June 16, 2004

Guantanamo: What the World Should Know:

"The United States is trying to overturn one of the most fundamental principles of Anglo-American jurisprudence and international law. This is a principle that is found in the Declaration of the Rights of Man, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We have gone back to a pre-Magna Carta medieval system, not a system of laws, but of executive fiat, where the king-or in this case the president-simply decides, on any particular day, I'm going to throw you into some prison. You are not going to have access to a lawyer or anybody else, or even know if there are any charges against you, or if you will ever be released from this prison. Guantanamo has become our Devil's Island, our Chateau d'If from The Count of Monte Cristo. The consequences of this unilateral abrogation of fundamental law are grave, not merely for the people in Guantanamo and for citizens of other countries, but also for every person in the United States. If we care about civilization and the rule of law and justice, we cannot keep treating people like this. There should be no place in the world that is a law-free zone, no place in the world where human beings have no rights..."

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