Yaser Hamdi's rightsIN JUNE the US Supreme Court reaffirmed the Bill of Rights by ruling that the government could not hold detainees as "enemy combatants" indefinitely without giving them a right to contest that status before a judge. Now the Justice Department is letting Yaser Esam Hamdi go home to Saudi Arabia without even requiring him to challenge the evidence that caused him to be held under tight security for more than two years. The release of Hamdi raises the question of how many other detainees at Guantanamo or elsewhere are being held on charges that are too flimsy to stand the light of day. The Hamdi case is just the latest of many in which US military or civilian officials with great fanfare have detained individuals on the grounds that they are likely kingpins in international terrorism. Once the detainees -- whether an Oregon lawyer and Muslim convert or an Islamic chaplain at Guantanamo -- were granted due process, their lawyers made shreds of the government's case.
Hamdi, born to Saudi parents in Louisiana and thus a US citizen, was picked up during the war in Afghanistan in late 2001 by members of the US-allied Northern Alliance. His detention was based on a nine-paragraph declaration by a Pentagon employee. The US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit had justified denying Hamdi a lawyer to fight his confinement on the grounds that the Pentagon declaration was "undisputed." In overturning that ruling, the Supreme Court noted acidly that Hamdi's lawyer had never had a chance to dispute the declaration. Hamdi is understandably eager to be released and allowed to go home, but it is regrettable that there will be no court hearing to reveal the information that the government relied on to hold him for so long as such a security threat. The public should know what collateral damage the administration is doing to the Bill of Rights as it makes questionable arrests in its fight to thwart terrorism. Unjustified or needlessly prolonged detentions of Muslim individuals in the wrong place at the wrong time also damage the standing of the United States in Islamic communities, both abroad and within the United States, when Americans should be trying to win support. It will be fatal to the US effort to confront the terrorism of Islamic radicals if a belief grows among Muslims that the United States cannot be bothered to distinguish between Muslims who pose a genuine risk and ordinary individuals, including those who could help US officials identify terrorists.
The collapse of the case against Hamdi is one more reason for the Pentagon to speed up hearings at Guantanamo on the status of other detainees. There might be evidence that would justify continuing to hold some of them almost three years after their capture, but the Pentagon should be forced to provide it, and quickly. © Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.
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