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Trial into the murder of human rights journalist Anna Politkovskay

December 2, 2008

Livewire.amnesty.org

Friederike Behr blogs from Russia on the Anna Politkovskaya murder trial

Anna Politkovskaya - murdered on 6 October 2006. ©Katja Tähjä

Anna Politkovskaya – murdered on 6 October 2006. ©Katja Tähjä

Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on 6 October 2006 in Moscow. She was shot on a Saturday afternoon, when she walked into the lift in the apartment building she lived in.

I had met her several times, one time right after Russian special forces had stormed a theatre in Moscow, where a group of men and women had taken over 800 people hostage. Anna Politkovskaya had tried to intervene and help to save the lives of those in the theatre. Subsequently, the theatre was stormed and about 150 people died.

Another time, in the Caucasus, she had just returned from meeting then Chechen prime minister Ramzan Kadyrov. He and his assistant had issued quite serious threats against her. Both times I was very much impressed by the way she responded to such experiences, not stepping back an inch, determined to continue her work.

Anna Politkovskaya had reported about the human rights situation in Chechnya since 1999 for the newspaper Novaya Gazeta . Her fearless and dedicated coverage of the conflict had been acknowledged through numerous awards including the Global Award for Human Rights Journalism from Amnesty International UK in 2001. She had also written extensively about abuses in other parts of Russia such as violence in the army, corruption in state structures, and police brutality.

Anna Politkovskaya faced intimidation and harassment from the Russian and Chechen authorities due to her outspoken criticism of government policy and action. She had been detained and threatened with serious reprisals for her reporting on several occasions.

Amnesty International campaigned throughout the period of investigation into her murder for the investigation to be full, thorough and impartial and for everyone involved in her murder to be brought to justice in procedures in line with international fair trial standards. Amnesty International members around the world have campaigned for this for the last two years.

The trial into her murder started with a preliminary hearing in October 2008, the first public hearing took place on 17 November.

Amnesty International was deeply concerned about the decision of the judge at Moscow’s District Military Court on 19 November to close the hearing based on expressions of fear from the side of the jury. No member of the jury had received any threats and as it turned out later, when one of the jury members went public and gave an interview to the Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy, the jury had not requested for the trial to be held in camera.

At the next hearing, on 25 November, it was decided to open the trial again. The office of the prosecutor general questioned the judges impartiality but at the moment, he will continue to preside over the trial.

These twists and changes in the trial procedures make it even more important for Amnesty International to monitor the trial and to try to inform its membership as much as possible about it. Monitoring the trial and reporting about it may help to combat impunity and that’s why I’ll be there.

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Behind the war in the Congo

December 1, 2008

Matt Swagler looks at how Western imperialism set the stage for renewed fighting in eastern Congo.

Socialist Worker, November 25, 2008

Congolese refugees take shelter in a camp in the town of Kibati, near the city of Goma (Remi Ochlik | IP3)Congolese refugees take shelter in a camp in the town of Kibati, near the city of Goma (Remi Ochlik | IP3)

THE LATEST fighting in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) isn’t the result of ethnic rivalries, as portrayed in the mainstream media, but the logical outcome of intervention by Western governments and profit-seeking corporations.

The U.S. is fueling both sides of the conflict–by backing neighboring Rwanda’s support for rebel forces on the one hand, and a United Nations “peacekeeping” operation in support of national DRC troops on the other.

Clearly, peace for the Congolese people is second to securing U.S. economic and political interests in the region.

As of November 11, Amnesty International reported that 250,000 people had fled their homes in response to the fighting, adding to the 1 million refugees already displaced in the province of North Kivu. Almost immediately, cholera outbreaks were reported at refugee camps overwhelmed by new arrivals, of whom 60 percent are children.

What else to read

The renewed violence in Congo and what’s at stake is discussed in “Balkanization and crisis in eastern Congo,” an interview with Congolese political figure Ernest Wamba dia Wamba in Pambazuka News.

Lena Weinstein’s “The New Scramble for Africa,” published in the International Socialist Review, documents how the world’s biggest economies are jockying for control of Africa’s oil resources.

A new book edited by Leo Zeilig, Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa collects essays and interviews that examine political struggle and social empowerment across the African continent.

Zeilig is also coauthor, with David Renton and David Seddon, of The Congo: Plunder and Resistance, a history that documents the devastating consequences of imperialism in the Congo, from King Leopold’s Belgium in the 19th century to the U.S. and other Western nations in the 20th.

The most prominent armed forces in the region are those of the DRC’s government, led by President Joseph Kabila, and the contending army of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), led by Gen. Laurent Nkuda, which has been in rebellion against Congo’s government since 2004, with the support of neighboring Rwanda.

Both sides have been accused of indiscriminate killings of civilians in recent weeks. On the evening of October 29-30, DRC troops were accused of looting and numerous murders as they retreated through the city of Goma. A week later, the Red Cross reported that the CNDP went from house to house in Kiwanja, executing over 100 young men.

On November 8, a senior Congo police officer described a preferred method of torture to the BBC: “You use car jump leads and attach them anywhere on the body, and as soon as you press the button, the current goes through, and they start to shake. It usually produced results.”

An agreement reached last week with Nkuda appears to have mitigated the violence for now, but the truce remains tenuous. The recent conflict has the potential to reignite a civil war that led to the deaths of at least 5.2 million Congolese between 1998 and 2004, an atrocity that is, as author Leo Zeilig put it, “the bloodiest conflict since the end of the Second World War.”

Continued   >>

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The United Nations’ Darkest Day

November 30, 2008

By Robert Thompson | Axis of Logic, Nov 27, 2008

This Saturday, 29th November, is the sixty-first anniversary of the darkest day in the history of the then still youthful United Nations.   The Organisation then member states carelessly breached the provisions of the Charter by voting in favour of a partition of Palestine without any attempt at asking the population what it wished to have as a future, after the British Empire wished to give up its mandate due to a general desire on the part of the government headed by Clement Atlee to decolonise, cut expenses and end the terrorism of the Zionist gangs, Irgun Zwai Leumi, the Strern Gang and Haganah. The British Empire had been bled dry by the cost incurred for the supply of very expensive arms from the USA manufacturers before their country finally joined in the Second World War half-way through. Also the cost in British lives and injuries at the hands of the terrorists was a strong argument in favour of leaving what had become a hell-hole not only for the indigenous people but also for the British before, during and after the War, as a result of the attrocities committed by these de facto allies of the Nazis.


