LAWYERS FOR GUANTANAMO AND BAGRAM DETAINEES ENDORSE POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS FOR AVOIDING FUTURE DETAINEE LITIGATION  

November 19, 2008, New York, NY – Lawyers suing the Bush Administration on behalf of a number detainees being held at Bagram and Guantanamo today endorsed several specific policy recommendations to help the Obama Administration avoid similar legal challenges in U.S. Courts.   Attorneys from the International Justice Network ("IJNetwork") and Stanford Law School's Mills International Human Rights Clinic were among more than 75 individuals and 25 organizations who yesterday released "Liberty and Security: Recommendations for the Next Administration and Congress," a catalogue of key liberty and security issues and policy recommendations including 62 items for congressional action and 118 items for executive action, including how to legally close Guantanamo, end illegal detention, rendition, and torture practices, and effectively prosecute terrorist suspects in accordance with law. The full catalog is available online at http://2009transition.org/liberty-security.

IJNetwork Executive Director, Tina Monshipour Foster stated, "Having spent a good portion of the last seven years litigating individual cases on behalf of victims of torture and illegal detention, we're hopeful that President-elect Obama will not only close Guantanamo as a symbol of past abuses, but address the fundamental problems with current U.S. war-on-terror detention policy.  In this document, we've provided a road map for the next administration on how to avoid future legal challenges to U.S. detention policy by reforming current practices to meet domestic and international legal standards."

"My clients at Guatnanamo struggle to keep the hope of obtaining justice alive after more than six years of illegal detention and cruel treatment" said IJNetwork President, Buz Eisenberg.   "The 2008 elections demonstrated that indeed America has reason to hope that the abuses of Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram are in the past. We urge the transition team to begin considering these simple and straight-forward policy recommendations to protect national security legally and effectively, without inflicting unnecessary damage on civil liberties and human rights." 

International Human Rights Professor and IJNetwork Litigation Director Barbara Olshansky stated that "These recommendations are also very important because they reveal the extent to which the prior Administration's policies undermined both domestic constitutional law and international human rights law, and show the new Administration what needs to be done to unravel these  initiatives.  We need to fix these mistakes to restore our country's commitment to democracy and respect for human rights."