Barring False Imprisonment

Did you ever contemplate being imprisoned for something you didn't do?

Bad, right?

Under the Bush administration it happens not by occasional failure of justice, but as a matter of policy.

Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen, was abducted by the CIA on 31 December 2003. He was taken to a secret prison in Afghanistan and tortured and held for 5 months.

El-Masri still doesn't know why.

He has come to the U.S. for answers. Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against the CIA on his behalf.

America has long stood as a country where the rule of law guarantees justice. It's what we work and pay taxes for. Not for the secrecy and brutality of a police state. Sorry, Messrs. Bush and Cheney.

The mid-term elections showed that Americans are waking up and standing up against the subversion of the Bush organization. The doors, it seems, are opening.

Locally, this weekend, there is an important presentation that opens the doors a bit more. "Guantanamo: Honor Bound to Defend Freedom" is a reading of actual testimony from former detainees at the U.S. prison maintained in Cuba, out of the reach of law.

The event is at the Greater Ithaca Activity Center (GIAC), at Albany and Court Streets in downtown Ithaca, Friday and Saturday Dec. 1 and 2, at 7 p.m. each night.

There will be a discussion with Gita Gutierrez, an attorney and professor at Cornell Law School, who represented one of the detainees featured in the reading.

The event is sponsored by a number of groups, including GIAC, Amnesty International, Ithaca Catholic Worker, and the Cornell Law School.

Call 273-7437 for more information.

Stephen Burke
for Ithaca Blog