Court throws out Islam-based Gitmo claims-judge rules detainees 'not persons'

[babylonsister]

Court throws out Islam-based Gitmo claims

by James Oliphant

A federal appeals court today tossed a lawsuit brought against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials by four released British prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, who alleged that they were tortured and denied the right to practice Islam.

The British detainees–Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Rhuhel Ahmed and Jamal Al-Harith–spent more than two years in Guantánamo and were repatriated to the U.K. in 2004.

They brought claims under the federal Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law passed in the 1990s to prevent government interference with religious practices, arguing that officials at Guantanamo actively prevented worship of Islam by, among other things, tossing a copy of the Quran into a toilet.

They also say they were tortured, beaten and humiliated. They had sought $10 million in damages. A federal trial judge dismissed most of the claims saying U.S. officials couldn't be sued for actions taken in wartime, but the religious act claim and some other claims survived. (A story here in the Tribune took a closer look at the case.)

But in an opinion released Friday Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson of U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington wrote that the religious freedom act does not apply to the Guantanamo detainees because they are not "persons" for the purposes of U.S law.

more...

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/01/court_throws_out_islambased_gi.html#more

[MGKrebs]

1. And Rumsfeld is?

[treestar]

18. ...

:rofl:

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. Then what are they?

And how soon before no on is a "person" unless they are, say, white, Anglo, Christian, and Republican?

[babylonsister]

6. That must be the criteria they're aiming for. I never cease to be amazed. nt

[rodeodance]

3. oh my god--and Another reason--worse YET:“torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s det

But in an opinion released Friday Judge Karen Lecraft Henderson of U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington wrote that the religious freedom act does not apply to the Guantanamo detainees because they are not "persons" for the purposes of U.S law.

The three-judge panel also held that the U.S. officials were immune from the torture claims because “torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants.” And the panel found that, even if torture and religious abuse were illegal, defendants were immune under the Constitution because they could not have reasonably known that detainees at Guantánamo had any constitutional rights.

The detainees were supported in their litigation by a wide range of church groups across the religious spectrum, which were concerned about the government using faith-based humiliation as an interrogation tool.

Interestingly, Judge Janice Rogers Brown, an evangelical, while concurring in the court's opinion, wrote a separate opinion, criticizing the majority for using a definition of person “at odds with its plain meaning.” She wrote, “There is little mystery that a ‘person’ is an individual human being…as distinguished from an animal or thing.” Brown said the opinion “leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantánamo are not ‘person.’ This is a most regrettable holding in a case where plaintiffs have alleged high-level U.S. government officials treated them as less than human."

[MGKrebs]

5. They are at Guantanamo precisely BECAUSE it's a constitutional

gray area. Bastards knew this was coming- meaning they knew they would be kidnapping and torturing- and built a new place untainted by existing legal precedent.

[rodeodance]

4. “There is little mystery that a ‘person’ is an individual human being…as distinguished from an anima

........Interestingly, Judge Janice Rogers Brown, an evangelical, while concurring in the court's opinion, wrote a separate opinion, criticizing the majority for using a definition of person “at odds with its plain meaning.” She wrote, “There is little mystery that a ‘person’ is an individual human being…as distinguished from an animal or thing.” Brown said the opinion “leaves us with the unfortunate and quite dubious distinction of being the only court to declare those held at Guantánamo are not ‘person.’ This is a most regrettable holding in a case where plaintiffs have alleged high-level U.S. government officials treated them as less than human."

[mmonk]

7. These judges are war criminals.

[jgraz]

8. Didn't we hang Nazi judges for this after WWII?

[RC]

9. Were they not British citizens?

Are they not Human Beings? Would not a DNA test prove their Person-hood?
This is pre-civil war thinking.

[Progressive Radical]

15. A corporation is a person.

These men are clearly not!

Get with the program!

:wtf:

[Usrename]

10. Great, we are creating an alternate sub-species of non-humans.

How can you not hate these people? What the hell is wrong with them?

[Progressive Radical]

16. You don't have to care so much ...

... and it's easy on the consciense if they are not "people."

Just sweep them under the rug. Our guests won't notice.

[Senator]

11. But Do We Demand That Our Candidates Publicly Weigh In On This ??

Or do we/they remain part of the problem?

War crimes demand impeachment, not silent complicity.

----

[sam kane]

12. What, are they 3/5 of a person?

"torture is a foreseeable consequence of the military’s detention of suspected enemy combatants"? This is all insane. It is okay, because of course we are going to do it?

[gordianot]

13. Future generations take note when the United States declared not "persons".

Very few will care now, many will care someday.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. I know how they feel.

[Progressive Radical]

17. Are we "Good Germans" yet? n/t

[treestar]

19. This is exactly how the right wing wants us to see all foreigners

Which is ironic as hell. Jefferson and the other Founders were making a new nation that did something that in those days had not been done before - based on the rights of mankind, that all are born human and have those rights and governments are just to protect and defend them.

Now ironically, the right would make it a privilege at birth (in the U.S. and if some of them had their way, to the right parents) roughly comparable to the privileges of the nobility of yore.

We have to include foreigners as people too, or we let our government decide who people are. The right wingers are too thrilled at having been born into a "nobility" to see this.

So they would in essence say that foreigners can be punished without having a right to defend themselves or even make the punishing force prove their guilt first. Foreigners have no right to speak in their own defense, just because they weren't born to the right parents. Sounds a bit like the England that the Founders separated us from, on that very ground, where the nobility had greater procedural rights when accused of crimes (and were executed by kinder methods if found guilty).

[Didereaux]

20. rhetorical question but: you do realize this is an APPELLATE level ruling...not USSupCt?

sometimes the ignorance of my fellow citizens of their own government workings and structure pisses me off no end!