President Barack Obama has yet to fulfill the promise he made in his January 22, 2009 executive order to shutter Guantanamo “no later than one year from the date of this order.” Any individuals remaining there at the time of closure, Obama wrote, “shall be returned to their home country, released, transferred to a third… Read more »
By Art Heitzer and Marjorie Cohn Millions of Americans believe that President Obama has normalized relations with Cuba and ended over 50 years of U.S. efforts to strangle its economy. They might have been puzzled when the United States stood up against every other nation save one, in opposing the UN General Assembly resolution which… Read more »
Now that United States and Cuba are preparing to open embassies in each other’s countries, what else needs to happen to support the process of détente between the two countries? During a recent visit to Cuba I posed this question to René González and Antonio Guerrero, two of the “Cuban Five” – five Cuban men… Read more »
In the course of delivering his historic speech dramatically altering US Cuba policy, President Barack Obama briefly mentioned that the United States released three Cuban agents. These men are members of the “Cuban Five,” who were imprisoned for gathering information on US-based Cuban exile groups planning terrorist actions against Cuba. Without their release, Cuba would… Read more »
Two Judges on Three-Judge Panel Uphold Conspiracy to Commit Murder Conviction Despite Government’s Lack of Evidence New York. The National Lawyers Guild (NLG) believes that politics influenced yesterday’s federal appeals court decision upholding the convictions of five Cuban patriots accused of spying in the United States. The so-called Cuban Five were gathering information on U.S.-based… Read more »
The Supreme Court will hear arguments on Wednesday in Boumediene v. Bush. Most of the 34 detainees whose fate hangs in the balance in this case were brought to Guantánamo after being picked up by bounty hunters or tribesmen in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Yet the Bush administration has fought hard to keep them away from… Read more »
On November 16, 2007, Victor Rabinowitz, one of the giants of the legal profession and a tireless fighter for social justice, died at the age of 96. One of the founders of the National Lawyers Guild 70 years ago, Victor defended unpopular clients when other lawyers were afraid to touch them. During the McCarthy period,… Read more »
Since the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration has made the “war on terror” the centerpiece of its domestic and foreign policy. Bush cries terror where there is none – as he did in Iraq and in the communications of ordinary Americans. Meanwhile, he protects the real terrorists in our midst. Luis Posada Carriles is a… Read more »
Here, a new trial was mandated by the perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment, and extensive publicity both before and during the trial, merged with the improper prosecutorial references.– Eleventh Circuit US Court of Appeals, three-judge panel opinion reversing the convictions of the Cuban Five, August 9, 2005 Many of our… Read more »
Last week, the President of the United Nations General Assembly announced a new proposal to revamp the UN Human Rights Commission and rename it the UN Human Rights Council. The product of months of negotiations between the 53 member nations of the Commission, the proposal will be voted on by the General Assembly next month…. Read more »