Miss Universe, Venezuelan Dayana Mendoza, raised eyebrows earlier this week, after proclaiming in a blog posted on the pageant’s website. The Miss Universe Organization, which organized the beauty queen’s visit to the naval base, quickly issued an defending the visit in response to the debate Ms. Mendoza’s glowing account sparked.
And though the post no longer appears on her blog, it’s hard to ignore her comments, which said in part:
This week, Guantánamo!!! It was an incredible experience…We also met the Military dogs, and they did a very nice demonstration of their skills. All the guys from the Army were amazing with us. We visited the Detainees camps and we saw the jails, where they shower, how the recreate themselves with movies, classes of art, books. It was very interesting… The water in Guantánamo Bay is soooo beautiful! It was unbelievable…I didn’t want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful.
Relaxing? Calm? Beautiful? Really? Ms. Mendoza’s account begs the question… what is Guantánamo really like?
Any complete answer needs to start with the detainees' accounts, many of which have already been published — including and published accounts of their imprisonment at Guantánamo.
Explorer: Inside Guantánamo, a new National Geographic Channel documentary premiering this Sunday April 5, 2009 at 9 p.m., provides another rare, glimpse of Guantánamo. Explorer’s crew spent nearly three weeks at the naval base in August of 2008 — at a time when the fate of Gitmo was up in the air — with the mission to document as much of the detention facility as possible for the public record. And while it’s important to keep in mind that Guantánamo in 2008 is very different from Guantánamo in past years, the documentary provides the first view of day-to-day life on parts of the base.
Although the crew was not allowed to interact directly with any of the approximately 240 men who remain there detained there, the documentary captures some candid moments of daily life at Gitmo. In one scene, a guard attempts to help a detainee chose a library book between a collection of Louisa May Alcott stories and Stephen King’s It. In another, a detainee — clearly aware of the camera crew — shouts “Never, never, I am here for seven years, I never get my rights.”
We had a chance to pose some questions about the making of the documentary to Director and Producer, Bonnie Cohen.
[ACLU] Your access to the inside operations of the prison was unusual. How did you gain access?
[Cohen] National Geographic Channel (NGC) gained access to the prison and the daily life. Jon Else and I were brought in after the access was obtained. NGC spent close to 2 years negotiating with Pentagon officials, ironing out the details on what would be necessary in order for us to tell the story. We got tremendous access from the military.
[ACLU] Did you have an Arabic-language translator with you while you were filming so you knew what the detainees were shouting at the time?
[Cohen] We did not. All of the Arabic dialogues were translated afterwards.
[ACLU] How much footage did the Gitmo censors have to edit out? Were the censors willing to compromise at all?
[Cohen] There were a couple of things that we shot that we weren’t going to be able to get off the island with, but the officials were always willing to talk. For instance, when we filmed the scenes of the hunger striking block, there were concerns about what it shows. We explained if we didn’t show this, we would be missing an important part of the story — including the adverse condition under which the guards work around the clock.
[ACLU] The guards seemed very open and forthcoming in the documentary. Was it hard to find guards who were willing to talk? Is there any worry about retribution for speaking so candidly, and even sympathetically, about the detainees?
[Bonni Cohen] Jon Else and I spent a considerable amount of the time gaining the trust of the guards, hanging out with them for the first few days without filming. We spent a lot of energy on that. And we also let the guards know we were open to their stories. Although our politics may be skewed in one way or another, we didn’t have biases when it came to the guards. We felt strongly that their stories needed to be heard, and what we found was that they were enormously appreciative of that. There is no substitute for the time you spend with them, being there at every meal, every roll call, and so forth. Of course, there were some initial reticence based on reasons of personal safety or anonymity — and some didn’t want to talk to us at all — but the guards started to open up. Hopefully, what we know how to do is to get people to tell the story, and get to the essence of who they are.
[ACLU] What were your thoughts and expectations about Gitmo before visiting the base? What surprised you most about Gitmo after spending time there?
[Cohen] I had the same type of preconceived notions Americans have after having seen the images in the press. It’s very hard not to have a bias going in there. I was surprised to find a prison well run by professional guards who are doing what is an extremely difficult and exhausting job. I was also surprised that I wasn’t feeling as depressed by the place as expected, despite its being an incredibly sad situation on both sides.
[ACLU] What do you hope people will take away from the documentary?
[Cohen] I hope that people will come away with a deeper understanding of our service people — that our military is a volunteer organization, and they all believe they are doing it on our behalf. No matter what your politics are that needs to be recognized. The military doesn’t make policy, but executes policy. That’s evident when you watch the guards navigate complex issues. I hope people also realize that when we elect an official into the office, their policies become our responsibilities as well.
Tune in to the tonight— April 5 at 9 p.m. for a look Inside Guantánamo (and if you happen to miss it, the encore is Wednesday, April 8 at 8 p.m.).
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
WASHINGTON — Today, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), and the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to block the enforcement of a law that would effectively ban people in America from using TikTok as soon as January 19, 2025. Earlier this month, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected TikTok’s challenge to the law. TikTok has asked the Supreme Court for a temporary injunction to prevent the app from being banned while the court considers whether to take the case, saying that unless the justices intervene, the law will “shutter one of America’s most popular speech platforms the day before a presidential inauguration.” “The Constitution imposes an extraordinarily high bar on this kind of mass censorship,”said Patrick Toomey, deputy director of ACLU’s National Security Project. “The Supreme Court should take up this important case and protect the rights of millions of Americans to freely express themselves and engage with others around the world.” The brief argues that the D.C. Circuit failed to fully address the law’s profound implications for the First Amendment rights of the 170 million Americans who use TikTok. While the lower court’s decision correctly recognized that the statute triggers First Amendment scrutiny, it barely addressed users’ First Amendment interests in speaking, sharing, and receiving information on the platform. The court also perplexingly attempted to cast the government’s ban on TikTok as a vindication of users’ First Amendment rights, which it is not. The rights groups also explain that the law was intended to suppress certain content and viewpoints that many legislators believe could be amplified on TikTok, including the risk of foreign “propaganda.” But under the First Amendment, the government must meet a very high bar to restrict speech based on concerns about its “motivating ideology” or “perspective,” and the government has not come close to meeting that bar here. “The government should not be able to restrict speech, especially to the extent here, based on guessing about the mere possibility of uncertain future harm,” said David Greene, civil liberties director at EFF. “The Supreme Court should put the TikTok ban on hold while it considers the DC Circuit’s erroneous ruling.” Finally, the brief underscores that the government can’t impose this type of sweeping ban unless it’s necessary to prevent extremely serious and imminent harm to national security. But the government has not provided evidence of impending harm, or evidence that banning TikTok is the only available way to address its concerns. As the brief explains, the D.C. Circuit improperly treated the government’s invocation of “national security” as a trump card and failed to hold the government to its burden. “Restricting citizens’ access to foreign media is a practice that has long been associated with repressive regimes, and we should be very wary of letting the practice take root here,” said Jameel Jaffer, executive director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. “It would do lasting damage to the First Amendment and our democracy if the Supreme Court let this ban go into effect even temporarily.” You can find the brief online here: https://www.supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/24/24A587/335380/20241217144322392_24A587%20TikTok%20v%20Garland%20Amicus%20Brief%20pdfa.pdf -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
Trabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted ManTrabelsi v. Crawford, et al. – Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Detention and Inhumane Treatment of Acquitted Man
Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.