“Miscarriages of Justice”
Edited excerpt by
Carolyn Bennett
“TERROR”, “TORTURE”
“In the United States these days, the very word ‘terror’ ─
no less the charge of material support for it ─ invariably shuts down rather
than opens any conversation.” Victoria Brittain says in a decade of research she
has come to a different perspective.
She has come to this presence of mind after “researching a
number of serious alleged terrorism cases on both side of the Atlantic, working
alongside some extraordinary human rights lawyers, and listening to Muslim
women in Great Britain and the United States whose lives were transformed by
the imprisonment of a husband, father, or brother.”
SPECIAL ADMINISTRATIVE MEASURES
Most illuminating, she says, “is the repeated use of what’s
called “special administrative measures” ─ to create a particularly isolating and
punitive atmosphere for many of those charged with such crimes, those convicted
of them, and even for their relatives.
While these efforts have come fully
into their own in the post-9/11 era, they were drawn from a pre-9/11
paradigm.
Between the material support
statute and those special administrative measures, it has become possible for
the government to pre-convict and in many cases pre-punish a small set of
Muslim men.
“…In addition, special administrative measures have been
applied to Ahmed Abu Ali …
…a young Palestinian-American, a university
student in Saudi Arabia arrested in 2003 by the Saudi government and held for
20 months without charges or access to a lawyer, they returned to the United
States as his family filed a lawsuit in Washington; now serving life in the
Administrative Maximum Facility, a supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.…
1996
- “… [Special administrative measures] were originally established in 1996 to
stop communications from prison inmates who could ‘pose a substantial risk of death
or serious risk of injury.’ The targets then were gang leaders.
“Each special administrative measure was theoretically to be
designed to fit the precise dangers posed by a specific prisoner. Since 9/11;
however, numerous virtually identical measures have been applied to Muslim men,
often like Ahmed Abu Ali with no history of violence.
Silenced: “…A question to Ahmed’s sister about how her
brother is doing is answered only with a quick look. She is not allowed to say
anything because special measures also prohibit family members from disclosing
their communications with prisoners. They similarly prevent defense lawyers
from speaking about their clients. It was for a breach of these special
measures in relation to her client, the imprisoned blind sheikh Omar
Abdel-Rahman, that lawyer
Lynne Stewart was tried and sentenced to 10 years in prison in the Bush
years.”
Breach of
law: “Although these measures have been contested in court, few have
ever been modified, much less thrown out. Those court challenges and evidence
provided to the European Court of Human Rights by American lawyers have,
however, provided a window into what one of them described as a regime of ‘draconian and inhumane treatment.’
Destroying mental and physical health: Under such special
administrative measures at the Metropolitan Correction Center in New York City,
a prisoner lives with little natural light, no time in communal areas, no radio
or TV, and sometimes no books or newspapers either, while mail and phone calls
are permitted only with family, and even then are often suspended for minor
infractions. Family visits are always no-contact ones conducted through Plexiglas.
…In cases where special administrative measures are in place
pre-trial, such as the well-documented ordeal of American post-graduate student
Syed Fahad Hashmi,
─lawyers have often been obliged to
prepare cases without actually sitting with their clients, or being able to
show them all court materials.
After three pre-trial years mainly
in solitary confinement under special administrative measures at the
Metropolitan Correction Center, Hashmi accepted a government plea bargain of
one count of material support for terrorism and was given a 15-year sentence.
His crime: He allowed an acquaintance to stay
at his student apartment in London, use his cell phone, and store a duffel bag
there. The bag contained ponchos and waterproof socks that were later
supposedly delivered to al-Qaeda, while the phone was used by that acquaintance
to make calls to co-conspirators in Britain.
HIGH CRIMES AMIDST INDIFFERENCE
“…In itself, solitary confinement has devastating effects … and is becoming ever more common in U.S.
prisons in breach of internationally recognized norms on the humane treatment
of prisoners. It tends to break the will
of inmates, sometimes even robbing them of their sanity.
“However, in its most extreme use ─ combining those special
administrative measures with the isolation imposed in prison communication
management units … it is mainly applied to American Muslims.”
Because of special administrative measures applied in his
case, Brittain writes, Ahmed
Abu Ali cannot do what has been achieved in some well-publicized cases
(e.g., Robert King case, Bradley Manning case, Mumia Abu Jamal case). Ahmed Abu Ali nor his family
members can contact the outside world in search of the support he and they
need.
Quoting Chilean novelist and playwright Ariel Dorfman, Brittain
writes:
…Torture ‘presupposes the…
abrogation of our capacity to imagine someone else’s suffering, to dehumanize
him or her so much that their pain is not our pain.
‘It demands this of the torturer…
but also demands of everyone else the same distancing, the same numbness.’
"P
|
erhaps such a state helps explain why people around the
world are far more aware than most Americans of what happens to Muslim men in
the post-9/11 'justice system.' The
particular cruelty of the punishments they endure even before their unfair
trials, will someday, like the abuses at Guantanamo, gain the attention they
deserve."
Sources and notes
“Miscarriages of Justice - Victoria Brittain” (Written by
Victoria Brittain, her second piece for TomDispatch), Monday, June 10, 2013,” (Article
Copyright 2013 Victoria Brittain)
Victoria Brittain is a journalist and former editor at the
Guardian. She has authored or co-authored two plays and four books, including
Enemy Combatant with Moazzam Begg. Her latest book is Shadow Lives: The Forgotten Women of the War on Terror
http://www.cageprisoners.com/our-work/opinion-editorial/item/6544-miscarriages-of-justice-victoria-brittain
Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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