Legal and civil rights of military detainees at the U.S. Guantanamo Naval Base are being sacrificed in the name of freedom, attorney and court-martial specialist Donald Rehkopf Jr. said Thursday in a speech to students and community members.
The detainees being held by the U.S. military at Camp Delta and X-Ray in Cuba are being denied U.S. civil liberties because the U.S. government holds that U.S. law does not apply to them, Rehkopf said, comparing the treatment of current prisoners to those held in German concentration camps under Hitler and the U.S. treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
"We have to, I submit, understand that aspect of world history to see how we got to Guantanamo, and why ultimately, if you evaluate what we are doing in Guantanamo today, is wrong in concept not only in our history but world history," Rehkopf said.
Rehkopf noted these historical precedents as examples from which the United States should learn.
"History, of course, is the great teacher, and we must not forget the many lessons encountered not only in world, but U.S. history that we have encountered in the last 200 years," he said.
Rehkopf's presentation featured photos of the detainees' conditions in Guantanamo.
The photos showed the cage-like prison cells and methods of transporting prisoners from places like Afghanistan to Guantanamo.
The detainees being transported in the photos were strapped to the floor of cargo planes, with sandbags covering their faces. The "cages" or cells offer no privacy unless a prisoner chooses to put sheets over the metal grates separating his cell from the next.
Debate over legal rights of detainees arises, according to Rehkopf, from the 1903 lease the United States has on Guantanamo, which grants the U.S. complete jurisdiction over Guantanamo, and the U.S. Attorney General's argument that American courts have no control over Guantanamo.
The presence of a McDonald's fast-food restaurant on the U.S. base says otherwise, Rehkopf said.
Detainees in Guantanamo are being held under the pretense of national security, the same argument used by the U.S. during World War II to justify the curfews and Nazi-like treatment of Japanese Americans, he added. "There is this mix of political slash national security issue that are used to suppress or eliminate fundamental rights that our constitution set forth quite clearly.
"Everyone, not just lawyers, but everyone, needs to pay attention to what's going on and be vigilant about the erosion or eradication of our rights. All of the arguments for detaining the people in Guantanamo and the enemy combatants fall on two words: national security."
Rehkopf warned that the U.S. treatment of foreign detainees would set precedence for foreign treatment of U.S. prisoners. With the exception of the British, there is a universal condemnation of U.S. treatment of the captives in Guantanamo.
"The reality is that we have made a class of people true enemies because of the wicked way we treated them," Rehkopf said.
Rehkopf's speech, "A Few Good Captives: The Case of Guantanamo Bay," delivered Thursday evening in Filene Auditorium, was part of the Tucker Foundation's Social Justice lecture series.