For those who do not understand the extent of the injustice of the Proposition for which the United Nations then voted, the Zionist occupied land in Palestine was approximately 7% and that occupied by indigenous Palestinians some 93%, whereas, apart from the proposal to make Jerusalem and its immediate neighbourhood into an international area, the land was attributed almost equally between the indigenous people and the incoming Zionists, with the latter being given areas largely occupied by the former, especially in the centre and in the south, including the Naqab (or in Hebrew Negev) giving access to the Gulf of Aqaba.

We should all condemn this terrible breach of justice, as well as of their Charter, by the United Nations and work towards the establishment in all of Palestine of a single democratic state, where all those driven out by force in 1947-1948 (and their descendants) can, as the United Nations did later resolve, return and recover their homes and lands, and where full citizenship rights do not depend on one’s belonging to any specific religious group.

© Copyright 2008 by AxisofLogic.com

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The Corruption That Makes Unpeople Of An Entire Nation

November 30, 2008

By John Pilger | Information Clearing House, Nov 27, 2008

I went to the Houses of Parliament on 22 October to join a disconsolate group of shivering people who had arrived from a faraway tropical place and were being prevented from entering the Public Gallery to hear their fate. This was not headline news; the BBC reporter seemed almost embarrassed. Crimes of such magnitude are not news when they are ours, and neither is injustice or corruption at the apex of British power.

Lizette Talatte was there, her tiny frail self swallowed by the cavernous stone grey of Westminster Hall. I first saw her in a Colonial Office film from the 1950s which described her homeland, the island of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, as a paradise long settled by people “born and brought up in conditions most tranquil and benign”. Lizette was then 14 years old. She remembers the producer saying to her and her friends, “Keep smiling, girls!” When we met in Mauritius, four years ago, she said: “We didn’t need to be told to smile. I was a happy child, because my roots were deep in Diego Garcia. My great-grandmother was born there, and I made six children there. Maybe only the English can make a film that showed we were an established community, then deny their own evidence and invent the lie that we were transient workers.”

During the 1960s and 1970s British governments, Labour and Tory, tricked and expelled the entire population of the Chagos Archipelago, more than 2,000 British citizens, so that Diego Garcia could be given to the United States as the site for a military base. It was an act of mass kidnapping carried out in high secrecy. As unclassified official files now show, Foreign Office officials conspired to lie, coaching each other to “maintain” and “argue” the “fiction” that the Chagossians existed only as a “floating population”. On 28 July 1965, a senior Foreign Office official, T C D Jerrom, wrote to the British representative at the United Nations, instructing him to lie to the General Assembly that the Chagos Archipelago was “uninhabited when the United Kingdom government first acquired it”. Nine years later, the Ministry of Defence went further, lying that “there is nothing in our files about inhabitants [of the Chagos] or about an evacuation”.

“To get us out of our homes,” Lizette told me, “they spread rumours we would be bombed, then they turned on our dogs. The American soldiers who had arrived to build the base backed several of their big vehicles against a brick shed, and hundreds of dogs were rounded up and imprisoned there, and they gassed them through a tube from the trucks’ exhaust. You could hear them crying. Then they burned them on a pyre, many still alive.”

Lizette and her family were finally forced on to a rusting freighter and made to lie on a cargo of bird fertiliser during a voyage, through stormy seas, to the slums of Port Louis, Mauritius. Within months, she had lost Jollice, aged eight, and Regis, aged ten months. “They died of sadness,” she said. “The eight-year-old had seen the horror of what had happened to the dogs. The doctor said he could not treat sadness.”

Since 2000, no fewer than nine high court judgments have described these British government actions as “illegal”, “outrageous” and “repugnant”. One ruling cited Magna Carta, which says no free man can be sent into exile. In desperation, the Blair government used the royal prerogative – the divine right of kings – to circumvent the courts and parliament and to ban the islanders from even visiting the Chagos. When this, too, was overturned by the high court, the government was rescued by the law lords, of whom a majority of one (three to two) found for the government in a scandalously inept, political manner. In the weasel, almost flippant words of Lord Hoffmann, “the right of abode is a creature of the law. The law gives it and the law takes it away.” Forget Magna Carta. Human rights are in the gift of three stooges doing the dirty work of a government, itself lawless.

As the official files show, the Chagos conspiracy and cover-up involved three prime ministers and 13 cabinet ministers, including those who approved “the plan”. But elite corruption is unspeakable in Britain. I know of no work of serious scholarship on this crime against humanity. The honourable exception is the work of the historian Mark Curtis, who describes the Chagossians as “unpeople”.

The reason for this silence is ideological. Courtier commentators and media historians obstruct our view of the recent past, ensuring, as Harold Pinter pointed out in his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, that while the “systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought” in Stalinist Russia were well known in the west, the great state crimes of western governments “have only been superficially recorded, let alone documented”.

Typically, the pop historian Tristram Hunt writes in the Observer (23 November): “Nestling in the slipstream of American hegemony served us well in the 20th century. The bonds of culture, religion, language and ideology ensured Britain a postwar economic bailout, a nuclear deterrent and the continuing ability to ‘punch above our weight’ on the world stage. Thanks to US patronage, our story of decolonisation was for us a relatively painless affair…”

Not a word of this drivel hints at the transatlantic elite’s Cold War paranoia, which put us all in mortal danger, or the rapacious Anglo-American wars that continue to claim untold lives. As part of the “bonds” that allow us to “punch above our weight”, the US gave Britain a derisory $14m discount off the price of Polaris nuclear missiles in exchange for the Chagos Islands, whose “painless decolonisation” was etched on Lizette Talatte’s face the other day. Never forget, Lord Hoffmann, that she, too, will die of sadness.

www.johnpilger.com

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Badri Raina: Mumbai Attacks, Some Questions

November 30, 2008

Enough is Enough

Says who to whom?

By Badri Raina | ZNet, Nov 30, 2008

The Light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.

(Gospel, Matthew, 6:22)

I

My skimpy acquaintance with the Taj hotel in what was then Bombay goes back to 1962.

I had been selected as a rookie sales executive by the then world’s largest corporate house, Standard Oil, whose Asia division was called ESSO.

Our offices, also then the only air-conditioned building in Bombay, was at Nariman point.

Such was the nature of my job that on two or three occasions I had to be inside the Taj, full of smiles and business.

Some three years later I decided I wasn’t going to sell oil for the next forty years, and I quit cold turkey to return happily to an academic life, liberally enlivened with activist involvements.

