 June 2004
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Sara Burke, Managing Editor Sam Diener, Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Court Hears Appeals Challenging Unlimited Presidential Power to Detain April 20, 2004, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments on cases which could decide whether the US President will be allowed to imprison US citizens and foreign nationals indefinitely without providing access to lawyers, charges, hearings, or right of judicial review. President Bush, by holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and holding US citizens as "enemy combatants," has asserted just such a position. Opposition to this assertion of dictatorial authority has ranged across the political spectrum. Amicus filed with the Supreme Court, from very different sources, highlight the importance of these cases. Fred Korematsu, the most famous Supreme Court challenger of the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II, filed an amicus in the cases of Khaled Odah v. United States, Shafiq Rasul v. George W. Bush and Yasir Hamdi v. Donald Rumsfeld. Geoffrey R. Stone, primary author of the Korematsu brief, said, "More than sixty years ago, Mr. Korematsu had the courage to challenge the constitutionality of President Franklin Roosevelt's 1942 Executive Order that authorized the internment of 120,000 individuals of Japanese ancestry on the West Coast of the United States." "We should be vigilant to make sure this will never happen again," Korematsu said. A second brief was filed on behalf of former US prisoners of war. In their brief, they argue, it is vital that US "POWs retain the moral authority to demand fair and humane treatment for any future Americans detained by foreign governments." Other extraordinary amicus were filed by 175 members of the British Parliament, and US former military officers including John Huston, a lifelong Republican who voted for Bush and was the Navy's top lawyer. Huston told the Seattle Post Intelligencer, "If there were 600 Americans in a cave in Afghanistan and al-Qaida said they were going to hold them indefinitely, we'd be pretty unhappy."
The legal briefs, and more information on
these cases, are available at www.equaljusticesociety.org/press_korematsu.html
www.nosafehaven.org/ccr/legal.html . Oral arguments can be
read and heard at www.oyez.org .
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