U.S. to Give Afghan Detainees More Rights

[maddezmom]

Source: NBC

President Obama is readying plans that will allow hundreds of prisoners in Afghanistan to begin challenging their detention, possibly as soon as this week, according to reports.

The new system will assign a military official to each of about 600 prisoners, most of whom are being held at Bagram Air Base. The official could then gather exculpatory evidence and call witnesses before a board that has the power to decide whether the detainees should be held by U.S. or Afghan officials or be released, according to reports by The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Some prisoners have been held without charge for as long as six years at Bagram, and the jail itself has become a major source of resentment against Americans. The new detainee policies would represent the first substantial shift in approach in Afghanistan since President Obama took office.



Read more: http://www.nbcmiami.com/news/politics/NATL-US-to-Let-Afghan-Prisoners-Challenge-Detention-59146757.html

[Solly Mack]

1. K&R

[HamdenRice]

2. K&R Of course the haters are unrec'ing.

Can't have more evidence of change we can believe in on the GP, can we?

[SpartanDem]

3. This is very good news

K&R

[kpete]

4. U.S. Gives New Rights To Afghan Prisoners - Indefinite Detention Can Be Challenged

Source: Washington Post

U.S. Gives New Rights To Afghan Prisoners
Indefinite Detention Can Be Challenged

Hundreds of prisoners held by the U.S. military in Afghanistan will for the first time have the right to challenge their indefinite detention and call witnesses in their defense under a new review system being put in place this week, according to administration officials.

The new system will be applied to the more than 600 Afghans held at the Bagram military base, and will mark the first substantive change in the overseas detention policies that President Obama inherited from the Bush administration.

International human rights organizations have long criticized conditions at the Bagram facility, where detainees have been held -- many of them for years -- without access to lawyers or even the right to know the reason for their imprisonment. Afghans have cited Bagram, where virtually all prisoners in U.S. custody are held, as a major source of resentment toward coalition forces, a senior administration official said.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/12/AR2009091202798.html?hpid=topnews

[theophilus]

5. Too little too late! Get out now! Change I won't notice! Blah blah blah

Sarcasm directed at those who never applaud progress. Even small steps in the right direction should be welcomed in this toxic political atmosphere. I think many DUers just don't understand how hard it is to make progress in this country now....much less be a successful Progressive. "Little by little a mother bird builds her nest."

[EFerrari]

6. No lawyers, no independent judiciary proceeding. This is not justice.

[HamdenRice]

7. POWs don't get lawyers and court proceedings.

Before the Bush administration, international and domestic law distinguished between prisoners of war and criminal defendants. POWs get protection under international law, like the Geneva Convention. Criminal defendants get protections of the US Constitution.

Bush tried to create a third category of people who had rights under neither and to blur the difference between the traditional categories by treating US criminal defendants as POWs or enemy combatants.

The Obama administration is restoring the legal categories. But that doesn't mean that every POW gets to federal district court.

The get the Geneva Convention.

[EFerrari]

9. See above. n/t

[No Elephants]

8. Glad for the improvement!