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Report: Pentagon Blocking Guantanamo Legal Mail

By Jeralyn, Section Terror Detainees
Posted on Mon Jun 12, 2006 at 09:17:44 AM EST
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It seems the Pentagon is interfering with the Guantanamo detainees' ability to send and receive legal mail, including mail to their lawyers and Congress.

The rules guiding attorney/client correspondence at Guantánamo are frustratingly vague, lawyers for the detainees say, and the processing delays are maddening. Mail routinely arrives six months after it's been sent, if it arrives at all. "For months I sent him letters and he sent me letters and they were all just impounded," Hunt says. "Now, I think my letters get through but they take their sweet time about it."

The ostensible reason for the backlog is security. "The attorney/client communications go to a secure facility, which happens to be here in Washington," Hunt says. "And they can't leave there until the government clears it and says it's not sensitive and not classified."

The lawyers sit in a room to read the letters and then have to give them back. They can't disclose the contents of the letters.

In order to read Paracha's correspondence, Hunt must go to the secure location--"a grim featureless office, with blinds drawn 24 hours a day"where he's allowed to read Paracha's letters to him before placing them back in a safe. Last month he saw the 98 letters, painstakingly copied in longhand, which Paracha had sent to him to review and distribute. But Hunt was told he couldn't remove them from the safe. He can't disclose what's in the letters"it's a state secret," he quips--but says "the person with the right authority could sit down, take a glance at them and then say, 'OK they can go out.' "

At least one U.S. Senator is upset by the mail interference.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.)... wrote to Rumsfeld on June 5, asking if the Department of Defense has a "written or unwritten policy prohibiting all persons detained at Guantánamo Bay from writing to, or communicating in any manner with, Members of Congress?" If so, "please explain what legal authority supports such a policy."

On the bottom of the letter, Leahy scrawled in pen: "Is this really happening!"

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    Report: Pentagon Blocking Guantanamo Legal Mail | 4 comments (4 topical)
    Re: Report: Pentagon Blocking Guantanamo Legal Mai (none / 0) (#1)
    by HK on Mon Jun 12, 2006 at 11:05:59 AM EST
    This seems to me like just another BS rule designed to dehumanise and demoralise those detained at Guantanamo. As someone who corresponds with a person who is incarcerated, I know how frustrating it is for all when mail is subjected to such interferance. On one ocassion, there was a period of many, many months (nearly a year, if my memory serves me well) when mail both from me going into the prison and to me coming out of the prison went missing and we were left in limbo, each wondering about the lack of contact. Here we have an added dimension where the correspondant is a lawyer who faces added obstacles in putting together a case for their client. This is yet another infringement of human rights.

    Re: Report: Pentagon Blocking Guantanamo Legal Mai (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Mon Jun 12, 2006 at 11:39:15 AM EST
    Hk.
    This is yet another infringement of human rights.
    It is sadanism.

    Re: Report: Pentagon Blocking Guantanamo Legal Mai (none / 0) (#3)
    by Che's Lounge on Mon Jun 12, 2006 at 03:25:59 PM EST
    They were going to notify the one detainee that he was about to be released, but you how snail mail is. Next time try two tin cans and some string before they hang themselves. But then again he was brown anyway.

    Re: Report: Pentagon Blocking Guantanamo Legal Mai (none / 0) (#4)
    by john horse on Mon Jun 12, 2006 at 06:26:00 PM EST
    Does anyone remember the phrase "compassionate conservative"? Can anyone think of anything "compassionate" about conservatives?

    Report: Pentagon Blocking Guantanamo Legal Mail | 4 comments (4 topical)