Well we kinda knew that.

12-11-2008 - Levin, McCain Release Executive Summary and Conclusions of Report on Treatment of Detainees in U.S. Custody : Senator Carl Levin: News Release

Gist: Torture ordered at the highest level.

Executive summary here.

Adel Hamad is free

Got this email yesterday afternoon. I am very happy for Adel, and so damned angry at my government.

We finally have some great news to report. Adel Hamad is back in Sudan. Over two years after being cleared for transfer, Adel Hamad has finally arrived in Khartoum and was immediately released and allowed to reunite with his family. Earlier this week the U.S. government had announced the transfer of 15 Guantanamo detainees, two of them Sudanese. The Sudanese government believed that one of those detainees would be Adel Hamad but we had no confirmation that indeed he was on that plane until this morning. William Teesdale, his legal counsel from the Federal Public Defenders Office of Oregon, should be talking to him within the next hour or two.

We at Project Hamad want to thank everyone for your efforts and for keeping hope alive.

We will post again soon about the implications of Hamad's release. His lawyers hope to press the U.S. government to still give Adel Hamad his new CSRT hearing so he can truly clear his name. And we must remember that Adel is only one of many detainees cleared for transfer long ago, but who remain in legal limbo at Guantanamo. Adel Hamad's downstairs neighbor in Pakistan, Ameur Mammar, detainee #939, is just one of many examples. Lets keep them in our hearts while we celebrate Hamad's release.

We will write again soon. In the meantime, follow the progress on our blog.

Thanks,

David, Ben and Laura
Project Hamad
http://projecthamad.org

Monty Python explains "enhanced interrogations"

via boingboing

Sully on the captured Brits

The Daily Dish: Captured Brits:

"The news reports put that word in quotation marks. I wonder if it emerges that they are being subject to George W. Bush's preferred euphemism 'coercive interrogations.' And if that turns out to be the case, and we have to pray it isn't, then what will the United States and its ally Great Britain say in complaint? After all, Iran is only doing to Western soldiers in captivity what the U.S. has been doing to 'enemy combatants' since the war began. Then there's a question of what kind of trial they might face. One in which their defense gets a chance to see all the evidence against them? Oh, wait ... we don't do that either. "

Yep. It's not like we can bitch about that sort of thing anymore. Thanks George.

Project Hamad update

Some seemingly good news:

Adel Hamad’s lawyers have been notified that Hamad and his landlord, Mammar, have been approved to leave Guantanamo. Some internet articles have already begun speculating about the effect that the YouTube video, Guantanamo Unclassified, may have had in securing his release. Of course, we hope that Project Hamad and Guantanamo Unclassified have helped expedite Hamad’s release, as these articles suggest, yet we believe it is premature to declare victory for a number of reasons.

Read the rest for a cautionary note.

Another blow to the Habeas Corpus

A divided federal appeals court on Tuesday upheld a new law stripping federal judges of authority to review foreign prisoners’ challenges to their detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

Another low light in the saddest period for the U.S. Constitution in our history. Fuck every single one of you that voted for Bush. /You/ did this. Not the terrorists, not even Bush really, you that voted for him voted to suspend your fundamental freedoms, and now /you/ can be disappeared at his whim.

Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007

Senator Chris Dodd discusses the "Restoring the Constitution Act of 2007" -- his legislation to reintroduce the Habeas Corpus into American law.


You can become a "citizen co-sponsor" here. I urge you to do so, and to help us free Adel Hamad, to apply the rule of law to those interred at Gitmo, and to restore the fundamental liberties that have been stripped from us by this administration.

It can happen to you

Brandon Mayfield wrote:

Dear concerned citizens,

If you value the notions of justice, due process and human decency you will get involved in a worthy project. Project Hamad is such a project. It is beyond doubt that there are innocent people sitting in prisons, detention centers, and military facilities around the world as a result of the federal government’s mismanaged and misguided war on terror.

I can tell you from experience that the government does target innocent individuals and lauds their capture as victories in their fight. But this fight is ruining the lives of people. Real people, with families and spouses, and concerned friends and others who love them and count on them.

Mr. Hamad is one of these people, among scores of others, who had the misfortune of being at the wrong place at the wrong time, secretly abducted and stripped of his freedom.

I too was abducted and stripped of my freedom and subjected to personal pain, humiliation, threats, and uncertainty, not to mention the effect that it had and will continue to have on my family as well. I do not want what happened to me to happen to anyone else, to you and to your family.

Keep up to date with Project Hamad blog, and help us to restore habeas corpus in the United States.

Andy Griffith Wants the Terrorists to Win

Andy Griffith explains due process in a way the twelve-year Opie old can understand. That, unfortunately, is at too high a level for the current administration.

via boingboing

On torture

Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2006

Leahy and Spector introduce bill to reinstate habaes corpus.

Following up on their earlier efforts to prevent the stripping of fundamental legal protections in the Military Commissions Act, Senators Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) have introduced the Habeas Corpus Restoration Act of 2006.

The bill would restore basic legal and human rights for 12 million lawful permanent residents in the United States that were rolled back as a result of the passage of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Below is Sen. Leahy’s statement on the introduction of the bill, as well as his co-sponsorship of the Effective Terrorists Prosecution Act of 2006.

The View from (above and to the right of) My Desk

Again, visit Project Hamad for more information on this hospital worker arrested in Pakistan in his own home and now held at Guantanamo Bay as an enemy combatant.

Adel Hamad's Gitmo detention

Project Hamad

Close it down.