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The Yemen Observer produced the following article about an IJN-led delegation of American attorneys who visited Yemen in 2007.
American lawyers decry treatment of Guantanamo detainees
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Children of Guantanamo detainees send messages to their far-away fathers.
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Yemen Observer- Fifteen American lawyers have come to Yemen in order to reveal the truth about the situation of Yemeni detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, they said this week at a press conference in Sana’a. They claim that the U.S. government was lying when it said that Yemen has refused to accept its detainees back into the country. “The main purpose of our visit is to expose the lie that the Yemeni government does not want its citizens back,” said Tina Foster, the executive director of the International Justice Network.
“To be honest, it is a lie,” said Martha Rayner, an associate clinical
professor of law in New York at the press conference held in the
Movenpick Hotel last Wednesday and organized by the Hood organization
for defending human rights and freedoms. While some 200 lawyers are
working on this case, just 15 came to Yemen to represent the group.
More than a fifth of the approximately 385 prisoners at Guantanamo have
been cleared for release, but U.S. officials have been having trouble
finding places to send them, said a recent report in The Washington
Post.
Since February, some 85 inmates or their attorneys have been told they
are eligible to leave, but only a few have gone home. Eighty-two
remained at the prison. In some cases, the Post story says, the
prisoners’ home countries do not want them back. According to the
story, Yemen has declined to accept some of the 106 Yemeni nationals in
prison, challenging the legality of their citizenship.
However, the Americans lawyers refute this. On their visit to Yemen
this week, the lawyers were surprised that many officials refused to
meet with them. The Minister of Interior and officials from Political
Security and National Security declined to meet the lawyers, said
Rayner. “But the hardest thing is that that the presidential office
refused to meet us,” she said. “There was no response from either the
Yemeni Embassy a month ago, or the presidential office here,” said
Foster. However, the Presidential Protocol Office claimed that they
had not received any official letter from the lawyers requesting a
meeting with the president. Despite their disappointments, the legal
team thanked the MPs who are cooperating with them, headed by Sakhar
al-Wajeeh.
“We want President Saleh to expose the lie of President Bush,” said
Rayner. They lawyers wonder why detainees from Europe or even Saudia
Arabia have been released, whereas Yemenis, who make up the majority of
detainees, remain in prison. “How many detainees have been released?
Just eight, only eight,” said Rayner. She said no charges have been
filed against the detainees. “A father of my client said to tell me to
do this: to tell President Saleh to consider his son as his son, but I
think it would be better if he and the other kids (of detainees) could
tell him that,” said Rayner.
“I do blame our government for this, but the Yemeni government also has
to do its responsibilities,” said Rayner. They read in the Yemen
Observer that President Saleh talked to Bush during his visit, to talk
to him about the detainees, said Rayner. “This gives us moral support.
But words are not enough, they have to be backed with actions”, said
Rayner. “The president has to meet the families and the delegations,”
said Rayner. A committee of nine MPs has been formed to follow up the
situation of Yemeni detainees. The MPs also directed a letter to the US
congress, asking it to close Guantanamo, said al-Wajeeh.
“I asked the president to meet the lawyers, to reveal the lying
politics of the US,” said al-Wajeeh. “If that does not happen, many
questions marks will be raised.” The American lawyers paid all of the
expenses of this trip from their own pockets and those of their
firms. At the press conference, a little boy named Abdullah, the son
of the detainee Ismail al-Raimi, sent a message to his father, saying
how much he missed him, and how he was waiting to show him the results
of his studies. His message was so touching that several of the lawyers
were moved to tears. But, this is not the first time the American
lawyers have cried.
A brother of one of the detainees sent his brother a message through
video, and while it was playing, all were in tears. “It was so moving,
he told his brother to stay strong and spoke of his hopes to speak with
him again,” said Brant Rushforth, a lawyer from the Heller Ehrman firm.
“The case became so personal; the Gulf, region, culture and race make
no difference, we are people.” At last the minute, the lawyers were
informed that President Saleh would meet with them. “Hood informed us
of that, and therefore lots of lawyers cancelled their airline tickets
and were ready to pay thousands of dollars to get other tickets,” said
Foster.
“In fact, [the meeting] was confirmed, but then it was cancelled,” said
Foster. It was decided that the president would confer with Minister of
Foreign Affairs Dr. Abu-Bakr al-Qirbi, with whom the legal team had met
previously. “We were extremely disappointed,” said Foster. However,
she thinks that they lawyers have begun to achieve some of their goals
by talking to the Ministers of Human Rights and Foreign Affairs, and
some MPs, who all said that they wanted the detainees back. “I am
talking on behalf of Yemen,” said Minister of Foreign Affairs, Abu Bakr
al-Qirbi. “Our position is that we want our citizens back.”
