The land of the free...

Complete isolation from the world, confined in a small cell with an opaque window covered with plastic, separation from loved ones, newspapers, magazines, books, radio and television. Residing in a cell that contains only a steel bed, a sink and a toilet. This must be hell. This must be in a barbarian country - maybe an Afghan prison. This certainly wouldn’t happen in America. Right? Wrong.

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, the last “enemy combatant” incarcerated in America, has been (barely) living in the U.S. Naval Consolidated Brig in Charelston, South Carolina. A citizen of Quitar who was studying at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, he was incarcerated for being an alleged Al-Qaeda sleeper agent. His conditions are appalling.

According to al-Marri’s complaint, when was interrogated, government officials threatened he would be sent to Egypt or Saudi Arabia, where they told him he would be tortured and sodomized and his wife would be raped in front of him.

The living conditions and threats are only the beginning of the assortment of human rights issues connected to al-Marri’s case. Two months after arriving in America with his family on September 10, 2001, al-Marri was arrested as a material witness in connection with the 9/11 attacks. When he was on the verge of trial in June 2003, President Bush ordered that he be incarcerated and held indefinitely.

If this can happen, can an American civilian be arrested and taken from his home and family at the request of a president?

In August of 2005 al-Marri filed a lawsuit, a lower court affirmed the government’s right to detain him indefinitely and after several appeals the Supreme Court is scheduled to hear his case in April. The Court requires that the Obama Administration file a reply to challenge by March 23rd.

In his memorandum, filed on January 22, 2009, President Obama stated that it is “in the interests of the United States that the executive branch undertake a prompt and thorough review of the factual and legal basis for al-Marri's continued detention, and identify and thoroughly evaluate alternative dispositions.

The Supreme Court needs to come up with a legal theory for what to do with al-Marri, because keeping him in custody as an enemy combatant is inhumane and unconstitutional.
Marri is being treated like a soldier of war and the Supreme Court needs to ask if he should be treated like a civilian. Is a war on terror indeed a war? Al-Marri’s detention far from armed conflict separates him from the laws of war. The court needs to rule that indefinite executive detention is illegal and al-Marri should be classified as a civilian, not an enemy combatant, allowing that he either be charged with crimes or released.

In a call for the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to reverse al-Marri’s affirmation of military detention, the New York Times wrote, “People accused of bad deeds should be tried in court – not in sham proceedings. They should be put in jail – not secret detention.”