LOS ANGELES, Calif. – A U.S. citizen standing trial on vague terrorism-related charges was denied an open proceeding today when a United Arab Emirates judge closed the courtroom to international observers and the media. The move raises further questions about whether Naji Hamdan, who has been imprisoned for 11 months in the U. A.E. and has been charged based on evidence obtained from him through torture, will receive a fair trial.

“Naji Hamdan’s life is in peril, and we’re fearful that this secretive trial will not result in a fair hearing of facts in his case,” said Jennie Pasquarella, an ACLU/SC staff attorney who was among those denied entry into the courtroom in Abu Dhabi.

Based on his credible accounts, the ACLU/SC believes that Hamdan was arrested and detained at the direction of the U.S. government. His trial represents a test for the Obama administration’s willingness to end Bush-era proxy detentions – the detention of U.S. citizens by foreign governments at the direction of American officials.

“We’ve asked the United States to use its influence to get Hamdan out of prison in the U.A.E., or at least ensure that evidence obtained through torture is not used against him in trial,” Pasquarella said. “Sadly, we have heard nothing in reply as the U.A.E. proceeds with its case against him.”

Last year the ACLU/SC filed a lawsuit seeking to compel the federal government to reveal its role in the detention, torture and prosecution of Hamdan. The lawsuit remains pending.

The ACLU/SC also sent a petition bearing more than 1,000 signatures to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, urging her to intervene on Hamdan’s behalf to ensure that evidence obtained through torture is not used against him. So far, Clinton and other Obama administration officials have been silent on Hamdan’s detention.

 

LOS ANGELES, Calif. – The ACLU of Southern California has released the following
statements on the decision by U.S. District Court Judge Gary Feess to end the LAPD consent decree:

“We’re disappointed by the judge’s decision. The department has made substantial progress under Chief Bratton, but there’s still too much evidence that skin color makes a difference in who is stopped, questioned and arrested by the LAPD,” said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU/SC. “We look to the Police Commission to work diligently to keep the department focused on the goal of removing racial bias from its policing.”

Added ACLU/SC Staff Attorney Peter Bibring: “The transition agreement imposed by the court requires the department to continue to work toward the nondiscrimination provisions of the original decree. The court may have lifted the original decree, but its decision makes clear that the department must finish what it has started.”

The consent decree is an agreement between the city of Los Angeles and the federal government, under which a federal monitor has overseen reform efforts at the LAPD. The agreement dates from 2000, when, in response to a corruption scandal surrounding the department’s Rampart Division, the U.S. Department of Justice found that officers routinely violated the constitutional rights of Los Angeles residents. The ACLU/SC represents community groups who intervened in the case.

The consent decree has served as a crucial engine of reform for the LAPD, and has helped ensure that the department avoids the kind of civil-rights violations exemplified by the Rampart and Rodney King scandals. Nevertheless, the department is still out of compliance with key portions of the decree, including non-discrimination provisions, the supervision of gang units and other areas susceptible to abuse. Most troubling is that there is strong evidence that racially
biased policing still exists within the LAPD. A study by Yale economist Ian Ayers released last fall found that officers overstopped, overfrisked and overarrested black and Latino citizens.

Dear Marriage Allies:
We are writing as partners in the fight for LGBT equality because we believe that too much of the conversation about getting rid of Proposition 8 is focusing on the wrong question.
As you probably know, the ACLU has been involved in the fight on virtually every important civil rights initiative at least since Proposition 14 in 1964. We fought against the death penalty, 'three strikes,' and the initiatives aimed at getting rid of affirmative action and data on race. We fought Prop.6, the gay school workers initiative in 1978, the two 'La Rouche' AIDS initiatives in the mid 80s, and the Dannameyer 'AIDS Quarantine' initiative in 1988. We fought the anti-choice initiatives on the ballot in the last three elections. We fought Prop. 22 in 2000, and, of course, we fought Proposition 8. The ACLU has also worked hard to pass initiatives that have strengthened our rights. For example, we helped write and ultimately pass the initiative that added an explicit right to privacy to the California Constitution.
Those initiative campaigns convince us that rather than asking what year we should go back to the ballot to repeal Proposition 8, we should be focusing on where we need to be with the voters to stand a solid chance of winning. We should, we believe, go to the ballot when we've established the predicates we need to win, and not a moment later or sooner.
We think that we haven't established the predicates we need for winning yet. If we were to enter a campaign in either 2010 or 2012 with the people of California where they are now on marriage for same-sex couples, we'd have a tougher time winning than we did in 2008. As the work of David Binder and the Field and Public Policy Institute polls show, at the start of the election campaign in 2008, a significant percentage of voters were conflicted about marriage, and could potentially have gone either way. But most of those people made up their minds on Election Day. Only a very small portion of the electorate can be called undecided today. Not enough to swing us the election even if we persuaded all of them, which is unlikely.
That means that to win at any election in the foreseeable future, we are going to have to convince people who voted against marriage to change their votes. As you know, convincing people who have made up their minds to change them is far more difficult than persuading undecided voters to side with you. And it is far more difficult to persuade people to do that during the heat of an election campaign. To have a serious shot at winning, we need to go into any election with a majority of voters on our side, so that our task is to keep a winning majority through the campaign, not to create one as we go along.
To create a majority for marriage, LGBT people and our closest allies are first going to have to talk to close friends and family about their lives and their relationships, and why this fight matters. Even if those people are already on our side, we need to talk to them to convince them to join the fight and to act as ambassadors to their close friends and family.
To create a majority for marriage, LGBT people and our closest allies are also going to have to engage in a dialogue with the conflicted voters we lost in 2008. These people need to be persuaded. Most of them won't be if we talk about hate and bigotry. These folks voted against us, and people rarely change their mind in response to an attack. We need to convince them that our relationships deserve the respect and dignity of marriage. That's a conversation that needs to be based on the truth of how we live, not abstract principles.
At the same time that we engage with friends and family and conflicted voters and bring it to a scale that it can affect the electorate, we shouldn't focus on convincing voters who are committed against us. They are the toughest to persuade, and we don't need them.
Equality California, the Courage Campaign, Marriage Equality USA and others have made smart beginnings on both conversations with close friends and family and with conflicted voters. But it is far too early to see if these efforts as currently constituted will change enough minds to get us to a majority, much less to do so by some fixed date. That goal'majority support'should be the first prerequisite before we decide to mount any campaign.
Moreover, to hold a majority for marriage in an election campaign, we would have to have the commitment of the community to support a massive one-to-one engagement campaign. We need to have a thought-through plan to pay the cost of running a good statewide campaign, buy-in from those who will have to help us raise the money, and the demonstrated commitment of the community to pay for it. That means we need to set benchmarks for community engagement and benchmarks for fundraising from significant donors and the grass roots before we commit to a campaign. We think we'everyone who will commit to play a significant role in the campaign'need to set these benchmarks together.
Once we decide to go back to the ballot, we'll need to have a sophisticated plan for community engagement, field, mail, media, endorsements'all the elements of a successful statewide initiative campaign. We'll also need a structure to run a campaign like that. That structure needs to facilitate broad participation, while providing for disciplined management.
Let's get the LGBT people of California and our allies focused on establishing the predicates we need to win before we decide when to go back to the ballot. Together, let's define and set out to achieve those predicates for success.
We are proud to be a partner in this movement.
Matt Coles Director, ACLU LGBT Project
Kevin Keenan, Executive Director, ACLU of San Diego & Imperial Counties
Ramona Ripston Executive Director, ACLU of Southern California
Abdi Soltani Executive Director, ACLU of Northern California