The ACLU has created a petition that you can sign to encourage your senators to close the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.
It states:
I am writing to urge you to support and co-sponsor Senator Harkin's recently introduced Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility Closure Act of 2007 (S. 1469), which would close the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba within 120 days of enactment.
This legislation cuts off funds for everything except sending charged or sentenced detainees to Fort Leavenworth and transferring the remaining detainees to their home countries or other countries that will not torture, abuse, or otherwise persecute them. Fort Leavenworth prison was specifically designated, designed, and built by the Department of Defense to hold national security prisoners.
The government has been holding nearly 400 men indefinitely and without charge at Guantanamo for long enough. Senator Harkin's bill will ensure that those inmates who the government alleges are criminals will finally be charged and tried. Due process and the rule of law are long overdue. The time to act, and set clear-cut deadlines for action by the Bush Administration is now.
What I'm asking for is simple: end indefinite detention and use a process that respects due process and the rule of law. Holding people indefinitely and without charge for years is un-American. It damages my sense of pride in this great nation.
Support for closing the legal "black hole" that is Guantanamo Bay is bipartisan, widespread, and growing by the day. The decision to use Fort Leavenworth closely tracks Senator McCain's recent statement. He said, if elected president, he "would immediately close Guantanamo Bay, move all prisoners to Fort Leavenworth and truly expedite the judicial proceedings in their cases."
As you can see, Senator Harkin's bill is a commonsense solution to a problem that has gone on damaging American values long enough.
Again, please support and co-sponsor the Guantanamo Bay Detention Facility Closure Act of 2007 (S. 1469).
I eagerly await your response.
4 comments:
Everyone knows the criminals in this detention camp are all guilty. Why would you ever shut it completely down? We need it for terrorists that are actually caught. It would be a big mistake to close this camp.
Hi Anonymous,
Thanks for writing. I agree that we need place to detain anyone who breaks the law, whether a terrorist or some other kind of criminal. However, I challenge your statement that "Everyone knows the criminals in this detention camp are all guilty."
If that is the case, why are we holding them without charges? Why are we denying them access to a trial?
Have you listened to or read the accounts of the few Guantanamo prisoners who have been released without charges? Those who were tortured, and found to be not guilty? Not guilty, in this great country, means innocent.
Guantanamo represents a dark period in our recent history, where the fabric of this nation's integrity has been unravelled by an Executive branch that believes itself above the rule of law, above checks and balances, above the Constitution of United States.
I believe that it is un-American to let our country slip into a place where one group will use any and all means--even if illegal--to override the legitimate safety valves we have worked so hard to put in place over the course of our nation's formation and existance. That looks a lot like a country ruled by a fascist regime. And none of us--red/blue/left or right--can afford to let that happen to our country.
Freedom and due process of law for all -- or for none. It cannot be any other way, and truly be the American way.
As the petition states:
What I'm asking for is simple: end indefinite detention and use a process that respects due process and the rule of law. Holding people indefinitely and without charge for years is un-American. It damages my sense of pride in this great nation.
OJ was found not guilty Rosie.
OJ enjoyed a right to a fair trial.
That's all our Constitution purports to guarantee - the right to be heard, and to defend yourself against those who accuse you before an IMPARTIAL judge/jury.
Outcomes are a separate matter. They are, obviously, individual. There is no comparing OJ and some unknown foreign muslim that's been branded a terrorist. In terms of likelihood of outcome, the odds are stacked respectively: favorable and against.
Rosie
Post a Comment