Racism & Secret Military Terror Trials Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [Civil liberties and anti-racism groups attack the latest Bush assault on the US Constitution. Since he was never really elected, he shouldn't be impeached; the whole International Bush Gang should just be arrested and tried for state terrorism and crimes against humanity. But at the International Court, not in one of his own secret military terror trials.] The Independent - 15 November 2001 http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia_china/story.jsp?story=105026 Suspects to face secret trials in military courts By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles Non-citizens of the United States accused of terrorist activity will be subject to secret trial by military courts anywhere in the world, without the usual legal protections guaranteed by the constitution, President George Bush has announced. Yesterday civil liberties groups attacked the executive order, aimed at Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants, signed by Mr Bush late on Tuesday. It allows the President to designate a person as a terrorist, or as someone who has "aided or abetted" terrorism, and place them under the exclusive control of the Department of Defence, with no right of appeal to any civilian court in the US or overseas. Government officials said such suspects could be tried anywhere in the world - including Pakistan or Afghanistan. Since military law is much swifter and more severe than the civilian penal code, it is possible that defendants found guilty of serious offences would be summarily executed. A Justice Department spokeswoman said: "These are obviously extraordinary times, and the President has to have as many options as possible." Officials stressed that military courts - last used to try and hang Nazi saboteurs in 1942 - would be only one of many avenues open to government prosecutors. They might be particularly useful in dealing with Mr bin Laden or his top lieutenants, they said, since they would offer a framework for administering justice while diminishing the risk of retaliatory violence and depriving the defendants of the propaganda opportunities of a long public trial. But civil liberties groups warned that the definition of those subject to the military court was too broad and open to abuse. They also questioned whether such a court could stand up to constitutional scrutiny. The director of the Washington office of the American Civil Liberties Union, Laura Murphy, said: "[The] order is deeply disturbing and further evidence that the administration is totally unwilling to abide by the checks and balances that are so central to our democracy." The military court is one of several measures that have led critics to accuse the Bush administration of going far beyond the needs of the current crisis to launch a full-scale assault on America's basic civil liberties. A new anti-terrorism law passed last month gives prosecutors broad powers of surveillance and detention, including the power to hold non-citizens indefinitely on immigration-related offences without having to justify their decisions before a judge. Last week, the Attorney General, John Ashcroft, announced that he was reserving the right to eavesdrop on conversations between detainees in terror-related investigations and their lawyers - a measure one criminal defence expert denounced as an "abomination". This week, Mr Ashcroft announced that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was rounding up 5,000 foreign nationals for questioning on terror-related issues, even though they are not suspected of any criminal offence. The Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee said: "This list, which seems to be based on age, gender and national origin, smacks of racial profiling." ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytrc-11.15.01-03:54:48-25446