Appellate Court Revokes “Enemy” Status

The US Court of Appeals in Washington has ruled that the US government has improperly held Huzaifa Parhat as an enemy combatant at Guantanamo Bay. This comes just 11 days after the US Supreme Court restored the basic human right of habeas corpus to the American legal system. In so ruling, the court said he could “seek release immediately.” Nothing would be a better July 4 present than to see the end of the American gulag.

Mr. Parhat is an ethnic Uighur, a Turkic and Muslim people of Central Asia who have been on the receiving end of Chinese oppression for years. Mr. Parhat was captured in Afghanistan in the early part of the war against the Taliban. He claims he had taken refuge from the Chinese communist government, but the US authorities claimed he was a Muslim extremist attached to the Taliban and al-Qaeda. The Los Angeles Times reported, “The US government has produced no evidence suggesting that he ever intended to fight, but it designated him an enemy combatant because of alleged links to the East Turkistan Islamic Movement, a separatist group demanding independence from China that Washington says has links to Al Qaeda.”

It is the Chinese dimension that makes his situation awkward. The same report said, “Although they [the Uighurs in Guantanamo] are still designated enemy combatants, they are not considered significant threats or to have further intelligence value, the official said.” If sent to China, they will almost certainly be imprisoned and may well be executed. Yet, no other country appears willing to take them.

Susan Baker Manning, a lawyer who represents Mr. Parhat, said, “The US government created this problem by bringing the Uighurs to Guantanamo when there was no justification for doing so. The message here is that Parhat is not who the government has alleged him to be for years now. He’s not an enemy combatant.” He is, rather, a symbol of why the American policy of making up new law in a fight against terrorists is such a bad idea. Either the detainees should have been held under the Geneva Convention as prisoners of war (in which case, they could be held indefinitely so long as the Taliban fights in Afghanistan), or charged as civilians. There is no such thing as an “illegal enemy combatant.”

David H. Remes, who represents 17 detainees with pending appeals court reviews, said the order “makes clear [the court’s] view that the government can be required to transfer or release an individual if it is determined that the individual has been improperly classified as an enemy combatant.”

Unfortunately, the government has managed to seal the court’s full opinion because it allegedly contains classified information. As with Britain’s Official Secrets Act, one can’t help but feel this was done to protect officials rather than secrets. A redacted opinion may follow, but for now, the summary from the court suggests that everyone in Guantanamo will get some kind of legal protection. That doesn't make them innocent, but it does make America fair.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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