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US moves to limit lawyers’ access to Guantánamo inmates
In the wake of recent revelations of widespread torture and abuse at the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, the US Justice Department has taken legal action to restrict lawyers’ access to their clients incarcerated there. These lawyers have been an important source of news from inside the camp, despite being already subject to a strict set of rules established by the Pentagon and the DC Court of Appeals in 2004.
The Justice Department has asked the Washington DC Circuit Court of Appeals to limit the number of times lawyers can visit individual clients to four (they currently have unlimited visits), allow only one visit before which the prisoner must decide whether or not he will allow the lawyer to represent him, and prohibit lawyers from viewing “secret evidence” that can be used against their clients in the military tribunals. A court hearing on the filing will take place May 15.
The Justice Department provocatively claims in the filing that the interactions between civilian lawyers and Guantánamo prisoners have caused “intractable problems and threats to security at Guantánamo,” blaming the lawyers for inciting disobedience, hunger strikes, and unrest.
Lawyers are also accused of providing detainees with news reports and accounts of events taking place outside the camp. “Such information threatens the security of the camp, as it could incite violence among the detainees,” the filing stated. The New York Times quoted the reaction of lawyer Niel H. Koslowe, who called this a “McCarthy-era charge.”
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/guan-a27.shtml
The Justice Department provocatively claims in the filing that the interactions between civilian lawyers and Guantánamo prisoners have caused “intractable problems and threats to security at Guantánamo,” blaming the lawyers for inciting disobedience, hunger strikes, and unrest.
Lawyers are also accused of providing detainees with news reports and accounts of events taking place outside the camp. “Such information threatens the security of the camp, as it could incite violence among the detainees,” the filing stated. The New York Times quoted the reaction of lawyer Niel H. Koslowe, who called this a “McCarthy-era charge.”
More
http://wsws.org/articles/2007/apr2007/guan-a27.shtml
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