Speaking on Behalf of Political Detainees in the United States B Y L A U R A C O U LT E R
The internment camp loomed in the distance: a bleak, spare outpost surrounded by fences crested with concertina wire. The mother curled an arm around her daughter and brushed stray hair from the child’s face, her belly churning with fear. Looking at her husband, she saw the defeat, the despair sapping the light from his eyes. They had been rousted from their beds that morning before it was light; the soldiers forced them at gunpoint into their clothes, told them that they could take only what they could carry. Their son, only 5, had begun to cry, and the father quickly hushed him. And now at last here was the camp, the tar-papered barracks lined up like sentinels. As they drew closer, they could see the guards in the watchtowers, machine guns slung on their shoulders. A scene from Germany during the Nazi reign of terror? Or from the Soviet Union, as it shriveled in Stalin’s iron grip? No.The country was the United States, the year 1942, the family Japanese-American. Between December 7, 1941, when the Japanese military bombed Pearl Harbor, and the end of World War II, more than 120,000 Japanese Americans were interned in camps in six Western states and Arkansas despite the total lack of evidence of even a single case of Japanese-American espionage. The camps lacked heat and air conditioning; the barracks’ construction was flimsy and without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind. Food was rationed sparingly, at a daily expense of 48 cents per internee. Sand and snow came
through the cracks of the barracks; the sleeping quarters were overcrowded. This is a troubling chapter in America’s past: the wholesale detention of individuals based solely on ethnicity and shadowy inferences of subversive activity. Although the goal was isolation—as opposed to the Nazi purpose of extermination—American internment camps resulted in the dehumanization of the Japanese-American community and the loss of businesses worth millions of dollars, as well as starvation and the spread of infectious diseases, suffering, and humiliation. What is telling, looking back at this era, is the nearly wholesale silence on this issue from the rest of the nation. There are no tales of Christians reaching out to the Japanese Americans in their neighborhoods. There are no recorded anecdotes of Christians circulating petitions demanding fair treatment for those detained. Perhaps some Christians labored unseen for their neighbors, and human history has forgotten them; I hope this is the case. But certainly the bulk of us turned the other way and pretended that nothing was happening. Today Americans in general and Christians in particular are faced with a similar opportunity to act. Several hundred Muslim men have been secretly detained at prisons and detention centers throughout the United States and in Guantanamo Bay. For the most part these men are spirited away in secrecy, their friends and family prevented from dis-
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covering their whereabouts. Some of the detainees are resident aliens; many are U.S. citizens.
refouled [forcibly returned] individuals to countries with abysmal human rights records as means of extracting confessions from these individuals or as a means of obtaining information.According to these reports, the U.S. would hand over a detainee to the torturing country, and after being tortured for information, the individual would be extradited to U.S. custody once again.” The Bush administration has consistently resisted even the most benign scrutiny of its actions with regard to detainees. While the concept of wholesale deportation or internment of “suspect” groups has not yet been put forward, current detention practices seem to offer a troubling precursor. By naming someone an “enemy combatant,” the Department of Justice can detain anyone, regardless of nationality, citizenship, or age, for an indefinite period of time. Under traditional circumstances of war, the “enemy” is a specific entity, a nation of people led by a particular leader, which makes the term “enemy combatant,” at least to a certain extent, simple to define. Since a terrorist can be anyone, from your mail carrier to a KGB-trained Uzbek, everyone could potentially be an “enemy combatant.”
Cut off from the world: the plight of the political detainees In January of this year the Supreme Court let stand an appeals court ruling that allowed the United States Department of Justice to continue with these practices and prevent even the names of those detained from being released. At the moment we are certain of the names of only two men held in detention: Jose Padilla and Yasser Esam Hamdi.These detainees are held without charges having been filed against them; conversations with attorneys, when they occur, are wiretapped. If and when the political detainees are tried for a crime, they will be tried before a military court, and six defendants have been appointed military counsel. But even the military lawyers assigned to represent six of the detainees at Guantanamo Bay argue that the treatment of the detainees by the federal government violates their constitutional rights. These lawyers, in their arguments to the U.S. Supreme Court, challenged the government’s sole power to act as jailer, judge, and possibly executioner.“Unlike earlier wars,” the military lawyers wrote, “the struggle against terrorism is potentially never-ending . . .The Constitution cannot countenance an open-ended presidential power, with no civilian review whatsoever, to try anyone the president deems subject to a military tribunal, whose rules and judges have been selected by the prosecuting authority itself ” (Anne Gearan, Associated Press, January 14, 2004). Independent of the circumstances of their incarceration, the actual experience of incarceration, especially at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay, has proved nightmarish for those imprisoned.The New York Times reported on June 17 of last year that conditions at Guantanamo are so desperate that the many of the prisoners have attempted suicide. Last December Khaled Madhat Abou El Fadl, a native Kuwaiti who is currently a Distinguished Fellow in Islamic Law at the UCLA School of Law, gave a statement before the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (a.k.a. the 9-11 Commission). In his statement he noted that many Islamic centers were being placed under federal surveillance without probable cause and that Muslim immigrants were being summarily detained with no justification apart from their ethnicity and religious affiliation. He stated, “Most alarming are some reports mentioned in the international and national press, as well as widely circulating in the Muslim community that the government deports individuals to countries where they are highly likely to be tortured. Some of the reports allege that the government
The Christian call to action The question of the political detainees is one that should intimately concern all Christians. Persecution based on religious or political affiliation is a problem that should ring disturbingly familiar with Christians knowledgeable about church history. Christians are still targeted en masse throughout China and in many theocratic Muslim countries; missionaries who move into these areas risk their freedom and their lives.The legacy of persecution should make Christians as a group particularly sympathetic to those who are being persecuted. Not only that, but followers of the one true God are commanded to reach out on behalf of the disempowered. Proverbs 31:8-9 offer an explicit imperative: “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the rights of the poor and needy.” More than this, Jesus tells his disciples that when you help those who are in prison or in trouble, you are actually helping Christ (Matt. 25). This mandate is not limited to aiding those who are believers or who are deserving of help: it is a blanket mandate applying to all Christians on behalf of all the persecuted, imprisoned, and needy.
