Keeping him safe by keeping him in solitary

[joshwriting]

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.

Comments

[camlina.livejournal.com]

To be fair, they can't have ruled more than a day or two ago!

Last Chance

[baronet.livejournal.com]

Presumably, it's a tactic to encourage him to talk.

See, I don't think that the government gets to do things to someone like lock them up in solitary confinement because they would like for him to talk. We call that illegal.

Having been told by the court that what they are doing is wrong, they don't get to try for "just a little longer", to take one last chance to break him. That would be like a baseball batter staying at the plate after the third strike, because he's *sure* that he can hit a homer off this pitcher. Or rather the 72nd strike.

I certainly won't want the government to grab me off the street and lock me in solitary confinement for even six days, let alone 6 days after they had had me under their complete and lawless power for 6 years. The fear that they were just "disappearing" me would be painful. (I'd say torture, but that word is awfully loaded in this discussion.) If I found out after I went completely out of my mind that I had had a lawyer on the outside who was working for me the whole time and that I did have some rights after all, that wouldn't retroactively make me sane again.

Or to put it another way, if you steal a car, and the cop catches you, you don't get to keep driving it around while you try to convince a judge that your aunt would have loaned it to it if she'd known.