WASHINGTON, Feb 20: Two British citizens of Pakistani descent detained by US authorities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have gone to court asking that they should either be freed or be allowed to contest the charges against them.
The two are Shafiq Rasul, and Asif Iqbal, described as being friends from the British city of Tipton, and joining them in the petition is Australian David Hicks.
They are among 297 prisoners flown so far to Guantanamo, a US military facility, from Afghanistan. US authorities claim all the prisoners are suspected Al Qaeda or Taliban men, but no charges have been brought against any one of them. A large number is said to be from Saudi Arabia.
The case filed on behalf of Shafiq Rasul and Asif Iqbal by their families contends that their constitutional rights have been violated because the US constitution prohibits indefinite detention without due process.
Civil rights activists have pointed out that a major reason for keeping the men in Guantanamo in Cuba is to remove them from US legal jurisdiction and make legal challenges difficult.
The Bush administration has refused to grant detainees prisoner-of-war status or to apply the Geneva Conventions to Al Qaeda men. It has also declined to give a nationality-wise breakdown of the prisoners, some of whom are believed to be Pakistanis.
But Pakistan embassy sources said again on Wednesday they had not yet been officially informed of whether or not there were any Pakistanis at Guantanamo and, if so, how many.
Many of the Pakistani citizens arrested for various immigration and credit card violations after the Sept 11 sweep of immigrants have been sent back to Pakistan. But it is understood that 200 to 300 Pakistani citizens may also be among the several hundred foreign nationals who were ordered to be deported over the years since 1995 and are alleged to have jumped bail. They are being sought as absconders.
A delegation of Pakistani community leaders met US assistant attorney-general Ralph Boyd on Tuesday, and APP reported that, according to the official, there were three categories in which the post-Sept 11 detainees fell. In the first were those being held on criminal grounds, the second made up of those required as material witnesses on the basis of a finding by an independent judge, while in the third fell those found in violation of immigration laws.
Mr Boyd said the number of detainees kept changing every day, because some were released, while others were taken in. He conceded that special scrutiny was being exercised by the Department of Justice since Sept 11 in relation to citizens of countries where Al Qaeda activity had existed or where it continued to exist. Pakistan falls into that category, hence the “special attention” Pakistanis have received since the attacks.
APP says the Pakistani community delegation brought a number of specific cases of detained Pakistanis to the assistant attorney-general’s attention, which he promised to look into.
