President, you’re no Abraham Lincoln

President’s day is an ideal time to reflect on where we are today. The first Republican president, who we are honoring on President’s day, and the latest, George W. Bush, share something in common. Lincoln and Bush are the only presidents to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. Lincoln’s decision to suspend habeas and to declare martial law was extremely controversial. Whether this decision was right or wrong I’ll leave to the historians, but we can at least say in his favor that he could look to the Constitution in his defense. The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it. Lincoln suspended habeas to put down armed rebellions during the Civil War. Bush, on the other hand, is facing neither an invasion nor a rebellion. He has lost his judicial battle to deprive habeas rights to U.S. detainees at Guantanamo. The Supreme Court ruled that habeas, like it always has, applies to aliens and U.S. citizens alike, including those at Guantanamo bay. Thus, Bush went to Congress to legislate habeas away with the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and his Attorney General additionally declared that the writ of habeas corpus is not guaranteed in the Constitution for citizen or alien. Thus, this administration has both suspended the writ of habeas corpus and asserted that the right to it in the first place is not guaranteed. Some opponents of the Military Commissions Act suggest the Act does not suspend habeas but eliminates it altogeher.

If you want to read more on this topic, Thom Hartmann of Air America Radio has an excellent article on this topic called Repeal the Military Commissions Act and Restore the Most American Human Right.

On the bright side, many countries who have nationals at U.S. detention facilities are mounting increasing pressure on the Bush administration to either charge or release them to their home countries. To date there has been no even-handedness to this process. Detainees that get released are not the detainees with the least evidence against them. Quite the contrary. The citizenship of the detainee often plays a large role. Countries that have good relationships with the United States, like Britian and Kuwait, have had much greater success at getting their citizens released, compared to countries like Adel Hamad’s, Sudan, that has had little. But lately there has been increasing media coverage and public protest on behalf of the Sudanese detainees. Here are a couple photos of protests in Khartoum last week:

If you have any good photos of Project Hamad related activity help us flesh out our photo gallery.

Finally, check out Liza Featherstone’s article on us at The Nation magazine’s website.

Happy President’s Day

David
Project Hamad

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