In short, the Taj hotel is truly a magnificent structure, although those days it made me happier to look at its magnificence from the outside than wheeling-dealing inside.

Like every other Indian, therefore, I am deeply saddened both by the insane loss of life, notable and ordinary, and by the damage done to this edifice. Especially when I recall that the Taj was the result of a laudable anti-colonial impulse, since Jamshedji had been refused entrance to another hotel reserved exclusively for the British.

II

My thoughts are here occasioned by a programme that one premier English-language electronic channel has been running since last night.

It is captioned “enough is enough.”

As I have listened to the outrage pouring out from a diverse assortment of some celebrity Mumbai citizens whose haunts habitually remain restricted to the affluent South Mumbai—a zone of peace and prosperity that has had its first rite of passage to the ugliness that afflicts the rest of the city, indeed the rest of India, and rest of the world—I find myself asking the question “who is it saying ‘enough is enough’, to whom, and why now”?

And how credible is the slogan of unity-at-any-cost that now so invigorates the fortunate classes in the wake of this traumatic experience?

And why should these imperious syllables calculated to shut off debate be received with unquestioning compliance when the mind is wracked by instances when South Mumbai-India has failed to employ the same “single eye” to pronounce on other murderous and murderously divisive events?

Today, thanks to the exemplary courage and discipline of India’s security forces, the Taj may have been disfigured and damaged, however brutally, but not demolished—something that seemed to have been the intent of the terrorist attack.

But, alas, some sixteen years ago a four-hundred year old iconic mosque was axed and hatcheted out of existence while the forces stood and watched, as did the whole nation on television.

Neither that fateful day, nor once in the last sixteen years, has the cry gone up “enough is enough” on behalf of those that are now so outraged. Educated noises have been made, which is not the same thing as saying never again should this country countenance social forces that brought that watershed calamity about.

Only conscientious citizens have struggled since to bring succour and justice to the victims, often suffering opprobrium from elite India that sees them as busybodies.

Indeed, the worthies that were visibly culpable in inflicting that blood-thirsty catastrophe on the nation continue to remain in good favour with influential sections of the corporate media which may have carried on a debate on the issue but never admonished “enough is enough.”

Some two hundred lives have been lost to the terrorist attack in Mumbai. Yet when, following the demolition of the Babri mosque, our own people killed a thousand or so of our own people in the very same Mumbai, the debate never ceased, and has not to this day.

Nor has the same terminal urgency that is now in evidence informed elite comment as to why those found guilty in that massacre (1992-93) by a high-powered Commission of Enquiry have not been given their due deserts

And what of the Gujarat massacres of 2002? No terrorists from outside there too, but our own good citizens, secure in the knowledge that they had the blessings of the top man in the job. The very top man who continues to be the darling of many elites who do not fight shy of drooling over what a wonderful chief executive he would make for the whole country, full of “development” and profit maximization.

No wonder that Mr. Modi should have been the first to hold a press briefing outside “ground zero” (am I sick of that copy-cat phrase) even while the bullets were flying, making it an occasion to deride no less than the Prime Minister.

The same Mr. Modi who until the other day publicly vented his strongest barbs at the ATS (Anti-Terrorism Squad) for daring to enquire into cases of Hindutva terrorism.

Narry an “enough is enough” there; only a shamefaced disapproval barely audible on the channels.

Indeed, should you ask me, I might say that the most heroic vignette during the current imbroglio has been the refusal of the widow of the slain Karkare, erstwhile head of the ATS, to accept Modi’s devious offer of money.

As also an SMS doing the rounds, asking where Raj Thackeray, the great divisive champion of Marathi interests, has been while Mumbai was being butchered? And did he know that it was security personnel drawn from all over the country, including overwhelmingly from the north and the south, who were dying to save his Marathi manoos as much as anyone else in the city?

The same Thackeray clan to whom South Mumbai never seems to say “enough is enough,” cannily remembering that in time of trouble they may after all have no recourse but to their lumpen mercy.

And how ironic that we should then lament how the spirit of a grand unity so eludes us ?

In one brief word, why do we not ever hear an unequivocal “enough is enough” in relation to the politics of fascist communalism? Or an unequivocal recognition of its intimate bearing on terrorism? Why do these realities remain subjects of TV debates from endless week to endless week wherein the culprits are afforded more than equal time?

Continued >>

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Crimes against Humanity: Iraqi academics assassinated during the US-led occupation

November 29, 2008

Global Research, November 27, 2008

Pakistan Daily – 2008-11-26

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Editor’s note

Pakistan Daily has published the list of Iraqi academics assassinated by US and allied occupation forces. The objective of these targeted assassinations is to “kill a nation”, the destroy Iraq’s ability to educate its people, to undermine its research and scientific capabilities in literally all fields of endeavor, to transform a nation into a territory, and ultimately to destroy civilization.

Of particular significance is the assassination of prominent scientists and physicians, professors of medicine in the country’s leading academic institutions, its social scientists and historians, its physical scientists, its biologists, its engineers.

We are dealing with a carefully devised covert operation. The plan to kill the nation’s scientists and intellectuals emanates from US intelligence and the military. It is a deliberate process.

Is the new Obama administration going to turn a blind eye to this diabolical and criminal agenda?

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 27 November 2008


The following relation has being created against the Occupation and for the Sovereignty of Iraq with the information provided by direct Iraqi university sources and international and Arab media. It only includes names and data referred to university academics assassinated during the Occupation period.

BAGHDAD, Baghdad University

Abbas Al-Attar: PhD in humanities, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Abdel Hussein Jabuk: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Abdel Salam Saba: PhD in sociology, lecturer at Baghdad University.

Abdel Razak Al-Naas: Lecturer in information and international mass media at Baghdad University’s College of Information Sciences. He was a regular analyst for Arabic satellite TV channels. He was killed in his car at Baghdad University on 28 January 2005. His assassination led to confrontations between students and police, and journalists went on strike.

Ahmed Nassir Al-Nassiri: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University, assassinated February 2005.

Ali Abdul-Hussein Kamil: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer in the Department of Physics, Baghdad University.

Amir Al-Jazragi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Medicine, and consultant at the Iraqi Ministry of Health, assassinated 17 November 2005.

Basil Al-Karji: PhD in chemistry, lecturer at Baghdad University.

Essam Sharif Mohammed: PhD in history, professor in Department of History and head of the College of Humanities, Baghdad University.

Faidhi Al-Faidhi: PhD in education sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University and Al-Munstansiriya University. He was also member of the Muslim Scientists Committee. Assassinated in 2005.

