tv Interview RT May 5, 2013 8:45pm-9:01pm EDT
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on the president to tell his secretary of defense to issue that exact that order to release them defense lawyers argue that even with the transfer restrictions in place the law even now allows for the administration to use waivers to lease some of these men and get those waivers are not being used why probably politics comes into that. everything that. the loyal opposition wants to criticize the administration for being soft on terrorism or things like that so i think all those things go into the decision i don't know personally about being soft on the rule of law no i agree with that that's our position that we should we should meticulously follow the rule of law that's what we preach all over the world we preach our values and we've actually prosecuted similar cases. against other countries who have not followed what we say we ought to do and we're
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not practiced we're not following and practicing what we're preaching and i think that that should be stopped but what i'm saying is this is a highly political thing and the only reason that i can figure out why you are one of the administration is not releasing those for which they have no case whatsoever is that it's politics or politics in what sense can you explain it. well sometimes politics doesn't make any sense but it's the charge that well the fear that if you release some of these prisoners that have been accused of being terrorist in the past and they do something else or you find them going into terrorist organizations you pay a heavy political price for that and i think that's that has to be the only only reason why there are not released so many of these. i have fallen victim not just
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to capture it but now to u.s. politicians that function so what they may or may not do do you think the u.s. is acting on fears and a song rather than what's lawful or not well i don't want to comment on. what do i believe the administration is or isn't doing for what reason but what we try to do in our panel in our task force was to find those things that we could either by interviews or public information ascertain is accurate and what we've found is that and what we concluded was indefinite detention for these people before than half of those that want on a mo should not continue but do you think it's a form of torture indefinite detention it's why i think they're i don't know if there's a legal definition of that but i think there's been expressed by many ethicist that to to have. indefinite detention with no prospects for being released is
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is a form of torture and does lead to things like the strikes and things like that. currently to the defense lawyers it seems like an impasse and what will change the status quo in your opinion well i think there are a couple of things number one there are still legal processes that they can go through and i think that some of the. legal defenses are being prepared to present time the other is is just politics itself the appeal to the better instincts of the united states to peel to our sense of values to our sense of ethical has to appeal well i think you are have to develop a constituency for this one of the reasons we put out this report and have. disseminated quite widely is for those. it is ations or people or leaders or
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politicians or public officials who believe as we do that we have a value system that has to be upheld they will get active in this and they will start creating a sense of. we have to do what's right and that leads to political decisions that go in the right direction up until this point. it's been sort of covered up we haven't talked about it all we've talked about or that is the terrorism itself. those who have been detained we assume and this is again against our principles and against our legal eagle legal. history we are presuming that they're guilty of something even though we can't prove it and that's just the opposite of what our rule of law says that you're presumed innocent until proven guilty. this hunger strike do you think it will make a difference. well it might. say i obviously wish
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they didn't have the hunger strike i think it's not only bad and has permanent damage to those who are participating in it it damages the united states. around the world and our reputation. but. i don't know if it's going to make a difference or not. what if someone dies there but i think it's terrible it's terrible particularly if it's someone who has been precluded by all of our government agencies and should have been released i think that's a terrible black eye for the united states. the new york times has recently published the plea of a yemeni national who's been imprisoned at guantanamo without charges of any kind for more than eleven years and here's what he writes no one seriously thinks i'm a threat but still i'm here years ago the military said i was a guard for osama bin laden but this was nonsense like something out of the american movies i used to watch they don't even seem to believe it anymore but they
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don't seem to care how long i sit here either the only reason i'm still here is that president obama refuses to send any detainees back to yemen this makes no sense i'm a human being not a passport and i deserve to be treated like one this is the yemeni. the new york times of course deserves credit for probably this letter of despair of this man but it seems unless it's on t.v. unless it's part of a national discussion national conversation few will actually know. so care about that why is it not part of the national conversation well nobody's taking it on that's happened in the civil rights legislation i was in the johnson white house and it took. many years before we were able to get a constituency it says we have done wrong by our african-american fellow americans and we need to change the way here they were in their face and they want detainees
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are there and nobody seems to care about understand that but. the undocumented immigrants they were here but nobody seemed to care about them until just recently we're going to get an immigration bill i think that's going to be fair to the immigrants who are here both legally and illegally all i'm saying is when you when you asked they need to win votes and those are gone kind of detainees foreign nationals who will not go away for a political victory or any political scores it seems so they just nobody thinks to be interested in that will there that's what i'm saying is until you highlight and publicize and put spotlight on the kinds of treatments they're getting you're not going to have anything done in this happen and every movement in the united states history where there have been injustices then you first of all have to acknowledge the injustice you then have to start developing a dialogue of the people of the united states who then demand political action be
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taken to correct those injustices and then i think that's what's going to happen here but you prefer to go you have to. you have to show what what we have done was wrong as far as renditions a number of countries like canada apologized offered compensations to former detainee faced lawsuits had to settle for millions of dollars for their secret service involvement in the renditions of those detainees the. ok as an example why wouldn't the u.s. do that it is i understand it we suspended some of the international treaties that president reagan had actually proposed twenty five years ago the un convention against torture. inhumane treatment degrading treatment etc. and in those particular legal documents you do have means of redressing the wrongs
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that were made if we restore our our here to those particular laws and treaties there will be an ability to have injustices redressed with with damages and what have you is something i found very interesting after all these rendition cases the u.k. court of appeals ruled that the government could not assert state secrets or use state secret evidence in its defense stating that quote allegations of wrongdoing had to be heard in public but that's the u.k. and i want to ask you about the whys what kind of a message does it send when you pull out the state secrets card to shut down all portress lushly this related lawsuits but you sent to jail the person who blew the whistle on torture well we addressed that in a report to a certain degree because for example lithuania and poland both were initiating
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investigations as to the black sites that were. in those two countries and whether there was torture and treatment this maltreatment of prisoners there detainees there and the united states has not cooperated with that under the so-called state secrets. and we have suggested that we should cooperate with our countries there. and that's one of the recommendations of our report. not to use the state's card now and there are ways to to cooperate and to give information without harming either personnel. under the state secrets doctrine or particular treaty relationship with other countries but we're not cooperating at all assigned to stand thank you thank you very much they're ok thank you.
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welcome to teal one i hear you can feel it. if there are three choices in life i first used to work in i'm a killer. live on a miserable way like a slave. for a second just to jump the wall and catch the dream of most. of our. lives. just to become a number of an organisation and get inside the drug trade.
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declaration of war that is how syrian officials have described the latest israeli air strike a military research center near damascus it was possible with rockets early sunday morning the arab league has condemned the strike demanding action of from the u.n. while the u.k. calls for an end to the arms embargo on the opposition. saying peace in the region is now under threat. and in bahrain a court has sentenced for thirty one protesters to fifteen years in jail for throwing firebombs to an anti regime riots last year. five o'clock in the morning here in.
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