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Professor Barbara Olshansky is quoted in an Associated Press story about a hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to determine if detainees at Bagram Prison have the right to challenge their indefinite detention by the U.S. Government in an Article III Court based on the Supreme Court's ruling in Boumediene, which extended the writ of habeas corpus to Guantanamo detainees. In addition the the Washington Post, this story also appeared in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune:
"These individuals are no different than those detained at Guantanamo except where they're housed," U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said during a hearing in Washington over the rights of four men who have been held at Bagram since at least 2003.
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Later, Stanford Law School attorney Barbara Olshansky, representing three of the four men, seized on Bates' questions to argue that the Bagram detainees were "from all over the world ... and none of them are enemy combatants."
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Whether his order would extend to all detainees held at Bagram or just the four in Wednesday's case. O'Quinn said the order would likely be applied to many, if not all the estimated 600 suspects there; Olshansky said courts should decide on a case-by-case basis because of varying circumstances surrounding those captured.
If certain rights can be allowed at Guantanamo since it is a controlled base that has been under sovereign U.S. control for more than a century. O'Quinn argued that they can; Olshansky disagreed and said there is little difference between the two bases since Bagram is under long-term U.S. control as the result of an agreement with the Afghan government.
Olshansky said "there is no more complete analogy or mirror to Guantanamo than this (case)."
Bates said he would issue his ruling "in a reasonable time" but asked both sides how the case might continue under Obama.
O'Quinn said the decision of extending detention rights should be left to Congress. Olshansky, meanwhile, said she hoped Obama would settle it since the Bush administration "has not learned the lessons of Guantanamo."