Fuad Abrahim Mohammed Al-Bayaty: PhD in german philology, professor and head of College of Philology, Baghdad University.

Haifa Alwan Al-Hil: PhD in physics, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Science for Women.

Heikel Mohammed Al-Musawi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at Al-Kindi College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Assassinated 17 November 2005.

Hassan Abd Ali Dawood Al-Rubai: PhD in stomatology, dean of the College of Stomatology, Baghdad University. Assassinated 20 December 2005.

Hazim Abdul Hadi: PhD in medicine, lecturer at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University.

Khalel Ismail Abd Al-Dahri: PhD in physical education, lecturer at the College of Physical Education, Baghdad University.

Kilan Mahmoud Ramez: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Maha Abdel Kadira: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Majed Nasser Hussein Al-Maamoori: Professor of veterinary medicine at Baghdad University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Assassinated 17 February 2007.

Marwan Al-Raawi: PhD in engineering and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Marwan Galeb Mudhir Al-Heti: PhD in chemical engineering and lecturer at the School of Engineering, Baghdad University.

Majed Hussein Ali: PhD in physical sciences and lecturer at the College of Sciences, Baghdad University.

Mehned Al-Dulaimi: PhD in mechanical engineering, lecturer at Baghdad University.

Mohammed Falah Al-Dulaimi: PhD in physical sciences, lecturer at Baghdad University.

Mohammed Tuki Hussein Al-Talakani: PhD in physical sciences, nuclear scientist since 1984, and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Mohammed Al-Kissi: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Mohammed Abd Allah Al-Raawi: PhD in surgery, former president of Baghdad University, member of the Arab Council of Medicine and of the Iraqi Council of Medicine, president of the Iraqi Union of Doctors.

Mohammed Al-Jazairi: PhD in medicine and plastic surgeon, College of Medicine, Baghdad Univeristy. Assassinated 15 November 2005.

Mustafa Al-Hity: PhD in medicine, paediatrician, College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Assassinated 14 November 2005.

Mustafa Al-Mashadani: PhD in religious studies, lecturer in Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Nafea Ahmmoud Jalaf: PhD in Arabic language, professor in Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Nawfal Ahmad: PhD, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Fine Arts. She was assassinated at the front door of her house on 25 December 2005.

Nazar Abdul Amir Al-Ubaidy: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University.

Raad Shlash: PhD in biological sciences, head of Department of Biology at Baghdad University’s College of Sciences. He was killed at the front door of his house on 17 November 2005.

Rafi Sarcisan Vancan: Bachelor of English language, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Women’s Studies.

Saadi Daguer Morab: PhD in fine arts, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Fine Arts.

Sabri Mustafa Al-Bayaty: PhD in geography, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Humanities.

Saad Yassin Al-Ansari: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University. He was killed in Al-Saydiya neighborhood, Baghdad, 17 November 2005.

Wannas Abdulah Al-Naddawi: PhD in education sciences, Baghdad University. Assassinated 18 February 2005.

Yassim Al-Isawi: PhD in religious studies, Baghdad University’s College of Arts. Assassinated 21 June 2005.

Zaki Jabar Laftah Al-Saedi: Bachelor of veterinary medicine, lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Veterinary Medicine.

Basem Al-Modarres: PhD and lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Philosophy. [Source: Al-Hayat, 28 February 2006.]

Jasim Mohammed Achamri: Dean of College of Philosophy, Baghdad University. [Source: Al-Hayat, 28 February 2006.]

Hisham Charif: Head of Department of History and lecturer at Baghdad University. [Source: Al-Hayat, 28 February 2006.]

Qais Hussam Al-Den Jumaa: Professor and Dean of College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed 27 March 2006 by US soldiers in downtown Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source.]

Mohammed Yaakoub Al-Abidi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Abdelatif Attai: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Ali Al-Maliki: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Nafia Aboud: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Abbas Kadem Alhachimi: Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Mouloud Hasan Albardar Aturki: Lecturer in Hanafi Teology at Al-Imam Al-Aadam College of Teology, Baghdad University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Riadh Abbas Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University’s Centre for International Studies. Killed 11 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 17 May 2006.]

Abbas Al-Amery: Professor and head of Department of Administration and Business, College of Administration and Economy, Baghdad University. Killed together with his son and one of his relatives at the main entrance to the College 16 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 17 May 2006.]

Muthana Harith Jasim: Lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Engineering. Killed near his home in Al-Mansur, 13 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI university source, 13 June 2006.]

Hani Aref Al-Dulaimy: Lecturer in the Department of Computer Engineering, Baghdad University’s College of Engineering. He was killed, together with three of his students, 13 June 2006 on campus. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 13 June 2006.]

Hussain Al-Sharifi: Professor of urinary surgery at Baghdad University’s College of Medicine. Killed in May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 12 June 2006.]

Hadi Muhammad Abub Al-Obaidi: Lecturer in the Department of Surgery, Baghdad University’s College of Medicine. Killed 19 June 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 20 June 2006.]

Hamza Shenian: Professor of veterinary surgery at Baghdad University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. Killed by armed men in his garden in a Baghdad neighborhood 21 June 2006. This was the first known case of a professor executed in the victim’s home. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 21 June 2006.]

Jassim Mohama Al-Eesaui: Professor at College of Political Sciences, Baghdad University, and editor of Al-Syada newspaper. He was 61 years old when killed in Al-Shuala, 22 June 2006. [Source: UNAMI report 1 May-30 June 2006.]

Shukir Mahmoud As-Salam: Lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Medicine and dental surgeon at Al-Yamuk Hospital, Baghdad. Killed near his home by armed men 6 September 2006. [Source: TV news, As-Sharquia channel, 7 September 2006, and CEOSI Iraqi sources.]

Mahdi Nuseif Jasim: Professor in the Department of Petroleum Engineering at Baghdad University. Killed 13 September 2006 near the university. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source.]

Adil Al-Mansuri: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Kidnapped by uniformed men near Iban Al-Nafis Hospital in Baghdad. He was found dead with torture signs and mutilation in Sadr City. He was killed during a wave of assassinations in which seven medical specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006 [Source: Iraqi health service sources, 24 September 2006.]

Shukur Arsalan: Maxillofacial surgeon and professor at the College of Medicine, Baghdad University. Killed by armed men when leaving his clinic in Harziya neighbourhood. He was killed during a wave of assassinations in which seven specialists were assassinated. Date unknown: July or August 2006. [Source: Iraqi Health System sources, 24 September 2006.]

