-and-counting