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STANFORD, Calif., December 10, 2008—Redha al-Najar, a 43-year-old Tunisian national, who has been held without charge in U.S. military custody since May 2002, today filed a lawsuit against the United States government. He is being represented in the case by the International Human Rights Clinic of Stanford Law School’s Mills Legal Clinic, acting as co-counsel with the International Justice Network.
The case, al-Najar v. Bush, was filed as a petition for writ of habeas corpus and a complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia against President George W. Bush and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. The petition asks the court to use its authority to compel the President and the U.S. military to release al-Najar from unlawful custody and to allow him to resettle in a country other than Tunisia, as has been proposed by respondents, because his life would be in immediate jeopardy were he to return there.
According to the petition, Redha al-Najar was arrested in May 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan, where he had been living with his wife and child. He was held without access to his family, counsel or any tribunal by the U.S. military at different CIA “black sites” for nearly two years, and then ultimately transferred to the prison facility on the air base in Bagram, Afghanistan. For more than six years, al-Najar has been held virtually incommunicado without charge or access to a fair process by which he might challenge his detention. The prison facility at Bagram is under the undisputed exclusive jurisdiction and control of the U.S. military.
“Redha al-Najar is being held unlawfully at Bagram, an expanding internment facility where severe torture of detainees is well-documented,” said lead counsel Barbara Olshansky, a visiting professor who directs the International Human Rights Clinic at Stanford Law School. “The fact that Mr. al-Najar went missing for two years before he was transferred to Bagram Prison and permitted to contact his family through the International Committee of the Red Cross is indicative of the long pattern of forced disappearances expressly authorized by the Bush Administration.”
According to Olshansky and the International Justice Network, al-Najar is one of the many thousands of detainees still being held unlawfully by the U.S. government at detention facilities around the world. In September this year, the United States released Jawed Ahmad, a journalist working for Canadian broadcast network CTV, and client of Stanford Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, after more than 11 months of military imprisonment without charge at Bagram, Afghanistan.
“Although the focus of the Obama Transition Team has been to close Guantánamo, we must remind them that closing it is just the beginning of the work that needs to be done to reaffirm our commitment to honoring human rights.” Olshansky said. “Many former Guantánamo detainees have not been released, but instead sent to U.S. detention facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan where they face even less due process than they might have ultimately received at Guantánamo. Bagram Prison, which currently holds 670 detainees, is no longer sufficient, and another prison is being built on the air base to hold 1,100 more U.S. ‘war on terror’ detainees. Redha al-Najar is just one of an untold number of people who continue to be unlawfully imprisoned by the United States in Afghanistan and other locations around the globe.”
“The al-Najar case also sheds light on the problem that the incoming Obama Administration will face in terms of the resettlement of former detainees,” Olshansky continued. “The U.S. cannot release Mr. al-Najar to his home country of Tunisia because they would be illegally returning him to a situation where he would undoubtedly face torture and perhaps even a death sentence. These situations present a difficult conundrum for the Obama Administration, which will be forced to negotiate the safe resettlement of hundreds if not thousands of former detainees from Guantanamo and elsewhere around the world as a result of the Bush Administration’s unlawful and immoral detention policies.”
About Barbara Olshansky
Barbara Olshansky, a leading voice in international human rights and humanitarian law, is the Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights. She joined Stanford in 2007 to teach international law and to establish and direct the International Human Rights Clinic’s in-country clinical program in Namibia. Professor Olshansky is known for her groundbreaking work on the 2004 case Rasul v. Bush, in which the Supreme Court of the United States overruled a lower court ruling and found that American courts have jurisdiction over claims regarding the legality of detention brought by Guantánamo detainees who are foreign nationals. She is also the author of several books, including Democracy Detained: Secret, Unconstitutional Practices in the U.S. War on Terror, The Case for Impeachment, and Secret Trials and Executions.
About the Mills Legal Clinic
Stanford Law School offers a variety of clinics that litigate in specialized fields, including environmental protection, immigrants’ rights, community law, cyberlaw, educational advocacy, and international human rights. The clinics provide pro bono representation and operate cohesively as a single law firm, the Mills Legal Clinic of Stanford Law School. The Mills Legal Clinic provides students an opportunity to apply classroom theory to real client situations and to develop a lifelong commitment to public service values.
About the International Human Rights Clinic
The International Humans Rights Clinic provides students with the opportunity to travel to Africa to engage in cutting-edge work in the area of international human rights and the development of the rule of law.
Most recently, the program has focused its work on Namibia. Students spent the winter quarter at Stanford Law with clinic faculty studying the historical, cultural, and legal context of Namibia, and conducting outreach to Namibian leaders. In the spring, the students and faculty traveled to Namibia to work with their clients on their projects. The students drafted anti-torture statutes, collaborated with agencies providing services to AIDS patients, worked with the judiciary on creating methods of disseminating precedents and worked with indigenous populations to memorialize their legal rules.
In past years, students have worked with a Ghanaian organization interviewing scores of detainees in police detention centers, calling attention to individual cases and helping to create a framework for more general challenges to the conditions of confinement. Other students have worked with lawyers and community groups furthering human rights in areas such as the right to healthcare.
The Clinic is expanding its work to address national security measures and compliance with international law mandates in “war on terror” detentions. Students will be able to advocate on behalf of detainees held by, or at the request of, the United States in prisons and detention camps in places such as Guantanamo, Afghanistan, Iraq, Morocco, and Ethiopia, and help to develop and lobby for new policy framework that is consistent with long-standing international human rights and international humanitarian law.
About Stanford Law School
Stanford Law School is one of the nation’s leading institutions for legal scholarship and education. Its alumni are among the most influential decision makers in law, politics, business, and high technology. Faculty members argue before the Supreme Court, testify before Congress, and write books and articles for academic audiences, as well as the popular press. Along with offering traditional law school classes, the school has embraced new subjects and new ways of teaching.
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For commentary:
Barbara Olshansky
Leah Kaplan Visiting Professor in Human Rights, and project lead for the International Human Rights Clinic
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bolshansky@law.stanford.edu
Office: 650 723.4605
Kathleen Kelly
Clinical Teaching Fellow for the International Human Rights Clinic
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