joshwriting | Keeping him safe by keeping him in solitary

http://thinkprogress.org/2008/06/25/parhat-combatant-solitary/

So, the SCOTUS ruled. Now, these folks get to contest the decision to keep them locked up in Guantanamo, right?

Well...

Gitmo Detainee’s Lawyer ‘Not Allowed To Tell Him’ He’s No Longer An ‘Enemy Combatant’»

Nearly two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that detainees held at Guantánamo Bay have the right to habeas corpus and can thus challenge their detention in civilian courts, a U.S. Court of Appeals dealt another blow to the Bush administration’s detention policy.

The appeals court ruled that the Pentagon improperly designated Huzaifa Parhat, an ethnic Uighur Chinese national, an “enemy combatant” after being swept up by the U.S. military in Afghanistan in 2001 and then sent to Guantánamo Bay, where he has been held since.

Despite the ruling, Parhat has yet to see any of its benefits. In fact, he doesn’t even know about it. Parhat’s lawyer told CBC radio’s As It Happens last night that Parhat is currently being held in solitary confinement and “has no idea” the appeals court ruled in his favor because, he added, “I’m not allowed to tell him”:

DEREK STOFFEL, CBC HOST: Mr. Willett, what’s your client’s reaction to this ruling?

SABIN WILLETT (PARHAT’S LAWYER): Boy what a great question that is because my client doesn’t know about this ruling because I’m not allowed to tell him. […] He’s sitting in solitary confinement today. He has no idea what’s happened as far as I know.

There is more to the story, and both the video and a transcript of the interview.

I am not surprised. I am, however, appalled.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

1) Preventing his lawyers from contacting him is unreasonable, even if the motivation for putting him in solitary were reasonable (bad behavior on his part) and there is no other form of mistreatment occurring.

2) You asserted the presumption that they had good reason to have him in solitary. I challenged it, as there is no cause to believe they have good reason.

3) I am upset that you:
a) argue repeatedly against things I have not said - like "Past guilt is not proof of current guilt."

and b) raise unrelated issues to muddy the waters - like the "conspiracy theory" crap.

1) I think it is a gray area. If it continues for a significantly longer period of time, then it will be appalling and a cause for upset - but not before.

2) I disagree. Given no likely motivation to do so without cause, I presume that, at the very least, they think they have good reason to do so, and neither you nor I has anywhere near enough knowledge to question that.

3) a) To me, your argument that because the military at has misbehaved at Guantanamo and elsewhere in the past, one should presume they are doing so again, boils down to much the same thing. And your claim above not to be presuming the military is misbehaving in this instance is crap, because if you eliminate that assumption, there is absolutely nothing to be upset about here.

b) Seeing appalling misbehavior here is, to me, akin to conspiracy theorizing - assuming that the military is acting the way it is out of some ulterior motive rather than that it is simply trying to do its job effectively and with a good-faith effort to follow the rules. Certainly there are other instances where it has not made a good-faith effort, but by and large that's not generally the case.

Certainly there are other instances where it has not made a good-faith effort

How many instances would it take for you to cease assuming good-faith and grant that you have no basis to presume their actions are reasonable?

by and large that's not generally the case

By and large, when it comes to the Guantanamo prisoners, the U.S. government has not acted with good faith. Repeatedly, it has violated their rights, it has tortured them, it has created systems that deny the prisoners representation, it has subjected them to hearings in which they did not know the charges against them, it has made unsubstantiated allegations against them and used those as the basis for decisions.

This is not my allegations of conspiracy. This is not the liberal media hard at work. This is the record.

Listen to former Chief Prosecutor Air Force Col. Morris Davis. Listen to former prosecutor Lt. Col. Robert Preston. Or read what Captain John Carr had to say. Lt. Col. V. Stuart Couch's words might convince you.

Or try Lieutenant Colonel Stephen Abraham.

Look, even IF mistreatment has occurred in the majority of previous cases at Guantanamo, that does not make all military actions at Guantanamo guilty by association. Having looked at everything you've said about THIS particular case, I still am not seeing tremendous wrongdoing in this case.

You don't get it, do you?

You keep arguing that there is reason to presume good faith.

I am arguing that there is no such reason. You claimed Certainly there are other instances where it has not made a good-faith effort, but by and large that's not generally the case.

I have attempted to show you that you are mistaken in your presumption that they have him in solitary for good reasons.

Of course you can't see wrongdoing in this specific case, Rachel! Even if there IS wrongdoing, the man is locked up in solitary with no access to counsel and there would be no way for us to know about it!

And, again, beyond the prevention of contact with counsel, I am not alleging wrong-doing, I am not PRESUMING that they are guilty, I am merely denying your "good faith" claims, because the facts prove that you are mistaken.

So, what is your definition of "significantly longer?" Two weeks more of solitary? A month?

He has not been allowed to see his lawyer because he is in solitary confinement. I think the military has every right to keep him in solitary confinement (where "solitary" does not mean "solitary plus his lawyer"). Given that his lawyer would simply be telling him good news, rather, than trying to consult with him to build his case, this is a little gray but mostly acceptable to me.

By "significantly longer" I mean until the appeals process is done and there is a final verdict.

See my comments on solitary confinement below. Apparently, the powers that be in Guantanamo want it both ways in solitary when he is being denied access and not in solitary when discussing general conditions.

And I find your stance that keeping an uncharged prisoner in solitary confinement for as long as it takes to get a final verdict to be unfathomable. Given that the appeal would be likely to go to the Supreme Court, you are talking about potentially at least a year for further solitary.

Of course, they could just send it back to the group that makes determinations of enemy combatant status and decide that they were wrong to start with 5 years ago, as they have done with others who were captured under identical circumstances.

By the way, I now know why he is in solitary confinement.

All of the Uighurs are kept in solitary - it's their standard everyday treatment. Roughly 80% of the prisoners are kept that way:

The Red Cross, the only independent monitoring organisation allowed to inspect the detention facilities at Guantánamo, has described conditions at Camp Echo as 'extremely harsh'. Prisoners are kept in their windowless cells for 23 or 24 hours a day, and - in the absence of any natural light whatsoever - fluorescent lighting is kept on 24 hours a day.

Or, conversely, Guantánamo, a military spokeswoman said, does not have solitary confinement, only "single-occupancy cells."

A six foot by 8 foot cell, but not solitary at all. And I am sure that the lack of sun and leaving the lights on almost all the time are merely happenstance.

The Seton Hall study found that 55 percent of the detainees are not suspected of having committed any hostile acts against the United States and that 40 percent of the detainees are not affiliated with al-Qaida. Eight percent are listed as having fought for a terrorist group, and 60 percent are merely accused of being "associated with" terrorists—the lowest categorization available. They confirm that 86 percent were captured either by the Northern Alliance or by Pakistan "at a time in which the United States offered large bounties for capture of suspected enemies." They quote a flier, distributed in Afghanistan at the time of the sweeps that reads: "Get wealth and power beyond your dreams ... You can receive millions of dollars helping the anti-Taliban forces catch Al Qaida and Taliban murderers. This is enough money to take care of your family, your tribe, your village for the rest of your life. Pay for livestock and doctors and school books."

The Bush administration has repeatedly described these men as "the worst of the worst."

Your arguments about "this case" remind me of nothing more than the arguments made by schools insisting that there was nothing wrong with how they were dealing with special education classes.

~~classes~~ students

Keeping him safe by keeping him in solitary

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