A report released by Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union partly funded by the George Soros’ Open Society Institute, has claimed that the Bush government exercised powers under the anti-terrorism law in gross violation of human rights. The report examines the case of 70 detainees who were held as “material witnesses” since the 9/11 attacks without charge or criminal evidence.
Of these 70 men, only 7 were ultimately accused of being involved in terrorist activities, while the others languished anywhere between a few weeks to months suffering abuse both verbally and physically, to be let off later for lack of evidence or charged with offences unrelated to terrorism. The report said that 64 were from the Middle East or South Asia in descent, 17 were American citizens, and all barring one was Muslim.
Anjana Malhotra believes that the men were arrested for “little more than attending the same mosque as a September 11 hijacker or owning a box-cutter". Anjana, who is associated with the American Civil Liberties Union as well as Human Rights Watch, says she is concerned that the men were in lock up with no rights or proper access to lawyers. "They couldn't communicate with their families often". "They weren't informed of their right to a lawyer. They were interrogated, sometimes without counsel”. Overall she believe that the federal action post 9/11 was more akin to "a fishing expedition to see whether they could find information to charge these individuals, while calling them material witnesses."
With this report civil rights groups hope to widen the Congress debate over the power exercised by the Government post 9/11 under the USA Patriot Act to the various other legal means that the current administration has used. The 1984 law on material witness allows government authorities to indefinitely hold persons they suspect to have information about a crime but who are likely to flee or be unwilling to cooperate.
A Justice Department spokesman trashed the report saying that “material witness statutes are designed with judicial oversight safeguards and are critical to aiding criminal investigations ranging from organized crime rackets to human trafficking". But the data quoted by the Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union report tells a different story. Maybe another story of a law twisted to cover an unreasonable fear.
