Posts tagged 'detention'
Indefinite Detention in U.S.
Gabriel,
Let's take a moment to remember what's at stake:
Our own government asserts that the military has the right to lock you — civilians, even American citizens — up indefinitely, without charge or trial, if it decides that you're really really bad.
It's still astounding to consider, even six months after it became the law.
Please click here to support our ongoing efforts to put an end to indefinite detention. We're trying to raise $20,000 this week.
It is ONLY because of the lawsuit by Chris Hedges, Tangerine Bolen, Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, and others that the current position of the federal courts is that indefinite detention is unconstitutional.
This case could eventually reach the Supreme Court.
Tens of thousands of Demand Progress members have supported that lawsuit — and more than 200,000 have urged congress to oppose indefinite detention, generating ever-growing support for our cause.
Now we need to raise funds to keep the fight alive: Our goal is to raise $20,000 to support the efforts of Demand Progress, RevolutionTruth, and the plaintiffs' lawyers, so we can keep contesting indefinite detention on every front that's open.
(Your donation will also help fund Demand Progress's ongoing work against CISPA and in support of Internet freedom.)
Our success to date has been amazing — and because we've won in court and helped foment opposition to indefinite detention in Congress, we're now invested in an effort that could drag out for some time.
The extraordinary attorneys Bruce Afran and Carl Mayer have been working for free — but court costs are piling up, and they've got to feed their families.
We expect Obama to appeal federal judge Katherine Forrest's decision, and we need your help to make sure the lawyers can keep on fighting as the government continues its crusade against our dearly-held civil liberties.
This case could be headed all the way to the Supreme Court.
Please click here to help us keep up our anti-indefinite detention efforts — there are more than one million of you, and as little as 10, 25, or 50 dollars apiece makes a TREMENDOUS difference.
Demand Progress and RevolutionTruth have dedicated a huge proportion of our (rather modest) resources to the cause of blocking indefinite detention.
The campaigns have been successful beyond our wildest imaginations: We're winning in court, and a bipartisan coalition in the House came close to killing indefinite detention a few weeks ago.
As the battle moves to the Senate and to a higher federal court, our organizations need your help so we can keep our work going.
(Demand Progress will, of course, also be fighting CISPA and doing other work to promote civil liberties and maintain a free and open Internet.)
Thanks for standing shoulder-to-shoulder with us as we continue this critical work.
-Demand Progress
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Vote Today On Indefinite Detention
UPDATE: They're debating the NDAA even as I type. Our contacts in Congress tell us the tides are turning: It's still an uphill battle, but we have a chance of beating indefinite detention.
Please call Congress right away and ask your member to end indefinite detention.
ORIGINAL: The timing couldn't be any better: As Congress gets ready to vote on indefinite detention today, a judge just ruled that these provisions of last year's National Defense Authorization Act are unconstitutional!
Congratulations to Chris Hedges and Revolution Truth — who spearheaded the lawsuit — and to the 50,000 Demand Progress members who signed on as grassroots supporters of the effort.
It's a huge victory, but we need to keep pushing Congress to do the right thing too: The government is likely to appeal the court's ruling, so we have to make sure we beat back indefinite detention during today's vote.
Please click here to call your member of Congress right away — it'll just take a minute and we'll give you a call script you can use.
The vote is expected this afternoon, so we need calls to start pouring in first thing this morning.
indefinite detention
Guantanamo Closing
January 11, 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of "war on terror" detainees at Guantanamo. We're not going to let this day pass quietly.
Sign Amnesty's global petition urging President Obama to finally follow through on his promise to close Guantanamo. Help us meet our goal of 100,000 signatures worldwide — signatures we plan to deliver straight to the White House door.
We haven't forgotten President Obama's pledge to close Guantanamo, one of his first acts as president. Nearly three years later, the President has failed to keep his end of the bargain.
Even worse, President Obama has yet again relented to extremists in Congress. On New Year's Eve, he signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law, along with its appalling detention provisions.
We lost that fight, but there's reason for hope. The battle over the NDAA united activists across the ideological divide, who put differences aside and came together to oppose the NDAA.
January 11th isn't just any anniversary. This year, it's a critical moment to rise up against a shameful decade of human rights abuses perpetrated in our name. We can't let the recent outrage against the NDAA simply ebb away — help us channel this passion into a movement rededicated to closing Guantanamo!
Guantanamo is a costly human rights catastrophe. Military and intelligence experts have repeatedly asserted that Guantanamo and the violations it stands for are immoral, illegal and counterproductive to US national security.
There is a simple solution to closing Guantanamo — either charge detainees and give them a fair trial in US federal court, or release them.
Sign our petition to tell President Obama that we are tired of his excuses. Guantanamo must be closed.
For many, the New Year holiday embodies humanity's hopes for the future. Here's to 2012 — and with your help, this could be Guantanamo's final year.
Zeke Johnson
Director, Security with Human Rights Campaign
P.S. It's not too late to join us in Washington, DC on January 11th for a National Day of Action Against Guantanamo. Lend a hand to our human chain!
close Guantanamo
Costly Guantanamo Cell Block
From Nation of Change and McClatchy
by Carol rosenberg
Secret Guantanamo Cellblock Cost About $700,000.
A once-secret Guantánamo cellblock now used to punish captives was built in November 2007 for $690,000 from a crude, then 5-year-old temporary prison camp design.
Navy Cmdr. Tamsen Reese confirmed the existence of the block earlier in December, and released a photo of one steel-walled cell after detainee defenders called conditions inhumane. It's called Camp Five-Echo, and "serves as a disciplinary block for those non-compliant detainees in Camps 5 and 6," Reese said in an email Friday that for the first time revealed the cost of the 4-year-old prison camps construction project.
Fewer than 150 of Guantánamo's 171 captives are kept in Camps 5 and 6, which are steel and cement penitentiary-style copies of U.S. prisons. Former CIA prisoners are held elsewhere at a secret site at the remote Navy base, Camp 7, a jail whose price tag the Pentagon won't reveal.
As for Five-Echo, it's a separate 24-unit boxcar-style cellblock on the grounds of Camp 5. Its design comes from the detention center's earliest days, 2002, when contract laborers welded cellblocks from old shipping containers. But there's a key difference: In the original design, the cells had a see-through metal mesh that allowed captives to communicate with and see others. For "the disciplinary block," the military had workers weld in steel walls, sealing off each cell from the other.
The punishment block is pointedly left off the guided tour the U.S. military gives reporters. Reese, the prison camps spokeswoman, said it was first built in November 2007 and is used as a place where captives who don't cooperate with their captors lose "privileges, and not by use of isolation or solitary confinement."
Saudi-born Shaker Aamer, 45, a British resident, has been held there more than 100 days, said attorney Ramzi Kassem said Saturday, characterizing his client's detention circumstances "reminiscent of Guantánamo circa 2003."
Read entire story at Nation of Change.
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