U.S. Urged to Abandon Trials by Military Tribunals

[babylonsister]

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0322-08.htm

U.S. Urged to Abandon Trials by Military Tribunals
by Jane Sutton


MIAMI - Amnesty International urged the United States on Thursday to abandon plans to try Guantanamo prisoners before military tribunals and asked other nations not to contribute any evidence for use at the trials.


Protesters, dressed as prisoners from the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, march near the U.S. Capitol in Washington, in this January 11, 2007 file photo. Amnesty International urged the United States on Thursday to abandon plans to try Guantanamo prisoners before military tribunals and asked other nations not to contribute any evidence for use at the trials. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The London-based human rights group said the trials do not meet international standards of fairness and should be moved to the U.S. federal courts.

"These trials threaten to cut corners in pursuit of a few convictions and add to the injustice that the Guantanamo detention facility has come to symbolize," said Susan Lee, Amnesty's Americas Program Director.

The report comes as the United States prepares to restart the tribunals with Monday's scheduled arraignment of Australian prisoner David Hicks, charged with providing material support for terrorism by fighting for al Qaeda in Afghanistan.

Hicks, 31, is the only person charged so far under a new system of war crimes trials authorized by the U.S. Congress last year and formally called military commissions.

But the United States declared its intention to try 60 to 80 of the 385 foreign captives held at Guantanamo, including 14 "high-value" prisoners sent there in September from secret CIA prisons.

Amnesty said likely defendants include people captured in Pakistan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Mauritania, Gambia, Egypt and other places where the United States was not engaged in armed conflict. Some were victims of secret detention, secret transfers from country to country, torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, it said.

more...

[ShortnFiery]

1. Where's our Democratic Congress on this issue?

Gutless wonders ! Need to vote out most of them, especially the blue dogs and DLCers, for some TRUE BLUE Democrats. :grr:

[Solly Mack]

2. kr