"Detainess" Cleared of Terrorism Charges still at Guantanamo

[hiley]

Chinese Detainees Are Men Without a Country
15 Muslims, Cleared of Terrorism Charges, Remain at Guantanamo With Nowhere to Go

By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; A01



In late 2003, the Pentagon quietly decided that 15 Chinese Muslims detained at the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, could be released. Five were people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, some of them picked up by Pakistani bounty hunters for U.S. payoffs. The other 10 were deemed low-risk detainees whose enemy was China's communist government -- not the United States, according to senior U.S. officials.

More than 20 months later, the 15 still languish at Guantanamo Bay, imprisoned and sometimes shackled, with most of their families unaware whether they are even alive.

They are men without a country. The Bush administration has chosen not to send them home for fear China will imprison, persecute or torture them, as the United States charges has happened to other members of China's Muslim minority. But the State Department has also been unable to find another country to take them in, according to U.S. officials and recently filed court documents.

snip--
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/23/AR2005082301362.html

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. It's unbelievable! Or would be if anyone but the ** junta was in charge

[hiley]

2. GreenPartyVoter

I found another story you may be interested in from Alternet

Homeland Security's Casualties
Russ Baker
August 24, 2005


Good news! Efforts to safeguard Americans are working perfectly—if you read last week’s new report from the Justice Department’s inspector general. The report says the Justice Department received no complaints in the first six months of this year related to misconduct by department employees carrying out the USA Patriot Act—a key component of the campaign to prevent domestic acts of terror.

If you take that statement about the lack of complaints out of context—and many Americans probably will, thanks to the Bush administration's prowess at spinning and news-managing—you might conclude that the homeland security operation has been a resounding success.

But you get a very different impression if you piece together scattered reports from a variety of sources about the impact of the Bush administration’s domestic “War on Terror.” In early August alone, a number of disturbing articles suggested that measures designed to protect Americans are seriously undermining the most basic civil rights of both citizens and guests in this country—in an ostensibly still-free society.

Here’s a sampling of the bad news:

The grim spectre of American troops in American streets is not just a nightmare scenario any longer. On August 8, The Washington Post reported on Pentagon plans to have normal military troops intervene domestically in various crisis scenarios, despite the fact that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 severely restricts the use of troops in domestic law enforcement. The long-range concern here is that introducing active-duty troops onto American streets could lead to military involvement in politics and eventually, under the cloak of some future crisis, to military government. In the meantime, worries arise about the transferability of skills that troops need in war zones where civil liberties and other niceties play little or no role, to political demonstrations on the streets of, say, Washington, D.C., or Cleveland. The article contains various reassurances that there’s no cause for alarm. But the Post got this story from “officers who drafted the plans.” Assuming the officers spoke to the reporter with the permission of their superiors, that means the military is floating the idea to see whether it actually bothers anyone. Do the words “Kent State” mean nothing to today’s Pentagon planners?

People may be incarcerated right here in the United States in conditions as harsh as those that exist or existed in places like Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo. On August 9, we learned about an Illinois student from Qatar being held as an enemy combatant—in a Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. His lawyer claims that he is held in isolation, nearly round the clock, in a dark 6-by-9-foot cell; deliberately exposed to extreme cold; denied basic necessities like a toothbrush, toilet paper, adequate bedding and medical and psychological care; and denied any contact with his family. He further claims to be denied access to any books, newspapers, radio, television or religious material except for the Koran (which he says was placed on the floor, with other items heaped atop it), and says that threats have been made against his family.

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050824/homeland_securitys_casualties.php