CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS BLASTS BUSH ADMINISTRATION FOR SUICIDES AT GUANTÁNAMO
Lawyers for Detainees Outline Systematic Psychological Neglect at Guantánamo Bay, Demand Closure of the Prison
Opinions and Documents
Synopsis
After learning of the apparent suicides of three men who were detained at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), condemned the Bush Administration's policy of indefinite detention and released a document which provides concrete examples of attempts by CCR and its cooperating attorneys to get medical and psychological attention to men at Guantánamo. Bill Goodman, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights said: "The Bush Administration has systematically and deliberately denied these men their most basic rights through a policy of choking off all contact, communication, information and hope. For this administration to now claim that these suicides were acts of war by men who have no regard for human life is powerful evidence that the Bush Administration itself has no conception of the desperation they have caused.
"This government has consistently fought to keep these men from lawyers, doctors and others who were willing to help them. Now in attempting to deny the truth this administration will not only cause more pain and misery amongst the detainees at Guantánamo, it will ultimately undermine fundamental democratic institutions of the United States."
"We are greatly saddened by the news of the passing of Yasser Talal Al Zahrani, Mana Shaman Allabardi Al Otaibi, and Ahmed Abdullah., and we send our deepest sympathies to the families of these men," said Barbara Olshansky, Deputy Legal Director and Director Counsel of the Guantanamo Global Justice Initiative at CCR, "the men imprisoned at Guantánamo have been held for years without ever seeing the inside of a court room. The vast majority of them have never been charged with a crime. Their despair and hopelessness has increased as the years have gone by without justice, it should not surprise anyone that some of the men were pushed to such desperate measures."
Documents released by CCR outline the numerous times it and other organizations have attempted to force the Department of Defense to provide adequate medical and psychological care for the detainees at Guantánamo.
"George Bush claims that he needs the approval of the Supreme Court to close Guantánamo. That is a lie. Before more men die in desperation, the Bush Administration must close Guantánamo and either give them their day in a court of law or let them go," said Gitanjali Gutierrez, a staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights who has visited the men at Guantánamo.
File image of detainees upon arrival at , January 2002
Lawyers asked a federal court Friday to allow the government to inspect written materials that it seized from inmates at Guantanamo Bay last month and requested approval to use "filter teams" to look at documents that may contain privileged lawyer-client communication.

In documents they filed with the , government lawyers argued that three inmates who committed suicide last month by hanging themselves coordinated their actions by using attorney-client confidentiality to communicate with each other. Government officials said that among papers marked "Attorney Client Privilege" were instructions on how to tie knots and a classified memo on camp activities and inmate locations.

Military officials seized more than 1,100 pounds of documents from inmates after the suicides on June 10.  They have since stopped defense lawyers from sending any documents to inmates.

In an affidavit that lawyers for the government filed with the court, Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris Jr., the naval commander of the camp, described evidence of a "larger plan or pact for more suicides" among detainees.  His statement implied that the investigation might extend to defense attorneys as third parties who "encouraged, ordered or assisted" the detainees in killing themselves.  

Harris earlier described the suicides as part of a pattern of hostile actions on the part of terror suspects. "They have no regard for life, either ours or their own," he said last month. "I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us." 

The , which has provided legal assistance to about 200 Guantanamo detainees, has been critical of the conditions at Guantanamo Bay that they say finally led the detainees to kill themselves in desperation.

Barbara Olshansky, a deputy legal director at CCR, described the government's latest legal activity as a tactic to impede detainees' access to legal representation "and to make these lawyers fight for yet another thing."

Last month after the document seizures, defense attorney Richard Wilson, who represents a Canadian detainee, said in an affidavit that the military had told him that they were conducting no investigation into the role of attorneys in the prisoners' deaths.

He added, however, that at least one detainee claimed that camp officials had confiscated his written materials and told him that they were looking into "whether lawyers had actively encouraged detainees to commit suicide."