Among the prisoners indefinitely held without charge at Guantanamo are several from Algeria. The Obama administration has wanted to repatriate them, but the prisoners have been fighting the move because they’re afraid that they’ll be mistreated, tortured or killed if they go back. The Obamans say they have received assurances from Algeria that the prisoners will not be mistreated. And now the Supreme Court says, okay, that’s good enough for us. So off they go.
For purposes of clarity: one of the prisoners has been held without charge since 2002, which is eight years, which is a pretty long time. And he’s worried about going home because very bad things happen to people suspected of being radicals or terrorists, or suspected by terrorists and radicals of being turncoats. As in, “why did they hold you so long if you’re not a terrorist?” As in, “why did they let you go if you’re not a turncoat?” But the Algerian government says to the US government, “No problem, holmes; we don’t play that shit no more.”
It is also important to recall that the US government practiced torture during those years, more or less openly, and continues to countenance it by way of refusing to hold anyone to legal account. So that’s where we are on that front.
Every year, the State Department publishes a human rights report on every country other than the US. The most recent reports are from 2009. Here are some excerpts from the report on Algeria. Emphasis where it occurs is mine.
c. Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The law prohibits such practices; however, NGO and local human rights activists reported that government officials sometimes employed them to obtain confessions. Government agents can face prison sentences of between 10 and 20 years for committing such acts, and some were tried and convicted in 2008. Nonetheless, impunity remained a problem.
Local human rights lawyers maintained that torture continued to occur in detention facilities, most often against those arrested on “security grounds.”
Fortunately for the soon-to-be-repatriated Guantanamo prisoners, as noted above, the Algerians have assured the Obama administration that while they may torture some people, they won’t torture these particular people. So that’s all good.
Prolonged pretrial detention remained a problem. The law does not provide a person in detention the right to a prompt judicial determination of the legality of the detention. Persons charged with acts against the security of the state, including terrorism, may be held in pretrial detention as long as 20 months according to the penal code; the prosecutor must show cause every four months for continuing pretrial detention.
Judges rarely refused prosecutorial requests for extending preventive detention, which can be appealed but was rarely overturned. Should the detention be overturned, the defendant can request compensation. In 2008 the prison administration reported pretrial detainees represented 13 percent of the individuals held by prison authorities.
Apparently, we frown on holding people for a long time—as long as 20 months!—while depriving them of the opportunity to challenge the legality of their detention. It is at this point we should remind the reader that one of the Algerian guys in our custody was snagged in 2002 and held without charges since then.
If that happened in Algeria, our state department would speak stern words about it.
Please note that although “impunity remains a problem” with respect to torture, “some [government agents] were tried and convicted in 2008.” Far, far more than we can say.
Irony in action. We are sending people to a country that the United States considers to have a poor human rights record, but their poor record is in several respects superior to ours. I wonder if an Algerian court might refuse to extradite a terrorism suspect to the US for fear he would be mistreated.
And of course the press, as oft noted by this guy, isn’t prepared to recognize the similarities between the truly nasty shit our government does to that perpetrated by other governments and organizations even when those behaviors are nestled side by side in a single bit of reporting. Kudos.
As you know, part of the problem is that many of the detainees cannot find countries that will take them and the Congress has prohibited their being released in this country. Then, too, sometimes the countries that will accept them are unacceptable to the detainees for fear of torture or worse in those countries.
Hey, Jack! I’m happy to see you. Thanks for stopping by. Re: the circumstances, yes, sure, the fear of returning to the country of origin is what’s in play with the two guys in the story, although at least one of them is more concerned about the militants than the government. I was mostly taken by the degree to which the Algerians have a better record of convicting torturers than we do, which is to say, some v. none. How are you?
I’m well, thanks, and as frustrated as you by the obstinate shittiness that is the result of the present configuration of our political people as well as the “invincible ignorance” of our citizens.
And you; how are you?
[...] Nixon’s revenge: “If we do it, it’s not illegal” is now the law of the land 18 [...]
I’m doing moderately well, by local standards. Still housed, possibly moving to San Francisco, which isn’t Honolulu but is preferable to LA, for me, anyway, and for the first time in quite a while I have the attention span to do some writing. So I’m encouraged. I’m thinking about applying for a job at the Village Voice. Maybe as a blog ombudsman.