Posted on 05/09/2006 1:17:53 PM PDT by dead
WASHINGTON (AFP) - A US court has ruled that four Britons can take can take court action claiming their religious freedoms were infringed while they were detainees at the Guantanamo US "war on terror" camp.
The four, who were released in 2004 without any charges, are claiming 10 million dollars in damages from US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior military officials.
A US District Court in Washington ruled on Monday that an action could go ahead under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says US government officials must not stop any person carrying out their religious beliefs.
US court has ruled that four Britons including Shafiq Rasul(L) and Ruhel Ahmed, seen
here in February 2006, can take can take court action claiming their religious
freedoms were infringed while they were detainees at the Guantanamo US "war on
terror" camp.(AFP/DDP/File/Jochen Luebke)
The action by Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal, Ruhal Ahmed and Jamal al-Harith also alleges that the Pentagon chain of command authorized and condoned torture and other mistreatment.
The US government argued at a hearing that the action should be dismissed.
But Judge Ricardo Urbina ruled that the Britons' claims that they were mistreated and stopped from practicing their religion while incarcerated at the Guantanamo Naval Base could proceed under the 1993 act.
His decision said the allegation was that US government officials committed a "direct affront to one of this nation's most cherished constitutional traditions."
US courts have previously dismissed actions brought on behalf of Guantanamo detainees under the Geneva conventions and other actions claiming that the behaviour of the US military at Guantanamo had been unconstitutional.
The Supreme Court is currently considering a case challenging the legality of military tribunals held at the base.
"Mr. Rasul and the other plaintiffs in this case were denied basic rights to worship as part of a systematic attempt to denigrate them as human beings," said their lead lawyer Eric Lewis.
"Judge Urbina's decision sends a strong message that Secretary Rumsfeld and the Generals who implemented these policies will be held accountable," said Lewis.
"A US District Court in Washington ruled on Monday that an action could go ahead under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says US government officials must not stop any person carrying out their religious beliefs."
My religion says we should behead them immediately.
They can buy lots of explosives with that kind of money.
you may have converted me. can we get a tax exemption as well?
Sigh...maybe it would have been better to shoot them for being out of uniform on the battlefield.
The "judge" is a pathetic moronic WEASEL. Why am I not surprised, he turns out to be a rabid Clintonista?
Judge Ricardo M. Urbina
http://www.dcd.uscourts.gov/urbina-bio.html
Judge Urbina was appointed to the United States District Court in July 1994. He received a B.A. in 1967 from Georgetown University and graduated from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1970. He served as staff attorney for the D.C. Public Defender Service from 1970 to 1972 and then entered private practice. From 1974 to 1981 he taught at Howard University Law School and directed the University’s Criminal Justice Program. He was appointed Associate Judge of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia in April 1981, and served as Presiding Judge of the Court’s Family Division from 1985 to 1988.
When did this moron obtain a judicial seat?
The irony in this whole thing..
yeah explosives... it's for the children...
I like his Nike hat :-/
Their radical religious beliefs are to murder Americans
And this crackpot judge thinks they have a right?
"His decision said the allegation was that US government officials committed a "direct affront to one of this nation's most cherished constitutional traditions."
Which shows the judge to be a Constitutional Perversionist Quisling. Otherwise he would know the US Constitution applies only to US citizens and to nobody else.
WTF?
This should be grounds for impeachment of this stupid judge.
More "Men in Black" show prep!
Ping
Air conditioning and ice cream, comfortable beds and movie nights, prayer rugs and gourmet meals constitute torture? These criminals have it better than most of our deployed soldiers.
I'll worship at the Church of Paloma.
There is something in the water in DC that makes folks go crazy.
A proper ruling would have been that the First Amendment Free Exercise Clause simply does not apply to aliens detained in foreign territories as enemy combatants, even if later brought within territory subject to US jurisdiction, and therefore these British subjects should have had no standing.
Again, it's the problem of the liberals trying to treat the conduct of war and detaining of POWs as in the nature of a criminal prosecution.
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