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June 07, 2005 Shut Down Guantánamo Dear Friend,It's time to shut down the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay once and for all. Guantánamo has become a symbol world-wide of the Bush Administration's arrogant disregard for the most basic of human rights. In a hard-hitting editorial on Sunday, June 5, The New York Times wrote: "The best thing Washington can now do about this national shame is to shut it down. It is a propaganda gift to America's enemies; an embarrassment to our allies; a damaging repudiation of the American justice system; and a highly effective recruiting tool for Islamic radicals, including future terrorists."* Please write your representatives in Congress and the members of the Senate Judiciary and Foreign Relations committees and tell them to shut down Guantánamo and either try the remaining 540 detainees in a court of law or release them. The Center for Constitutional Rights has led the fight against the detentions at Guantánamo Bay. From the day the government made clear they planned to ship prisoners there to keep them beyond the reach of law, indefinitely, and without any chance to challenge their detention or know the charges against them, CCR has fought for the detainees to have their day in court. CCR won the fight in the Supreme Court one year ago and is leading a team of more than 350 attorneys from around the country representing the detainees in the courts, but the Bush Administration has defied the ruling of the highest court in the land and stonewalled detainees' access to the courts and to counsel. We urgently need your help. Please contact your representatives in Congress and tell them the time has come to shut down the Guantánamo prison camp once and for all. And please help if you can with a donation to help us keep at this critical fight: CCR does cutting edge work, and we can't do it without you. In response to increasing documentation of abuse and the now admitted intentional desecration of the Koran, Senator Arlen Spector (R-Pennsylvania) will be holding hearings in June on the treatment of the detainees, and Senator Joseph Biden, (D-Delaware), who has just called for Guantánamo to be shut down, has proposed an independent commission to investigate the situation. CCR has long called for an independent special prosecutor with the power to prosecute the human rights abuses being committed in our name as Americans. And now we're calling for the immediate closing of the Guantánamo prison camp. Yours, Ron Daniels and Michael Ratner Executive Director and President, The Center for Constitutional Rights To find out more about Guantánamo and CCR's other cases go to www.ccr-ny.org To be removed from CCR's action alert list reply with "remove me" in the subject line *read the full text of the Times editorial here: |