Secretary of State Hillary Clinton renewed her calls for Iran to release all US citizens it is detaining immediately in a statement Saturday.
In this statement Clinton pointed to five cases: the three American hikers who crossed into Iran from Iraq in late July; a US-Iranian scholar; and a private detective and former FBI agent who went missing in Iran in 2007.
She said, Washington “is deeply concerned about the welfare of our American citizens who have been detained or are missing in Iran.” continuing with, “We once again urge Iran’s leadership to quickly resolve all outstanding American citizen cases.” Read more…
Some of the U.S. Congressmen who vowed “not in my backyard” during debates regarding where to send Guantánamo detainees after the facility is shuttered are in for an unpleasant surprise. According to the Associated Press, the Obama administration is “looking at creating a courtroom-within-a-prison complex in the U.S. to house suspected terrorists” in America’s heartland.
A state prison in Michigan and the 134-year-old military penitentiary in Kansas are both on the short list of locations for the site. If chosen, the facility would hold the 229 suspected terrorists from Guantánamo prison. Read more…
Tuesday a representative of the Obama administration said that the U.S. could continue to detain non-U.S. citizens in facilities like Gitmo, even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by an American military commission.
The Defense Department’s chief lawyer, Jeh Johnson, told the Senate Armed Forces Committee that releasing a detainee who has been tried and found not guilty was a policy decision that officials would have to make based on their estimates of whether or not the accused posed a future threat.
But why should there be a different standard for Americans than non-U.S. citizens? Hundreds of criminals who were probably guilty as sin have been acquitted only to return to society and harm others. If a military commission cannot find enough evidence to convict an individual of terrorism charges, why should the American government be allowed continue to hold these people when any other justice system could not?
And it is safe to say that the Obama administration (or any other administration for that matter) would not stand by while another country implemented an equivalent policy. Just weeks ago, injustices toward former Northwestern University student Roxanna Saberi topped the U.S. diplomatic agenda because she was being unfairly detained. And she was found guilty in a court of law. Admittedly, the court system of Iran does not have the same tradition of justice that its American counterpart has. But Iran found Saberi to be a threat, just as the American government finds these Gitmo detainees to be threats.
If we are just going to hold these people anyway, maybe the American government should lose the pretenses of justice and skip the trial all together. Either way, the standard of the American justice system is not being upheld.
Full Wall Street Journal article: Detainees, even if acquitted, might not go free