Bagram and Guantanamo

Article on a US court refusal to extend to Bagram the right of detainees to challenge their detention (habeas corpus right).

Indeed, in 2008 the US Supreme Court granted detainees at Guantanamo the right of habeas corpus, and now progressives are trying to extend it to Bagram. Judge Bates had then used that decision to suggest in April 2008 that detainees at Bagram would also have the right of habeas corpus. More precisely, he referred only to detainees at Bagram who were not Afghans and who had not been captured in Afghanistan--in other words, he referred only to a minority of detainees at Bagram, but nevertheless, his judgment was significant.

But then the Obama administration went against that: indeed, the Justice Department argues that Bates's ruling is flawed because Bagram is in "a highly active war zone," and dealing with federal court proceedings would hamper the war effort and complicate diplomatic relations with the Afghan government, federal attorneys wrote in court papers. Such concerns do not exist in Cuba, they say.
They are also wondering if then habeas corpus rights would need to be extended to detainees at all US military bases overseas.

Another article here:

In April 2009, Judge John D. Bates ruled that Maqaleh and two other petitioners in the case, Amin al-Bakri and Redha al-Najar, have a constitutional right to petition U.S. courts for a writ of habeas corpus.

Judge Bates’ decision was based on the Supreme Court’s decision in Boumediene v. Bush, which established that detainees held in U.S. custody at Guantanamo had a constitutional right to file habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts.

But before any of the Bagram detainees could have his day in court, the Barack Obama administration appealed Judge Bates’ decision, arguing that none of the 600 detainees at Bagram have any rights under U.S. law.

As the organization representing the Bagram detainees, the IJNetwork has called on the Obama administration to end the practices of rendition, torture, and indefinite detention and provide fundamental human rights to all individuals held in U.S. custody – including at Bagram.

Though President Obama has vowed to close Guantanamo, the Department of Justice continues to defend the George W. Bush administration’s position that individuals held at other U.S.-run military facilities have no legal rights.

"The fundamental question at issue in these cases is whether the United States government can seize individuals from peaceful countries anywhere in the world and imprison them without charge indefinitely, based solely on the location of the prison facility where the government decides to detain them," Foster said.

She added, "The position of the Obama administration is that it can do so, as long as it uses Bagram, instead of Guantanamo, as its legal black hole. This is an extreme position – and one that allows the president to do exactly what the Supreme Court said was unconstitutional in the Guantanamo cases."