Rays of Hope

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2005/06/05/specter_eyes_detainees_rights?mode=
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Specter eyes detainees’ rights
Will hold hearings on the treatment of terror suspects

By Jesse J. Holland, Associated Press  |  June 5, 2005

WASHINGTON — The continuing uproar about US treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib has a top Senate Republican looking at the need to clarify in law the rights of foreign detainees.
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On the heels of Amnesty International calling the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, ”the gulag of our time,” Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Republican of Pennsylvania, will hold hearings this month on the treatment of foreign terrorism suspects there.

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The White House yesterday said the Koran abuses were not widespread. ”It is unfortunate that some have chosen to take out of context a few isolated incidents by a few individuals,” presidential spokesman Scott McClellan said in a statement.

The Pentagon is working on new guidelines for handling people captured during wartime, including an explicit ban on inhumane treatment. The 142-page draft document is being written by the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and is not intended to set policy but rather to provide the military with guidance to implement policies set by civilian authorities.

Specter is in the preliminary stages of drafting a bill to establish procedures for detentions and exploring the possibility of making the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court the venue for challenging them, an aide said.

Amnesty International has called on the United States to close its Guantanamo prison, where about 540 men are being held on suspicion they have links to Afghanistan’s ousted Taliban regime or Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda terror network.

While the human rights watchdog worries about Congress putting into law ”enemy combatant” status, which it says is a category of prisoner not sanctioned by international and humanitarian treaties, it applauded Specter for looking into the issue.

”Any kind of sunshine would be a good antiseptic for this situation,” said Jumana Musa, advocacy director for human rights and international justice at Washington-based Amnesty International USA.

Specter’s hearing will focus on the detention of enemy combatants at both Guantanamo and in the United States, and whether trying them before military tribunals provides them adequate due process, the senator’s aide said.

Witnesses from the Justice Department and Defense Department are expected to be called to testify, the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the hearing hasn’t been announced.