At 5 p.m. on Friday, a jury of military officers sentenced Sudanese detainee Noor Uthman Muhammed to 14 years in prison. Shortly afterward, a military judge announced that under Muhammed's plea bargain agreement, he will serve almost three more years at Guantánamo, on top of his nearly nine years of detention (8 1/2 at Guantánamo). The jury's 14-year sentence is entirely symbolic, as Muhammed will serve the three-year sentence worked out in his plea deal, just like Gitmo detainees Ibrahim al-Qosi and Omar Khadr, who cut plea deals in July and October. (In al-Qosi's case, though the jury sentenced him to 14 years, he is serving only two additional years at Gitmo, and though the jury sentenced Khadr to 40 years, he will return to Canada within a year, where he will serve up to seven more years if he's not paroled earlier.) Under military commission rules, Gitmo detainees cannot get credit for their pretrial detention.
Earlier on Friday, defense lawyer Capt. Christopher Kannady gave his closing argument capping the sentencing hearing. Capt. Kannady emphasized what I certainly felt after Thursday's proceedings, in which much of the evidence the prosecution presented in support of its case didn't even mention Muhammed: "The fact of the matter," he said, "is that very little of this evidence refers to or even mentions Noor."
Revisiting Muhammed's history at an Afghan training camp known as Khalden, first set up to fight the Soviets, Capt. Kannady argued that al-Qaeda wasn't even around or in operation at the time that Muhammed joined the camp. Said Capt. Kannady, "You will never see evidence that Noor was a member of al-Qaeda just as you will never see evidence that Khalden was an al-Qaeda training camp." According to the defense, the minimally educated Muhammed never had the interest or the ability to become anything more than a low-level functionary. Early into his time at Khalden, said Capt. Kannady, Muhammed asked to be removed from his weapons training responsibilities and instead took on duties such as collecting and delivering food. Muhammed's travel documents had been taken away, and without skills or resources to move elsewhere, Muhammed remained at the camp until its closure—the undisputed cause of which was that Khalden camp's leader did not agree with the ideologies of either the Taliban or al-Qaeda.
"The government has had almost a decade to go over all the evidence," said Capt. Kannady, referring to the over 1,000 pieces of evidence taken from tortured Guantánamo detainee Abu Zubaydah's safehouse, which tested negative for Muhammed's fingerprints. "The government needs to box this evidence up and save it for Abu Zubaydah's trial." Capt. Kannady cautioned the jury, "You may not sentence [Muhammed] for the offenses of others," reminding the members that Muhammed is "pleading guilty for supporting the people he supported for many years…[but] he's not a small piece; he's a sliver."
Capt. Kannady also referred to Muhammed's allegations of abuse while in U.S. custody at the prisons in Bagram, Afghanistan, and at Guantánamo. On Thursday, Muhammed's unsworn statement was read aloud to the jury. According to his statement, Muhammed was particularly tormented when both Pakistani and American guards told him that he could be handed over to the Egyptians at any time to be tortured "and no one would ever know that I had disappeared. …The fear and uncertainty this caused me were overwhelming."
In his statement, Muhammed also detailed has abuse at Bagram: being hooded and handcuffed with this hands above his head for 12 hours a day, short shackling in stress positions on his knees, extreme cold and heat, deafening music 24 hours a day, and the humiliation he experienced when female soldiers would touch him or watch him as he was undressed. He spoke about the terror he felt in his two years of solitary confinement at Camp 5 here at Guantánamo and about "a very dark interrogation room…that the detainees called ‘hell.'"
It is distressing that more than eight years after the first detainees were brought to Guantánamo and over a year after President Obama's missed deadline to close Gitmo, the sentencing of a small fish like Muhammed, who likely gave up on getting a fair trial in the military commissions, is all we have to show for our compromised values. The government should, long ago, have brought anyone against whom it had evidence to support prosecution to our federal courts, where criminals are tried every day, and repatriated and resettled the rest.
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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.