<TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText>America's Disappeared</TitleText> <Subtitle>Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the "War on Terror"</Subtitle>

Seven Stories Press 20100909 eng

GCDS-9781583226452 03 01 Seven Stories Press 01 GCOI 58322100617850 02 1-58322-645-1 03 9781583226452 15 978-1-58322-645-2 BC <TitleType>01</TitleType> <TitleText>America's Disappeared</TitleText> <Subtitle>Secret Imprisonment, Detainees, and the "War on Terror"</Subtitle> 1 A01 Michael Ratner Michael Ratner is the President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Over the years, he has litigated a dozen cases challenging a U.S. President's authority to go to war, as well as many cases against international human rights violators resulting in millions of dollars in judgments. He acted as a principal counsel in the successful suit to close the camp for HIV-positive Haitian refugees on Guantanamo Base, Cuba. As part of the Center's focus on human rights and civil liberties violations in the wake of the September 11 attacks, he has led several cases representing detainees held at Camp X-ray in Cuba. He is the author and co-author of several books and numerous articles including: Stephens & Ratner, International Human Rights Litigation in U.S. Courts (Transnational Publishers, Inc., 1996; Brody and Ratner, The Pinochet Papers (Kluwer 2000). 2 A01 Rachel Meeropol Rachel Meeropol is a fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York City. CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization dedicated to protecting and advancing the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Ever since the Attica Rebellion in 1971, CCR has been involved in litigation and political organizing in opposition to the infliction of cruel and unusual punishment and the denial of equal protection behind bars. Rachel's interest in prisoners' rights work stems from her family's firsthand experience with the destructive impact of the criminal "justice" system on communities and individuals. With CCR, Rachel has developed a three-pronged project to combat the oppressive state of corrections in this country. Her project combines education, prevention and litigation. Rachel is working with the National Lawyers Guild to revise and republish the out-of-date Jailhouse Lawyers Handbook, a guidebook for prisoners who, unable to find an attorney, must struggle to protect their rights while incarcerated. On the litigation side, Rachel is attacking the conditions of confinement and inadequate medical care at supermaximum security prisons and at facilities holding immigration detainees. This project is made all the more urgent in the face of what Rachel asserts is the egregious use of solitary confinement and other punitive conditions against post-9/11 and other immigration detainees. 3 A01 Steven Macpherson Watt Steven MacPherson Watt is Human Rights Fellow at the Center for Constitutional Rights. 4 A01 Barbara Olshansky BARBARA OLSHANSKY is the Leah Kaplan Distinguished Professor in Human Rights at Stanford University. Previously, she was deputy legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and director counsel of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative there. She was one of the lead attorneys who brought the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case that resulted in a decision allowing the nearly 600 detainees held at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba to challenge their unlawful indefinite detentions. She’s the coauthor most recently of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing George W. Bush from Office (St. Martins, 2006), among other titles, and author of Secret Trials and Executions: Military Tribunals and the Threat to Democracy (Open Media Series/Seven Stories Press, 2002). She came to CCR in September of 1995 from the Environmental Defense Fund, a national, not-for-profit environmental organization. Barbara's current docket at the Center includes class action lawsuits concerning immigrants' rights, race discrimination in employment and education, environmental justice and public health, prisoners' rights, and Native American rights. During her four years at the Environmental Defense Fund (now called Environmental Defense or "ED"), Barbara specialized in addressing community and workplace exposures to environmental toxins. During her tenure at ED, Barbara was instrumental in incorporating environmental justice concerns into the organization's docket and worked on a number of environmental racism cases, including those addressing the construction and operation of the Brooklyn Navy Yard Incinerator and the Bronx Lebanon Medical Waste Incinerator; and the exposure of workers in chemical and dye manufacturing industries.  Prior to her employment at ED, Barbara worked at a small plaintiffs' employment discrimination and union representation firm in New York City. During her work in these areas, Barbara focused not only on the enforcement of traditional workplace issues such as wages, hours, and benefits, but also the occupational safety and health concerns of employees working in a wide range of industries.  Barbara graduated from Stanford Law School in 1985, and clerked for two years for Rose E. Bird, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. She has written several articles on environmental racism, immigrants' rights, public access to radio programming and ownership, and a chapter on occupational exposures for the 2000 ABA treatise on environmental justice.  