Issam Al-Rawi: Professor of geology at Baghdad University, president of the Association of University Professors of Iraq. Killed 30 October 2006 during an attack carried out by a group of armed men in which two more professors were seriously injured. [Sources: CEOSI sources and Associated Press.]

Yaqdan Sadun Al-Dhalmi: Professor and lecturer in the College of Education, Baghdad University. Killed 16 October 2006. [Source: CEOSI sources.]

Jlid Ibrahim Mousa: Professor and lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Medicine. Killed by a group of armed men in September 2006. During August and September 2006, six professors of medicine were assassinated in Baghdad. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources.]

Mohammed Jassim Al-Thahbi and wife: Professor and dean of the College of Administration and Economy, Baghdad University. Killed 2 November 2006 by a group of armed men when he was driving to university. His wife, a lecturer at the same university (name and academic position unknown) and son were also killed in the attack. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi sources and Tme Magazine, 2 October 2006.]

Mohammed Mehdi Saleh: Lecturer at Baghdad University (unknown position) and member of the Association of Muslim Scholars. Imam of Ahl Al-Sufa Mosque in Al-Shurta Al-Jamisa neighbourhood. Killed 14 November 2006 while driving in the neighbourhood of Al-Amal in central Baghdad. [Source: UMA, 14 November 2006.]

Hedaib Majhol: Lecturer at College of Physical Education, Baghdad University, president of the Football University Club and member of the Iraqi Football Asociation. Kidnapped in Baghdad. His body was found three later in Baghdad morgue 3 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2 December 2006.]

Al-Hareth Abdul Hamid: Professor of psychiatric medicine and head of the Department of Psychology at Baghdad University. Former president of the Society of Parapsychological Investigations of Iraq. A renowned scientist, Abdul Hamid was shot dead in the neighbourhood of Al-Mansur, Baghdad, 6 December 2006 by unknown men. [Sources: CEOSI Iraqi sources, 6 December 2006, and Reuters, 30 January 2007.]

Anwar Abdul Hussain: Lecturer at the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. Killed in Haifa Street in Baghdad in the third week of January 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007.]

Majed Nasser Hussain: PhD and lecturer at the College of Veterinary Medicine, Baghdad University. He was killed in front of his wife and daughter while leaving home in the third week of January 2007. Nasser Hussain had been kidnapped two years before and freed after paying a ransom. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 23 January 2007.]

Khaled Al-Hassan: Professor and deputy dean of the College of Political Sciences, Baghdad University. Killed in March 2007. [Source: Association of University Lecturers of Iraq, 7 April 2007.]

Ali Mohammed Hamza: Professor of Islamic Studies at Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. Killed 17 April 2007. [Sources: TV channels As-Sharquia and Al-Jazeera.]

Abdulwahab Majed: Lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Education. Department and college unknown. Killed 2 May 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2007.]

Sabah Al-Taei: Deputy dean of the College of Education, Baghdad University. Killed 7 May 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources. 8 May 2007.]

Nihad Mohammed Al-Rawi: Professor of Civil Engineering and deputy president of Baghdad University. Shot dead 26 June 2007 in Al-Jadria Bridge, a few meters away from the university campus, when exiting with his daughter Rana, whom he protected from the shots with his body. [Sources: BRussells Tribunal and CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26-27 June 2007, www.wmin.ac.uk]

Muhammad Kasem Al-Jebouri: Lecturer at the College of Agriculture, Baghdad University. Killed, together with his son and his brother-in-law, by paramilitary forces 22 June 2007. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 27 June 2007.]

Samir (surname unknown): Lecturer at Baghdad University’s College of Administration and Economy. His body was found shot one day after being kidnapped in Kut where he was visiting family. Professor Samir lived in the Baghdad district of Al-Sidiya. [Source: Voices of Iraq, www.iraqslogger.com, 29 June 2007.]

Amin Abdul Aziz Sarhan: Lecturer at Baghdad University. Department and college unknown. He was kidnapped from his home in Basra by unidentified armed men 13 October 2007 and found dead on the morning of 15 October. [Source: Voices of Iraq, 15 October 2007.]

Mohammed Kadhem Al-Atabi: Head of Baghdad University’s Department of Planning and Evaluation. He was kidnapped 18 October 2007 from his home in Baghdad by a group of armed men and found dead a few hours later in the area of Ur, near to Sadr City, which is under the control of Moqtada Al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 26 October 2007.]

Munther Murhej Radhi: Dean of the College of Odontology, Baghdad University. He was found dead in his car 23 January 2008. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 January 2008.]

Mundir Marhach: Dean of Faculty of Stomatology, Baghdad University. He was killed in March (exact day unknown), according to information provided by the Centre for Human Rights of Baghdad. [Source: Al-Basrah reported 12 March 2008.]

Al-Mamoon Faculty (private college, Baghdad)

Mohammed Al-Miyahi: Dean of Al-Maamoun Faculty in Baghdad. He was shot with a silencer-equipped gun in front of his house in Al-Qadisiah district, southern Baghdad, as he stepped out of his car 14 December 2007. [Source CEOSI Iraqi source and Kuwait News Agency, reported 19 December 2007, IPS reported 19 December 2007, and Al-Basrah, reported 12 March 2008.]

Al-Mustansiriya University (Baghdad)

Aalim Abdul Hameed: PhD in preventive medicine, specialist in depleted uranium effects in Basra, dean of the College of Medicine, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Abdul Latif Al-Mayah: PhD in economics, lecturer and head of Department of Research, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Aki Thakir Alaany: PhD and lecturer at the College of Literature, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Falah Al-Dulaimi: PhD, professor and deputy dean of Al-Mustansiriya University’s College of Sciences.

Falah Ali Hussein: PhD in physics, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University, killed May 2005.

Musa Saloum Addas: PhD, lecturer and deputy dean of the College of Educational Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University, killed 27 May 2005.

Husam Al-Ddin Ahmad Mahmmoud: PhD in education sciences, lecturer and dean at College of Education Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Jasim Abdul Kareem: PhD and lecturer at the College of the Education, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Abdul As Satar Sabar Al Khazraji: PhD in history, Al Munstansiriya University, killed 19 June 2005. [A same name and surname lecturer in Engineering at the College of Computer Science Technology, Al-Nahrein University was assessinated in March 2006.]

Samir Yield Gerges: PhD and lecturer at the College of Administration and Economy at Al-Mustansiriya University, killed 28 August 2005.