Stalemate: the current paralysis of the church The risk to Christians who speak out on behalf of the detainees is minimal to nonexistent:We are not asked to put our lives on the line.
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So why are Christians as a group apparently loath to embrace the cause of the detainees? The reasons are multifaceted. First, it seems likely that because of President Bush’s claims to be a believer in the Christian faith, his brothers and sisters in the church are reluctant to oppose him in any way. Certainly the president should be prayed for and treated with the respect that befits not only his office but any brother or sister in Christ. But this does not mean that we, as individuals or as a group, should quietly agree with every policy proposal that he sets forth. Another possible reason for our current inaction is an optimistic view of our criminal-justice system. Perhaps we believe that nobody would really be arrested if he hadn’t done something that made him appear guilty. But our criminal-justice system, when subjected to extraordinary checks and balances, has still resulted in wrongful convictions; over 100 prisoners nationwide have had death sentences reversed after DNA evidence proved their innocence. How much more fraught with bias is a secret court, with secret evidence, where prisoners are held without access to counsel and without legal recourse? Another reason we may have avoided the imperative to act is that these prisoners are not us. This is a selfish reason that I’ve only just admitted to myself, but the truth is that, as a white, middle-income American with two kids, a mortgage, and an aging minivan, I am not personally at risk of being picked up by the FBI on suspicion of being a terrorist. Since neither I nor any of my relatives is at risk, I don’t feel such a compelling need to act. As Martin Niemoller, a German pastor who assented to Nazi control during World War II, wrote in his now-famous “declaration of guilt”:
locked up. Initiating true friendship across religious divides is an important step toward understanding and social activism. 2. Write to your congressperson. Email and postal addresses for your congressional representatives and senators are accessible at www.senate.gov and www.house.gov; use them. Start letter-writing drives by inviting your friends and family to get together for a meal and discussion and to write letters on behalf of the detainees. 3. Advance a petition. Numbers speak—particularly to elected officials. Getting signatures for a petition on behalf of detainees takes very little effort; signature pages can be farmed out to family, friends, and church members. When you have a healthy number of signatures, make a complete photocopy, and mail the original to your elected official. Maintaining a copy allows you to have a hard record which could be useful in other venues of advocacy. 4. Study the Patriot Act carefully and consider whether and how it should be revised. Many cities and localities have already passed ordinances condemning the Patriot Act. While the condemnation has no legal force, it is newsworthy and will have the effect of helping other people get informed. Most cities have monthly or bimonthly city-council meetings which are open to citizens where initiatives like this one can be introduced and debated. Call your city hall to find out when the city council meets. To enjoy the privileges of freedom as both an American and a Christian demands great responsibility. Failure to act in the past should never become a prescription for the future. ■
In Germany the Nazis came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a Jew. Then they came for the labor unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I was not a labor unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I was a Protestant so I didn’t speak up. Then they came for me. By that time there was no one to speak up for anyone.
Based in Birmingham,Ala., Laura Coulter is a regular contributor to PRISM. Her first novel, The Least, was published in 2002. Editor’s note: At the time this article was being edited, news of Iraqi prisoners being tortured by American soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison was just beginning to surface.While it is regrettable that it sometimes takes shocking photos to incite public outrage, we are thankful that the general mistreatment of detainess that seems to characterize the “War on Terrorism” is now under intense scrutiny.Add your voice to the protest. Contact your legislators today.
What Can I Do? 1. Reach out to Muslims in your community.At this point in time, it wouldn’t be surprising if Muslims associated all evangelical Christians with George W. Bush and John Ashcroft: potential enemies who want to see them
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