NYT: Obama's Deportation of Naji "an act of cruelty that seems to defy explanation"

[enough]

This is an excellent long post (with links) by Valtin on Daily Kos concerning the deportation of Abdul Aziz Naji to Algeria

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2010/7/25/887288/-NYT:-Obamas-Deportation-of-Naji-an-act-of-cruelty-that-seems-to-defy-explanation

In an editorial posted by the New York Times on Saturday afternoon, the editorial board condemned the Obama administration's involuntary deportation of a Guantanamo prisoner to Algeria. The prisoner, 35-year-old Abdul Aziz Naji, was cleared of any charges in a wide-ranging review of Guantanamo prisoner status last year. Naji begged not to be sent back to Algeria, a country he fled after being attacked himself at age 17 or 18 by extremists. Naji feared the Algerian government could not protect him against the Islamic fundamentalist rebels that have been fighting the somewhat more moderate Islamic government for some twenty years now.

The Times editorial continues the story:

"Though he offered to remain at the prison, the administration shipped him home last weekend and washed its hands of the man. Almost immediately upon arrival, he disappeared, and his family fears the worst.

It is an act of cruelty that seems to defy explanation."

The response of the Obama administration has been terse and self-serving. They say they have gotten assurances from the Algerian government that Mr. Naji, who was never charged with any crime, would not be mistreated or tortured when sent back. The Times notes that a 2008 Supreme Court decision gives "broad discretion to decide when to accept such promises from a foreign government." But human rights groups have long derided such assurances.

According to a diary at Daily Kos by geomoo, Doris Tennant, one of Mr. Naji's attorneys, states she and Naji's other attorney, Ellen Lubell, were informed by the Algerian ambassador "that his government cannot protect him from extremists, who he very much fears will attempt to recruit him because of his association with Guantanamo."

snip> much more

Link to New York Times editorial:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/25/opinion/25sun1.html

[EFerrari]

1. Kick

[Schema Thing]

2. sounds like the poor guy now HAS to join up with extremist just to

stay alive.

[katandmoon]

3. ObamaCo asks itself "Would BushCo do this?" and if the answer is yes, they do it too.

[enough]

5. Actually, according to the article, this was even too much for Bush & company, who declined

to send the Uighurs back to China in a similar situation.:

Snip from the Daily Kos article>

In a comprehensive analysis, journalist Andy Worthington has described the unbelievable context of the Obama administration's cruel behavior:

"This was a bleak day for US justice, not only because it involved the Supreme Court blithely disregarding the UN Convention Against Torture’s "non-refoulement" obligation, joining in an unholy trinity with the D.C. Circuit Court and the Obama administration, but also because it brings to an abrupt, cruel, and — I believe — illegal conclusion a struggle to release prisoners without violating the UN Convention Against Torture, which, for the most part, was actually respected by the Bush administration....

"With the Uighurs, the Bush administration recognized its "non-refoulement" obligation, refusing to return them to China, and finding new homes for five of the men in Albania in 2006. When the Obama administration inherited the problem of the remaining 17 men, who had, in the meantime, won their habeas corpus petitions, it found new homes for 12 of them in Bermuda, Palau and Switzerland, although five still remain at Guantánamo, and, last spring, the administration turned down a plan by White House Counsel Greg Craig to bring some of the men to live in the US, which would have done more in the long run to defuse scaremongering about Guantánamo than any other gesture."

snip>

Link to the Worthington article, titled "Obama and US Courts Repatriate Algerian from Guantánamo Against His Will; May Be Complicit in Torture:"

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/07/21/obama-and-us-courts-repatriate-algerian-from-guantanamo-against-his-will-may-be-complicit-in-torture/

[katandmoon]

6. Thank you...

[glitch]

4. More of the shame. nt