He also said that the detainees will be subject to the Yemen
constitution, and the government would then examine their files to
determine if there is any basis for the accusations against them. This
was the Yemeni position from the beginning, from 2002 and 2003, when
Yemen found out about its detainees, said al-Qirbi. Al-Qirbi said he
was not aware of having any meeting scheduled with the president to
discuss the detainees on behalf of the lawyers. Foster said that
al-Qirbi had told them that lawyers were the reason that the detainees
have not been brought to Yemen. “The US government said that if the
detainees came back, they would be tortured, and this is a lie,” said
Foster.
Foster that there are other detainees, such as those from the Uighur
ethnic group from Western China that have not been allowed to go back
to their country, where it is suspected they would be killed or
tortured. “So we just ask for 30 days advance notice to ask our
clients if they want to come back or not; all the Yemeni detainees want
to,” said Foster. “This is not the only lie the U.S. government has
told about the lawyers,” said Foster. “They also told a lie that the
detainees committed suicide, and they do this to gain world sympathy.
Other lies are designed to destroy the relationship between them and
their clients.
“They have told the detainees that we are gay, Jewish and working with
Israel,” said Foster. Also, there are over two hundred detainees
without a lawyer, said Rayner. The U.S. government said they have not
requested lawyers. “Honestly, I really do not know why.” Detainees are
starting to lose hope, said Rayner. There are some clients who are
starting to lose hope of ever going back home.
“My brother is so desperate, he is on a hunger strike. He does not want
to meet with any lawyer; he feels there is no hope,” said Abdullah
al-Shumrani, the brother of detainee Othman al-Shumrani. Foster does
not believe that the problem is only in Guantanamo prison, because
there are other prisons all over the world as bad as Guantanamo.
“[Fourteen thousand] people are being held by the US government, most
of them are in Iraq and Afghanistan,” said Foster. There are many
Yemenis being held in Bagram in Afghanistan. Foster’s organization has
started to work on this issue.
The Supreme Court in the USA has prevented the government from sending
more detainees to Guantanamo, so they have been taken to other
detention facilities, she said. Foster has met the families of the
detainees in Bagram, and she got the authorizations from the families.
“Closing Guantanamo is not the end of the problem, we are filing
against the root of the problem; Americans have abandoned the rule of
the law and its founding principles,” said Foster. Foster thanked the
Hood organization for their help. “Without the help of Hood, nothing
would happen and the case will be hidden.”
The American lawyers said that they would not stop fighting, even if
there is no cooperation from the Yemeni government. “We will not stop
fighting, and will put pressure on the US Congress to give them a
trial,” said Michael Poulshock, a lawyer from the Law Office of Judith
Chomsky. However, if the president cooperates with them, things will
be different. “Things will move forward and, at the least, President
Bush will not be able to use Yemen as an excuse.”
“Ultimately, we are fighting in court and in congress to get the right
of Habeas-Corpus,” said Brant Rushforth, a lawyer from the Heller
Ehrman firm. This is simply the right of any prisoner to a fair trial.
However, if there is no presidential cooperation, it will take at least
another two years to resolve this, he said. Rushforth believed that the
US Congress would help the case, since the Democrats now hold the
majority of seats, and thus can weaken Bush’s power. “The release will
happen, but we want to be sooner,” he said. Poulshock expressed his
disappointment with the American media.
“The American media failed us because they did not ask us enough
critical questions on the Iraq issues,” said Poulshock. “The media
intended to go along with whatever the government said.” Lawyers have
stated clearly that these illegal acts are not representing Americans
and America. “There are millions of Americans who disagreed with the
US government and what it did to the Yemeni People,” said Mari Newman,
a lawyer from Killmer, Lane and Newman. Newman wore a headscarf out of
respect to the Yemenis, and to show that we are all humans.
Millions of Americans have protested in order to convince the
government to close Guantanamo; also, the former and the current
defense ministers are supporters of this case, said Foster. “I am
really angry at my government, and at the way it deals with terrorism,”
said Deborah Mantell, 33, a law graduate who came with her professor
Martha Rayner.
“The actions of the US government do not reflect us [Americans]. The US
government claims that Guantanamo was established to protect the
national security of America,” said Mantell. “I do believe it has
threatened the national security, and I feel it has put me at great
risk.”
Originally published in the Yemin Observer
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