Jasim Al-Fahaidawi: PhD and lecturer in Arabic literature at the College of Humanities, Al-Mustansiriya University. Assassinated at the university entrance. [Source: BBC News, 15 November 2005.]

Kadim Talal Hussein: Deputy dean of the College of Education, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Mohammed Nayeb Al-Qissi: PhD in geography, lecturer at Department of Research, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Sabah Mahmoud Al-Rubaie: PhD in geography, lecturer and dean at College of Educational Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University.

Ali Hasan Muhawish: Dean and lecturer at the College of Engineering, Al-Mustansiriya University. Killed 12 March 2006. [Source: Middle East Online, 13 March 2006.]

Imad Naser Alfuadi: Lecturer at the College of Political Sciences, Al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Mohammed Ali Jawad Achami: President of the College of Law, Al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Husam Karyakus Tomas: Lecturer at the College of Medicine, Al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Basem Habib Salman: Lecturer at the College of Medicine at Al-Mustansiriya University. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers report, March 2006.]

Mohammed Abdul Rahman Al-Ani: PhD in engineering, lecturer at the College of Law, Al-Mustansiriya University. Kidnapped, together with his friend Akrem Mehdi, 26 April 2006, at his home in Palestine Street, Baghdad. Their bodys were found two days later. (CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 May 2006.]

Jasim Fiadh Al-Shammari: Lecturer in psychology at the College of Arts, Al-Mustansiriya Baghdad University. Killed near campus 23 May 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university source, 30 May 2006.]

Saad Mehdi Shalash: PhD in history and lecturer in history at the College of Arts, Al-Mustansiriya University, and editor of the newspaper Raya Al-Arab. Shot dead at his home with his wife 26 October 2006. [Source: Al-Quds Al-Arabi, 27 October 2006.]

Kemal Nassir: Professor of history and lecturer at Al-Mustansiriya and Bufa universities. Killed at his home in Baghdad in October 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 2 November 2006.]

Hasseb Aref Al-Obaidi: Professor in the College of Political Sciences at Al-Mustansiriya University. Since he was kidnapped 22 October 2006 his whereabouts is unknown. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources.]

Najeb Al-Salihi: Lecturer in the College of Psychology at Al-Mustansiriya University and head of the Scientific Commitee of the Ministry of Higher Education of Iraq. Al-Salihi, 39 years old, was kidnapped close to campus and his body, shot dead, was found 20 days after his disappearance in Baghdad morgue. His family was able recover his body only after paying a significant amount of money. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources.]

Dhia Al-Deen Mahdi Hussein: Professor of international criminal law at the College of Law, Al-Mustansiriya University. Missing since kidnapped from his home in the Baghdad neighborhood of Dhia in 4 November 2006 by a group of armed men driving police cars. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 5 November 2006.]

Muntather Al-Hamdani: Deputy dean of the College of Law, Al-Mustansiriya University. He was assassinated, together with Ali Hassam, lecturer at the same college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether [Muntanther Al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] both are the same case or not.]

Ali Hassam: Lecturer at the College of Law at Al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed together with Muntather Al-Hamdani, deputy dean of the college, 20 December 2006. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources, 24 December 2006. The Iraqi police identified Ali Arnoosi as the deputy dean assassinated 21 December, and Mohammed Al-Hamdani as another victim. It is unknown whether both [Muntanther Al-Hamdani and Mohammed Hamdani] are the same case or not.]

Dhia Al-Mguter: Professor of economy at the College of Administration and Economy of Al-Mustansiriya University. He was killed 23 January 2007 in Baghdad while driving. He was a prominent economist and president of the Consumer’s Defense Association and the Iraqi Association of Economists. A commentator at for As-Sharquia television, he participated in the Maram Committee, being responsible for investigating irregularities occuring during the elections held in January 2006. Al-Mguter was part of a family with a long anti-colonialist tradition since the British occupation. [Source: CEOSI Iraqi university sources and Az-Zaman newspaper, 24 January 2007.]

Ridha Abdul Hussein Al-Kuraishi: Deputy Dean of the University of Al-Mustansiriya’s College of Administration and Economy. He was kidnapped 28 March 2007 and found dead the next day. [Source: Iraqi Association of University Lecturers, 7 April 2007. See the Arabic letter sent to CEOSI.].


Continued >>

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Indigenous People Demand Voice in Climate Talks

November 29, 2008

UNITED NATIONS – Calls for greater participation of the world’s indigenous leaders are on the rise as another round of talks on global climate change opens in the Polish city of Poznan next week.

[At the banquet on the first evening of the 2008 World Summit of Indigenous Cultures in Taipei. (flickr photo by davidreid)]At the banquet on the first evening of the 2008 World Summit of Indigenous Cultures in Taipei. (flickr photo by davidreid)

“It is incomprehensible how governments believe they can discuss the effects of climate change and agree targets without the input of those who already face [its] impacts,” said Mark Lattimer of the London-based Minority Rights Group International (MRG).

In a study released last week, MRG researchers warned that a new climate change agreement would be “seriously compromised” if policymakers continued to shut out the voices of those most affected by global warming.

More than 8,000 delegates from around the world are expected to participate in the meeting at Poznan. The two-week meeting is supposed to hammer out further international commitments to fight climate change, including climate-related financial assistance for developing countries.

UN officials hope the meeting will prove to be a “milestone on the road to success” for the negotiation process launched at past conferences, because it is tasked with setting the agenda for next year’s final talks on a climate change treaty.

But in Lattimer’s view, the UN process is deeply flawed, because it does not allow the communities that have first-hand experience of dealing with climate change to participate in the negotiations.

For one, official delegates in Poznan are expected to set targets on carbon emissions from deforestation, but forest-dwelling communities who are mostly indigenous people may not be included in those discussions.

According to MRG’s new report, the impact of climate change hits indigenous communities hardest because they live in ecologically diverse areas and their livelihoods are dependent on the environment.

To cite some examples of climate change impact on indigenous communities, the report refers to unprecedented levels of ice-melt in the Arctic region, droughts in east Africa, and a rapid fall in crop yields in Vietnam.

Minorities, according to the report, are often among the poorest and most marginalized communities and are most likely to face discrimination when disasters occur during climate changes.

“There has been a lot of attention paid to the damage climate change is doing to the environment and the loss of certain plant or animal species, but we aren’t sufficiently recognizing its impact on people,” said Farah Mihlar, the report’s author.

