Secret trials, being held without charges and being guilty until proven innocent

[JohnL]

No, it's not some movie about a corrupt government in the future, it's what's happening in the USA right now!

An engineer who worked for Intel is currently sitting in jail mainly because he's of Middle Eastern descent. He's been an American citizen for over a decade, is happily married and has several kids. He was taken from Intel's parking lot by a swat team in body armor and has been sitting in prison ever since. At first he was being 'detained' as a material witness, but when a judge ruled that they couldn't keep him in jail indefinitely, he was charged with plotting to wage war against the US. His trial won't come up until next January. Nobody connected with the case, from his family to the legal personel, is allowed to talk about it.

I don't know all the facts, or whether or not he's innocent or guilty, but it both p**ses me off and scares, me that the whole judicial process has just been thrown out the window, allowing the government to lock people up for as long as they want and then holding the court proceedings in secret. I'm as worried about the threat of terrorism as the next person, but allowing the government to do whatever it likes regardless of people's rights is not the way to go.

There's a web site set up to track the case here;

Free Mike Hawash

I'd be very interested to here how Andrew and others who serve/served in the military feel about the government doing things like this?

[Neville]

And now you realise? There was a great wave of inmigrants being harassed and imprisonned (and in some cases, according to Amnesty International, tortured) just right after the September 11 attacks. Also muslims protested that their meeting places had been put under surveillance and that their community was being harassed. Recently, all of these "suspects" were released, in many cases after being detained for far more time than law allows. Many were guilty of minor faults, like lacking proper documentation or staying illegally on U.S. territory, but only one of them (and he had been arrested months before 11-S!) is believed to have taken part on any terrorist activity.

Ammesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organisations have repeteadely warned the international community that many governments are using the "war against terrorism" issue to do whatever they feel like jumping human rights. Unfortunately, the US is not the only country which is doing it. Israel used the "terrorism" issue to escalalte their actions against Palestins, Russia did the same thing on Chechenia, and Morocco is using the same issue to raid on pro-democratic muslim associations after the recent terrorist attack in Casablanca.

Not to mention, and this will surely anger some people here, the treatment of those presumed Al-Qaeda members that are being kept in Guantanamo. Look, if we are going to present ourselves as the ones who are fighting for liberty, democracy and human rights, we should be the first ones to respect this values. Otherwise, we are just adding fuel to the fire.

[Rob Phillips]

What exactly does this have to do with our favorite entertainment media?

You wrote:
"I don't know all the facts . . ."

So stop being ignorant and if you want to crap on the government . . . do it on the appropriate forum . . . Jeeze!

[JohnL]

>And now you realise?

I'm ashamed to admit it, but yes, I didn't really notice this until now. I'd heard that some muslims were locked up, but at the time I didn't realize the extent to which these things were being done. Ok, feel free to ignore this thread then.

[Brother Ragnarok]

It doesn't really have anything to do with our cheesy entertainment, but it's damn well important.  Not that this Patriot Act bulls**t hasn't been going on for a while now, but it's still something that needs to be fixed.  If we could just somehow depose John "Adolph Joe Hitler McCarthy" Ashcroft, that would be a big step foreward.

Brother R

[Ken Begg]

Bro R --

Settle down, big fella.  I *know* you didn't mean to conflate Adolph Hitler and Joe McCarthy, because that would be ludicrous on one hand and horrifyingly callous to the six millions who died in Nazi death camps on the other.  If you guys want to reach 'the public' with your political views, you have to make sure you don't sound insane when making them.

These are important issues, so let's keep a level head as we go about it.