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Rights and Wrongs

DEBORAH CREIGHTON SKINNER
Wall Street Journal
May 19, 2006

In recent weeks, the civil liberties of Americans have been center stage amid the controversy over the Bush administration's domestic surveillance program. Today, at least one spotlight was on the rights of another group caught up in the war on terror: the more than 500 detainees at GuantanamoBay.

In a final report on the U.S. and its record on torture, a United Nations panel recommended that Washington "cease to detain any person" at the military prison at the eastern tip of Cuba. The Committee Against Torture also said detainees shouldn't be returned to any state where they could face a "real risk" of being tortured. The panel of 10 independent experts also called on the U.S. to stop holding detainees for protracted periods without judicial justification for their detention, ensure that no one is detained in secret prisons and stop using interrogation methods that constitute torture or cruel treatment.

Commenting on the report, White House press secretary Tony Snow emphasized that "everything that is done in terms of questioning detainees is fully within the boundaries of American law." He also said that U.S. personnel do their utmost to provide the Guantanmo prisoners with food, clothing and other basic necessities and the opportunity to worship

Of course, calls to close down the prison are not new. As recently as last week, Britain's attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, urged the U.S. to shutter the facility, saying its existence was "unacceptable" and a discredit to the U.S. tradition of freedom. And even President Bush has previously said he would like to close the Guantanamo detention center -- but first, he said, the U.S. Supreme Court must rule on whether inmates can face military tribunals.

In June, the Supreme Court is expected to rule on the military commissions that have been established for detainees in the case of Hamdan v. Rumsfeld. Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's former driver, says the system is illegal and he should have access to a civil court, whether in the U.S. or abroad. The government says no way, in part because there's an overriding national-security need to keep some evidence secret.

Chief Justice John Roberts won't participate in a ruling that could be a watershed event in the U.S.'s war on terror because he was on the appeals-court panel that unanimously rejected Mr. Hamdan's arguments last year. Meanwhile, critics are calling for Justice Antonin Scalia to recuse himself after he told a Swiss audience in March, "I'm not about to give [a Guantanamo detainee] who was captured in a war a full jury trial. I mean it's crazy."

This week, the Pentagon released the first list of everyone who has been held at GuantanamoBay, but names of the most notorious terrorist suspects were missing, raising questions about their whereabouts. The list also didn't specify what has happened to some former GuantanamoBay detainees. Meanwhile, news is emerging from the prison that on Thursday detainees clashed with guards trying to stop a detainee from committing suicide. The guards were responding to the fourth attempted suicide that day.

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