Case of Tortured U.S. Citizen Tests Obama Administration on Human Rights

Case of Tortured U.S. Citizen Tests Obama Administration on Human Rights | ACLU Blog of Rights

It appears that Mr. Hamdan is the latest victim of the U.S. government’s practice of asking foreign governments to detain terrorism suspects whom the federal government cannot itself detain and interrogate under U.S. law — a practice known as “proxy detention.” By asking other countries to detain on our behalf, the U.S. government apparently believes it can avoid the constraints of the U.S. Constitution, allowing federal agents to interrogate individuals held in secret, incommunicado detention, without charge or access to a lawyer, and subject to torture.

In only two weeks a U.S. citizen will go on trial in the United Arab Emirates. The American man, who lived in Los Angeles for the better part of 20 years and built his family and business there, reports having been severely tortured while in the custody of the State Security forces of the United Arab Emirates. Yet, his own government has said nothing publicly to inquire about or protest his treatment. There is only one plausible explanation for the federal government’s silence on the issue: our nation was complicit in the detention and torture that took place.

The case presents a simple yet profound question for the Obama Administration: whether it will actually end the human rights abuses of the Bush Administration, or instead simply stand silent while they continue.

More than eight months ago Naji Hamdan was arrested by State Security forces in the U.A.E. He was detained without charges or access to a lawyer until the ACLU filed a lawsuit in U. S. court seeking his release from incommunicado detention. One week later, he was transferred into U.A.E. criminal custody, officials disclosed his location and the torture stopped.

In criminal custody, Mr. Hamdan told both his family and the U.S. consular officer who visited him that he had been severely tortured: repeatedly beaten on his head, kicked on his sides, stripped and held in a freezing cold room, placed in an electric chair and made to believe that he would be electrocuted, and held down in a stress position while his captors beat the bottoms of his feet with a large stick. During this horrific process, he said whatever the agents wanted him to say, and those statements may now be used against him in a criminal trial in the U.A.E.

Mr. Hamdan’s description of the torture and interrogation he endured strongly suggests that American agents have been involved. Read more.