Gitmo Lawyers Sue Obama Administration, Call for Sanctions Against Defense Secretary Gates

Posted by Liliana Segura, AlterNet at 9:01 AM on March 24, 2009.

Two weeks after the Obama administration announced that it was no longer labeling terror suspects "enemy combatants" , while still asserting the right to imprison them indefinitely, lawyers representing prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have brought forth multiple lawsuits -- including a motion of contempt against Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- accusing it of violating the Geneva Conventions in its treatment of detainees.
The AFP broke the story on Monday, reporting that it had obtained one court motion, filed Friday on behalf of Huzaifat Parhat, a Chinese Uighur who has been imprisoned at Guantanamo since 2001. Parhat, along with some 17 Uighurs at the prison camp, remains there despite the U.S. government's long acknowledgment that he is not a terrorist and despite a court order last year that they be released -- the first time that a U.S. court has ordered the direct release of a prisoner at Guantánamo.
The story of how the Uighurs came to Guantanamo in the first place is almost incredible; UK-based writer Andy Worthington has covered it extensively. As he recently wrote, "It was clear from the very start of their detention that the Uighurs had nothing to do with either al-Qaeda or the Taliban." Consequently, their plight has attracted international outrage, particularly following the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling last winter, which in theory restored the right of habeas corpus to prisoners at Guantanamo, but which did not appear to apply to them. As the New York Times reported at the time (without a hint of irony), the Bush administration said it would not return the Uighur detainees to China "because of concerns about their treatment at the hands of the Chinese government, which views them as terrorists."

"Huzaifa Parhat has now been determined by about as conservative a court as there is not to be an enemy combatant -- this is what we've been saying for years," his lawyer Sabin Willet said last January, "and yet I can't get him out of solitary confinement in the hands of my own government."
That might have been par for the course under Bush. But now the Obama administration is obstructing justice by blocking the release of the Uighurs -- despite the fact that they have never been charged, are not accused of planning terror attacks on the U.S. and that communities within the United States have said they are willing to welcome them.
As members of the group Witness Against Torture, who have launched a campaign to free the Uighur detainees, argue: "There is no need to review whether they should be imprisoned. The Executive Branch, the judiciary, and members of congress all have acknowledged that the Uighurs should be released. The issue for the Obama Administration is not whether the Uighurs should be released, but rather where they should be released."

One of the lawsuits brought last week cites Secretary of Defense Robert Gates's "continued refusal to comply with a final order" by the Washington appeals court ordering Parhat's release. According to the AFP, "the lawyers also demanded that a new court ruling should include 'a threat of sanctions' in order to ensure Gates complies with the order."
Another lawsuit brought on behalf of 15 Gitmo prisoners, "takes issue with new rules laid down by the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama earlier this month justifying the state's right to hold terror suspects." Lawyers called it a "partial retreat" from the Bush administration's position and "lashed out at the government for justifying detaining suspects without charge or trial solely on the basis of a congressional decision authorizing the U.S.-led 'war on terror' after the September 11, 2001 attacks."

Tagged as: war on terror, robert gates, guantanamo, andy worthington, uighurs, huzaifat parhat

Liliana Segura is a staff writer and editor of AlterNet's Rights and Liberties and War on Iraq Special Coverage.