01 eng 128 01 America's Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees and the "War on Terror" features first person accounts by individuals who have experienced the horrors of executive detention, including former Guantánamo detainees Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal; Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen the United States sent to Syria to be interrogated and tortured for nearly a year; and many other non-citizens who were wrongly swept up in the post-9/11 terrorism investigations. These narratives appear alongside political and legal analysis of the Bush Administration's controversial post-9/11 detention practices. The confirmation proceedings for Alberto R. Gonzales and Condeleeza Rice, like the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, have triggered a national debate about the U.S. government's controversial treatment of detainees and its practice of torture. At the heart of the debate is the question, Is the United States undermining democracy, freedom, and human rights in it's effort to protect its citizens from terrorism? The authors of AMERICA'S DISAPPEARED answer, Yes.AMERICA'S DISAPPEARED describes how the U.S. government, in response to the events of 9/11, launched an unprecedented campaign of racial profiling, detentions, and deportations so grievous as to evoke the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Thousands have been imprisoned without trial or any kind of judicial hearing. Thousands remain indefinitely detained without charge being brought against them. Some are tortured; others are shipped off to other countries to be tortured.AMERICA'S DISAPPEARED brings together, for the first time, detainees' own testimonies along with analysis by the leading constitutional attorneys and human rights advocates. In addition to a detailed exploration of detention-the forms currently in use, and the conditions of each-the book challenges the Bush administration's justifications for violating the Geneva Conventions and the most basic definitions of human rights.The book features first-person accounts of the horrors of indefinite detention by individuals who have experienced it, including former Guantánamo detainees Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal; Maher Arar, the Canadian citizen sent to Syria by the United States to Syria, where he was interrogated and tortured for months; and many other non-citizens who were wrongly swept up in post-9/11 investigations. AMERICA'S DISAPPEARED covers: " Conditions at Guantánamo Bay detention center " Analysis of U.S. definition of and policy toward torture " The road leading to the Abu Ghraib prison scandal " Analysis of detention of immigrants within the U.S. " The debate around "enemy combatant" status " Testimonies of survivors of U.S. military detention "The stories shared by these individuals must be heard," says Rachel Meeropol, the book's contributing editor. "Our goal is not just to educate people about the problems with the Bush Administration's 'war on terror' but also to provide a platform for the voices of those who have been the victims of the administration's witch hunt. Their stories are heart wrenching and they should be required reading for those who would defend the crack-down on civil liberties and the targeting of non-citizens as 'necessary' in the post- 9/11 world." Rachel Meeropol is a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. She completed her undergraduate degree at Wesleyan University in 1997 and graduated from NYU Law School in 2002. Ms. Meeropol is currently vice president of the New York City Chapter of the National Lawyers' Guild.Barbara Olshansky is the Assistant Legal Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Ms. Olshansky graduated from Stanford Law School in 1985 and clerked for two years for Rose E. Bird, Chief Justice of the California Supreme Court. She recently co-authored a book on the planned war entitled Against War with Iraq and published another on the use of military tribunals entitled Secret Trials and Executions.Michael Ratner is President of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Among his many cases was the successful closing of the camp for HIV-positive Haitian refugees at Guantánamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, and numerous cases challenging a President's authority to go to war without congressional approval. He co-authored the book Against War with Iraq and wrote chapters in Freedom at Risk; It's a Free Country; and Lost Liberties. He was a lecturer at the Yale Law School and currently teaches at the Columbia Law School. He has served as president of the National Lawyers Guild and Special Counsel to Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide to assist in the prosecution of human rights crimes.Steven Macpherson Watt is a human rights fellow with the Center for Constitutional Rights. Since November 2001, he has coordinated CCR's litigation efforts in relation to government measures adopted post-September 11. Originally from Scotland, Mr. Watt qualified and practiced law in that country and holds an LL.M in International Human Rights Law from the University of Notre Dame.Reed Brody is Special Counsel at Human Rights Watch. He is the author of the HRW report, "The Road to Abu Ghraib," which examines the roots of the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal. Brody coordinated HRW's intervention in the case of Augusto Pinochet in Britain's House of Lords, and initiated and coordinates the prosecution of the former dictator of Chad, Hissène Habré, who was arrested on torture charges in Senegal. Previously, he led United Nations teams investigating massacres in the Democratic Republic of Congo and observing human rights in El Salvador. In 1995-1996, he coordinated an international legal team to prosecute human rights crimes in Haiti. He is co-author (with Michael Ratner) of The Pinochet Papers: The Case of Augusto Pinochet in the British and Spanish Courts, and author of Tibet: Human Rights and the Rule of Law; and Contra Terror in Nicaragua. 02 This book provides detainees' own testimonies with a comprehensive framework for understanding the issues by the leading constitutional scholars working for their release. 04 02 72 01 http://www.sevenstories.com/resources/titles/58322100617850/images/58322100617850L.gif 07 02 72 01 http://www.sevenstories.com/resources/titles/58322100617850/images/58322100617850S.gif http://www.sevenstories.com/book/?GCOI=58322100617850 01 Seven Stories Press http://www.sevenstories.com US 04 20040610 Seven Stories Press 01 IP 01 9.06 USD