“There are entire communities that could be lost,” she added in a statement. “Cultures, traditions, and languages could be wiped off the earth.”

At the climate change conference held in Bali, Indonesia, last December, indigenous rights activists held a series of demonstrations against their exclusion from the official talks.

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No Amnesty for Cheney, et al, Say Torture Opponents

November 27, 2008


Ali Gharib | Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON, 25 Nov (IPS) – Judging by the rare leaks from President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team, investigations and prosecutions of high-level George W. Bush administration officials for torture and war crimes are a distant prospect. But likely or not, that won’t stop pundits from debating the question of whether those officials responsible should be held accountable.

Irrespective of whether Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld or others are dragged before juries, one glaring change seems absolutely certain: Obama stands unequivocally against torture, and the practice is likely to come to an end under his administration.

‘Even though I’ve been disappointed in other presidents in the past, I do listen and I do believe Obama when he says we won’t torture. I think that’s crucial,’ said Michael Ratner, the president of the Centre for Constitutional Rights.

But foreswearing controversial and harsh interrogation methods may not be enough to permanently reestablish the moral high ground that the Obama administration has promised to bring back to the U.S.’s interactions with the rest of the world.

If Obama doesn’t take on torture that occurred, as opposed to simply discontinuing the practice, the door may be left open for future administrations to resurrect the harshest of interrogation techniques, said Ratner at a recent forum at Georgetown University Law School.

‘If Obama really wants to make sure we don’t torture, he has to launch a criminal investigation,’ said Ratner, the author of ‘The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: A Prosecution in Book.’

He said that the targets of such an investigation would be the easily identifiable ‘key players’ and ‘principals’ in the Bush administration who hatched plans to allow and legally justify harsh interrogation methods that critics allege are torture, including the controversial ‘waterboarding’ simulated drowning technique.

Those pursued, said Ratner, would include high-ranking administration officials such as Cheney, Rumsfeld, and former Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet, as well as the legal team that drummed up what is now regarded as a sloppy legal justification for torture.

Key Bush administration lawyers involved in providing legal cover to harsh practices, including the roundly criticised ‘torture memo’ from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), include former attorney general and earlier White House counsel Alberto Gonzales; Cheney’s chief of staff and former legal counsel to the vice president’s office David Addington; and the University of California, Berkeley law professor and former OLC lawyer John Yoo.

If the characters behind the questionable techniques are not held accountable for violating U.S. and international laws, said Ratner, presidents after Obama may simply say, ‘well, in the name of national security I can just redo what Obama just put in place. I can go torture again.’

Ratner also spoke to the concern that, from the view of the rest of the world, ‘to not do an investigation and prosecution gives the impression of impunity.’

But opposing Ratner on the dais, Stewart Taylor, Jr. argued that an investigation and prosecution were not appropriate.

‘The people who are called ‘war criminals by [Ratner] and others do not think they acted with impunity,’ said Taylor, a Brookings Institution fellow and frequent contributor to Newsweek and the National Journal.

In the Jul. 21 edition of Newsweek, Taylor called for Bush to preemptively pardon any administration official who could be held to account for torture or war crimes. Taylor’s rationale was that without fear of prosecution, a full and true account of what he called ‘dark deeds’ could never come to light.

Furthermore, at the Georgetown Law event Taylor said investigation and eventual prosecution would ‘tear the country apart’.

That may be the thinking of Obama, who, in addition to hints he wouldn’t investigate Bush administration malfeasance, declared his intention to govern as a political reconciliation president in his election victory speech.

In Grant Park in Chicago on Nov. 4, Obama rehashed a quote from slain civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr., but instead of rhetorically bending the ‘arc of history’ towards ‘justice’, as King did, Obama called for it to be bent ‘toward the hope of a better day.’

But Ratner said that the country was already divided, and that divide is exactly what a future administration could politically exploit to reinstate torture. He said that Obama must close the divide and doing so is not rehashing the past.

‘You’re making sure that in the future, we don’t torture again,’ Ratner said. ‘This is not looking backwards.’

Another potential problem with investigation and prosecution, says Taylor, is that the Bush administration officials ostensibly had sought to find out whether the methods they were about to approve were justified, and, indeed, they were told they were in the legal clear.

‘There is no that high ranking officials acted with criminal intent,’ he said. ‘They were relying in good faith on the advice of legal counsel.’

Taylor said that since the legal advice originated from the Department of Justice, it would be wrong for the same Justice Department to ‘turn around’ and prosecute people for actions that its previous incarnation had explicitly told were legal.

But Taylor’s point misses two issues: that the crimes were allegedly given a legal green light because of collusion with the White House, and that Ratner proposes to investigate those selfsame Justice officials who were involved in giving approval.

Despite referring to John Yoo as a ‘gonzo executive imperialist’, Taylor said that ‘those officials, like them or not, were honourably motivated’ because they were ‘desperately afraid’ of another terrorist attack.

Ratner insists that the officials, part of a ‘group, cabal or conspiracy’, may be culpable because they were ‘aiders and abetters’.

‘[OLC] was not giving independent counsel,’ insisted Ratner. ‘They were shaping memos to fit a policy that had already been determined.’

And while Taylor was quick to point out that many U.S. administrations had been accused of war crimes by various sources, Ratner replied that it was the first time that any administration had actually ‘assaulted the prohibition on torture’.

That could be one reason why, if the U.S. does not take care of its own house, Bush administration officials will likely be pursued on charges in Europe and elsewhere.

In international courts, said Ratner, those officials will not be able to hide behind the legal shields of internal government memos or executive decrees.

‘They have no defence in international law,’ he said. ‘They’re finished.’

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Foreign Press in Israel Fight Gaza Entry Ban

November 26, 2008

JERUSALEM – International journalists based in Israel appealed to the country’s Supreme Court on Monday to overturn a government decision barring foreign correspondents from entering the Gaza Strip.

The Foreign Press Association filed the court petition against the military’s Gaza commander, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit after the government failed to heed a letter signed by heads of the world’s largest news organizations calling for the ban to be lifted.

The court petition charged the media ban constitutes “a grave and mortal blow against freedom of the press and other basic rights and gives the unpleasant feeling that the state of Israel has something to hide.” It requested an urgent hearing.

The Tel Aviv-based Foreign Press Association represents foreign correspondents working in Israel and the Palestinian territories.

Israel has long restricted movement across its border with Gaza, but it closed the area to all but essential supplies on Nov. 5 after an upsurge in Palestinian rocket fire. For the first time, that included a blanket ban on foreign reporters entering the territory.

