Roll back the Military Commissions Act and Shut Gitmo Down!

After the Supreme Court rejected George Bush's claims to virtually unchecked power last June, a Republican-dominated Congress, in lockstep with the executive, voted to give him all the power that he sought. The Military Commissions Act was passed by Congress and signed into law early last fall.

This act waters down basic protections for human rights, and insulates the President's men from prosecution for torture and other war crimes. It strips foreign detainees of their habeas corpus rights, an essential check on government excesses for more than eight centuries. It allows evidence based on innuendo and violence to be introduced in court. And it eschews the Geneva conventions, which are part of U.S. law, and prohibits American judges from applying them to human rights abuses committed in the "War on Terror."

But the era of one-party rule is over. Democrats in the new Congress quickly introduced the Restoring the Constitution Act, repealing most of the MCA.

This is a critical first step. But it is not enough to give detainees the right to their day in court. The detention camps at Guantánamo Bay are a blot on our national reputation, existing by design to hold individuals outside the reach of the law. Now is the time to close Gitmo for good. To this end, Congressional Democrats introduced a bill on April 30 to close Guantánamo Bay within one year.

These two bills, together, are essential to undo the damage that the Bush Administration has done to America and its reputation around the world. On the one hand, we must restore the legal rights - to be free from torture as well as arbitrary detention without legal basis - undermined by the MCA; on the other, we must undo the great wrong that Gitmo represents.

Click here to ask your representatives to support these two bills, and restore American commitment to human rights and the rule of law.

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link to :


http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/NLG/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=11807