Barbara Olshansky is an American human rights lawyer.
Olshansky is author with Dave Lindorff of The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office. [1]
Olshansky and Lindorff include as rationales for impeachment in The Case for Impeachment
...lying and inducing Congress and the American people into an unjust war; allowing his friends and business cronies to profiteer off the war in Iraq; authorizing torture and rendition of prisoners of war and suspected terrorists -- a complete violation of the Geneva Conventions, a treaty the U.S. has signed and is therefore part of our law; stripping American citizens of their Constitutional rights -- holding people with no charge, wiretapping them illegally, offering them no trial, and never allowing them to face their accusers; [and] failing in almost every way possible to defend the homeland and our borders.
Olshansky was the recipient of a document leaked by Lieutenant Commander Matthew Diaz, that later led to his court martial, detention, and discharge. [2] [3] The efforts of the Center for Constitutional Rights were impaired by the Bush administration's policy of withholding the captives' identities. Diaz had met Olshansky during a visit to Guantanamo, and he sent her a list in an unmarked greeting card. The list provided by Diaz contained the names of 550 captives. [4]
Olshansky suspected the list might have been classified, so she contacted Federal authorities. [2]
After leaving the Center for Constitutional Rights Olshansky was hired as director of the International Justice Network. [5]
In 2007 Olshanksy was appointed the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights at Stanford University's Law School. [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]
In Spring 2010, Olshansky joined the faculty at the University of Maryland School of Law. She will be teaching the International Clinic. [10]
Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani is a Tanzanian conspirator of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization convicted for his role in the bombing of embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. He was indicted in the United States as a participant in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. He was on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list from its inception in October 2001. In 2004, he was captured and detained by Pakistani forces in a joint operation with the United States, and was held until June 9, 2009, at Guantanamo Bay detention camp; one of 14 Guantanamo detainees who had previously been held at secret locations abroad. According to The Washington Post, Ghailani told military officers he is contrite and claimed to be an exploited victim of al-Qaeda operatives.
Michael Ratner was an American attorney. For much of his career, he was president of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), a non-profit human rights litigation organization based in New York City, and president of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) based in Berlin.
The Combatant Status Review Tribunals (CSRT) were a set of tribunals for confirming whether detainees held by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp had been correctly designated as "enemy combatants". The CSRTs were established July 7, 2004 by order of U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz after U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Rasul v. Bush and were coordinated through the Office for the Administrative Review of the Detention of Enemy Combatants.
Abu Bakker Qassim is a Uyghur from China's western frontier, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region who was held in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 283.
Muhibullah or Moheb Ullah Borekzai is a citizen of Afghanistan who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States's Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. His Guantanamo Internment Serial Number was 546. American intelligence analysts estimate that Muhibullah was born in 1982, in Shah Wali Koot, Afghanistan.
The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is a progressive non-profit legal advocacy organization based in New York City, New York, in the United States. It was founded in 1966 by Arthur Kinoy, William Kunstler and others particularly to support activists in the implementation of civil rights legislation and to achieve social justice.
Djamel Saiid Ali Ameziane is an Algerian citizen, and former resident of Canada, who was held in extrajudicial detention in the United States Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba.
Charles D. Swift is an American attorney and former career Navy officer, who retired in 2007 as a Lieutenant Commander in the Judge Advocate General's Corps. He is most noted for having served as defense counsel for Salim Ahmed Hamdan, a detainee from Yemen who was the first to be charged at Guantanamo Bay; Swift took his case to the US Supreme Court. In 2005 and June 2006, the National Law Journal recognized Swift as one of the top lawyers nationally because of his work on behalf of justice for the detainees.
Matthew Mark Diaz is a former active-duty Lieutenant Commander (LCDR) and Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAGC) officer in the United States Navy. In mid-to-late 2004, Diaz served a six-month tour of duty in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as deputy director of the detention center's legal office. Early in 2005 as LCDR Diaz was concluding his tour, he sent an anonymous greeting card to The Center for Constitutional Rights, a New York civil liberties and human rights group. The card contained the names of the detainees held at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. In July 2006, the United States government formally charged Diaz in a military court with five criminal counts related to the sending of these names, the most serious being that he intended to harm national security or advantage a foreign nation, a violation of the Espionage Act. In May 2007, he was convicted by a seven-member jury of military officers on 4 of 5 counts. He served a 6-month prison sentence and was dismissed from the military.
Boumediene v. Bush, 553 U.S. 723 (2008), was a writ of habeas corpus petition made in a civilian court of the United States on behalf of Lakhdar Boumediene, a naturalized citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, held in military detention by the United States at the Guantanamo Bay detention camps in Cuba. Guantánamo Bay is not formally part of the United States, and under the terms of the 1903 lease between the United States and Cuba, Cuba retained ultimate sovereignty over the territory, while the United States exercises complete jurisdiction and control. The case was consolidated with habeas petition Al Odah v. United States. It challenged the legality of Boumediene's detention at the United States Naval Station military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as the constitutionality of the Military Commissions Act of 2006. Oral arguments on the combined cases were heard by the Supreme Court on December 5, 2007.
Susan Jean Crawford is an American lawyer, who was appointed the Convening Authority for the Guantanamo military commissions, on February 7, 2007. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates appointed Crawford to replace John D. Altenburg.
Al Odah v. United States is a court case filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights and co-counsels challenging the legality of the continued detention as enemy combatants of Guantanamo detainees. It was consolidated with Boumediene v. Bush (2008), which is the lead name of the decision.
In United States law, habeas corpus is a recourse challenging the reasons or conditions of a person's detention under color of law. The Guantanamo Bay detention camp is a United States military prison located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. A persistent standard of indefinite detention without trial and incidents of torture led the operations of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp to be challenged internationally as an affront to international human rights, and challenged domestically as a violation of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments of the United States Constitution, including the right of petition for habeas corpus. On 19 February 2002, Guantanamo detainees petitioned in federal court for a writ of habeas corpus to review the legality of their detention.
Kristine Huskey is an American lawyer. Huskey is notable because she volunteered to help defend Guantanamo detainees. Huskey is the author of "Standards and Procedures for Classifying "Enemy Combatants": Congress, What Have You Done?"
David H. Remes is an American lawyer.
Scott Horton is an American attorney known for his work in human rights law and the law of armed conflict, as well as emerging markets and international law. He graduated Texas Law School in Austin with a JD and was a partner in a large New York law firm, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler. He "has advised sovereigns on the pursuit of kleptocratic predecessors." In April 2007, he joined Harper's Magazine as a legal affairs and national security contributor, and he currently authors the No Comment blog at Harper's Online. Horton has also written for The American Lawyer, and The Daily Beast and has been interviewed on Antiwar Radio. and the John Batchelor Show.
Shayana D. Kadidal is an American lawyer and writer. Kadidal has worked at the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City since 2001, and is senior managing attorney of the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative there, coordinating legal representation for the captives held in extrajudicial detention in the United States' Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba. Previously a writer on patent, drug and obscenity law, since 2001 he has played a role in various notable human rights cases, including:
Tina Monshipour Foster is an Iranian-American lawyer and director of the International Justice Network.
Zalita v. Bush is a writ of habeas corpus filed on behalf of Guantanamo captive Abu Abdul Rauf Zalita before United States District Court judge Ricardo M. Urbina. On January 2, 2008 the Project to Enforce the Geneva Conventions named Zalita v. Bush on a list of "notable GTMO and related cases".
Redha al-Najar is a citizen of Tunisia who was held in US custody in the Bagram Theater Internment Facility. He is notable for being one of a very small number of the detainees held in Bagram to have had a writ of habeas corpus submitted on his behalf.