The government routinely prevents Israeli journalists from entering Gaza because of fears for their safety, but up to now foreign reporters had been permitted in, even during times of heavy fighting.

Since the ban, coverage in Gaza has been largely left to local Palestinian staff and a handful of foreign journalists who entered before the ban took effect, including two Associated Press reporters.

Israel’s Defense Ministry says foreign journalists will be allowed in only once Gaza militants stop shooting.

The letter protesting the ban, signed by The AP, Reuters, the New York Times, the BBC, CNN and other major news organizations, was sent last week to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

In responding to the letter, Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said Israel was displeased with international media coverage, which he said inflated Palestinian suffering and did not make clear that Israel’s measures were in response to Palestinian violence.

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Guantánamo Justice After Seven Years

November 26, 2008
Since the Bush administration began transporting men and boys to Guantánamo Bay in January 2002, it has tried to prevent them from presenting their cases before a neutral federal judge. Indeed, the naval base was turned into a prison camp precisely to keep the detainees away from impartial courts. The government argued that federal courts had no jurisdiction over men detained on Cuban soil. Twice, the Supreme Court rejected that argument, finding that the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control over the Guantánamo Bay base.

Finally, on November 20, in a stunning development, U.S. District Court Judge Richard J. Leon ordered the government to release five Guantánamo Bay detainees “forthwith.” Finding that the government failed to prove the men were “enemy combatants,” the judge, in a rare comment, urged senior government leaders not to appeal his ruling. “Seven years of waiting for a legal system to give them an answer . . . in my judgment is more than enough,” he said.

The five detainees the judge ordered released are Lakhdar Boumediene, Mustafa Ait Idir, Hadj Boudella, Saber Lahmar and Mohammed Nechla. Judge Leon did, however, find that a sixth detainee, Belkacem Bensayah, was properly classified an enemy combatant.

It was the Supreme Court’s June 12, 2008 decision in Boumediene v. Bush (see Supreme Court Checks and Balances in Boumediene, JURIST Forum, June 16, 2008) that allowed Judge Leon to review the enemy combatant classifications. The high court upheld the Guantánamo detainees’ constitutional right to habeas corpus and made clear they were “entitled to a prompt habeas corpus hearing.” Judge Leon adopted the definition of “enemy combatant” used by the Combatant Status Review Tribunals, which is “an individual who was part of or supporting Taliban or al Qaeda forces, or associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States or its coalition partners. This includes any person who has committed a belligerent act or has directly supported hostilities in aid of enemy armed forces.”

The six detainees in this case are native Algerians who were residing in Bosnia and Herzegovina, over a thousand miles from the battlefield in Afghanistan. All six held Bosnian citizenship or lawful permanent residence as well as native Algerian citizenship. Arrested by Bosnian authorities in October 2001 for alleged involvement in a plot to bomb the U.S. Embassy in Sarajevo, they were ordered released from prison on January 17, 2002 and then turned over to U.S. personnel who transported them to Guantánamo on January 20, 2002. They have been there ever since.

President Bush had withdrawn the alleged bomb plot as a basis for their detention. He argued instead that the men planned to travel to Afghanistan in late 2001 and take up arms against the United States and allied forces. Judge Leon found the government had failed to prove these allegations by a preponderance of evidence in the cases of all but Bensayah.

The judge said the Justice Department and intelligence agencies had relied solely on a classified document from an unnamed source. He wrote that “while the information in the classified intelligence report, relating to the credibility and reliability of the source, was undoubtedly sufficient for the intelligence purposes for which it was prepared, it is not sufficient for the purposes for which a habeas court must now evaluate it.” He added, “To allow enemy combatancy to rest on so thin a reed would be inconsistent with this Court’s obligation under the Supreme Court’s decision in Hamdi to protect petitioners from the risk of erroneous detention.”

The government did, however, present additional evidence which persuaded Judge Leon that Bensayah was “an al-Qaida facilitator” who planned to take up arms against the United States and facilitate the travel of unnamed others to do the same. That, wrote the judge, “constitutes direct support of al-Qaida in furtherance of its objectives” and “this amounts to ‘support’ within the meaning of the ‘enemy combatant’ definition governing this case.”

Bosnian authorities have indicated they are willing to take the five detainees once they are released.

In October, another federal district judge in Washington, Ricardo M. Urbina, ordered that 17 Uighur detainees be released from Guantanamo. The judge didn’t hold an evidentiary hearing because the government conceded the men were not enemy combatants. But the 17 men from western China languish in custody because the government has appealed Judge Urbina’s ruling.

President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to close the Guantánamo prison when he takes office. The National Lawyers Guild has urged Obama to ensure that the prisoners are released, repatriated, resettled, or brought to trial (if there is probable cause to believe they have committed a crime) in strict accordance with international human rights and humanitarian law, and the principles of fundamental justice pertaining to criminal proceedings. This includes but is not limited to, the Four Geneva Conventions of 1949, the Convention against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The United States has ratified all of these treaties which makes their provisions binding U.S. law under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution.

The Guild opposes the creation of national security courts to try the detainees. Although Obama said in August, “It’s time to better protect the American people and our values by bringing swift and sure justice to terrorists through our courts and our Uniform Code of Military Justice,” three Obama advisers told the Associated Press that the President-elect is expected to propose a new court system to deal with “sensitive national security cases.”

Concerns have been cited about disclosure of classified information in civilian courts and courts-martial. However, the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) provides an adequate method of protecting classified information in existing U.S. courts. CIPA allows a judge to assess the importance of sensitive evidence before it is disclosed in open court and, if necessary, create a nonclassified substitute for use at trial. Former federal prosecutors Richard B. Zabel and James J. Benjamin, Jr. studied the 107 post-9/11 cases and prepared a 171-page white paper for Human Rights First called In Pursuit of Justice: Prosecuting Terrorism Cases in the Federal Courts. They wrote, “[w]e are not aware of a single terrorism case in which CIPA procedures have failed and a serious security breach has occurred.” National security courts, they write, “would give the government more power and make it easier for the government to secure convictions.”

President-elect Obama should send those prisoners he intends to try to U.S. civilian and military courts, which are well-suited to protect national security concerns. He should eschew the creation of a new system of courts with reduced due process, which will raise many of the same concerns as Bush’s dreaded military commissions.

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and her new book, Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent (with Kathleen Gilberd) will be published in March by PoliPointPress. Her articles are archived at www.marjoriecohn.com.

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