It was once the right of every person, held in U.S. custody, to be charged with something in a timely manner before a U.S. court. But now that right has been revoked, leaving as many as 430 detainees at Guantanamo Bay without the right to petition for the writ of habeas corpus and left to the whims of those currently serving in government, all done, of course, in the name of protection. Surprised? You probably are.
Sadly, it is in part due to the lackadaisical news coverage of such an unabashed restriction of rights and, a more significant contributor, public apathy.
People suspected of terrorism are subjected to extreme cruelty while at Guantanamo in the effort to eradicate information pertaining to terrorist plots. This is common knowledge. But if we are to allow people to be treated with the harsh severity present at the now notorious U.S. naval base, we should, at the very least, determine whether or not they rightfully belong there.
What is utterly dismaying is that this bill died with not a bang, nor a whimper, but an apathetic shrug from the public. Few people have knowledge of this important right dying or care about the implications of revoking prisoner’s rights.
The language of the Military Commissions Act (the bill responsible for killing habeas corpus) falsely suggests that the bill will only affect the people responsible for the lives lost on Sept. 11, trying to woo the American citizenry away from thoughts of rights infringement and instead evoking the tragic images of the crumbling World Trade Center. This is not only to elicit reverence for the lives lost but unashamedly touting human death to instill fear in the American citizenry.
While our president sat proudly behind a desk displaying a sign with the saying “Protecting America,” his actions were flying in the face of a Supreme Court set precedent from the June 2004 case, Rasul v. Bush, that detained prisoners have the right to “sue for their freedom,” according to an article in the Dec. 4 issue of The New Yorker.
Now the only thing standing between the tortures of interrogation at U.S. detention camps and innocence are Combatant Status Review Tribunal (C.S.R.T.), proceedings at which captured potential terrorists are not allowed to call witnesses outside of Guantanamo Bay, are not allowed to have attorneys present and are presumed guilty based on evidence detainees aren’t allowed to see, according to the article.
A recent broadcast of Democracy Now on Dec. 1 told the story of a German man, Khaled El-Masri, abducted by the CIA from Germany, taken to an Afghani detainment camp and finally ended up coming to the United States to peruse information about why he was held at the camp. Prisoners today will not have that luxury.
While stories like El-Masri’s may be rampant in garnering attention from the press, the problems of prisoner’s rights, and human rights in general, are not getting the rightful attention they deserve from the public nor the media.
The United States was once a beacon of democracy and a place where rights were vehemently defended. Now, with the Military Commissions Act, a nation with a proud history of democratic action has begun to resemble the countries it dismisses as cruel. With a complacent constituency, we are merely fueling the growing gap between a country proud of the rights it protects for its people and the tyrannical governments we so passionately refute.
Instead of meeting the revoking of rights with the outrage it deserves, few people are acting out against this legislation and, quite frankly, it’s a bit disappointing. As one of our most inspiring founding fathers best said, those we choose security over freedom deserve neither. Let’s be sure to keep liberty as one of our nation’s fundamental principles.
