Obama admin has 'til 6pm to explain why GITMO detainees have fewer religious rights than Hobby Lobby

[bigtree]

Zoë Carpenter ‏@ZoeSCarpenter 6m
The Obama administration has until 6 pm to explain why GTMO detainees have fewer religious rights than corporations http://www.thenation.com/blog/180561/if-christian-corporations-have-religious-rights-what-about-muslim-prisoners …


If corporations have religious rights that warrant protection under the law, why don’t men imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay?

A federal judge has given the US government until Tuesday evening to answer that question, which was posed by lawyers representing two Guantánamo detainees, Imad Hassan and Ahmed Rabbani, who have been held without charge or trial for nearly fifteen years. Authorities at the prison have barred the two men from communal prayers during the holy month of Ramadan because they are on hunger strike. Two courts ruled previously that Hassan and Rabbani are not people, at least “within the scope” of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which prevents the government from substantially burdening a person’s freedom to exercise religion.

In last week’s Hobby Lobby v. Burwell decision, the conservative majority of the Supreme Court ruled that the chain of craft stores, along with other closely held corporations, are within the scope of the RFRA. Three days later, lawyers representing the detainees filed new lawsuits calling on a DC circuit court to restore the detainees’ right to communal prayers in light of the High Court’s interpretation.

“The Guantánamo Bay detainees, as flesh-and-blood human beings, are surely ‘individuals,’ and thus they are no less ‘person[s]’ than are for-profit corporations in Hobby Lobby,” reads the motion. “The fact that the detainees are at Guantánamo Bay changes nothing, for Hobby Lobby makes clear that a ‘person’ whose religious free exercise is burdened under color of law need not be a US citizen or resident in order to enjoy the RFRA’s protections.”

The government has until 6 pm to explain why Hassan and Rabbani have fewer religious rights than corporations. A hearing is set for July 10. If the court ultimately finds that the RFRA does apply to the detainees, the government could still argue that the burden on the detainees’ freedom to exercise religion is justified by a “compelling government interest,” such as maintaining security at the prison. But it’s not clear how communal prayers actually threaten such an interest, or that preventing the two detainees from participating is “the least restrictive means” of satisfying the interest. “Least restrictive” is the standard required by the RFRA.


read: http://www.thenation.com/blog/180561/if-christian-corporations-have-religious-rights-what-about-muslim-prisoners#

[liberal N proud]

1. The simple answer is because the SCOTUS gave the corporations their rights.

[corkhead]

2. You mean SCROTUS

Supreme Court Reactionaries Of The United States

[Jackpine Radical]

4. That was pretty much my reaction.

None of the detainees is a corporation. They don't get rights.

[bvar22]

3. "have been held without charge or trial for nearly fifteen years"

We have become that which we say we hate.

[1StrongBlackMan]

7. President Obama attempted to close GITMO ...

and move the detainees to American soil ... which meant that the detainees 5 and 6th amendment rights would have attached. Congress stopped that.

There is no mechanism for charging/trying the detainees under civilian/criminal law (where the 5 and 6th amendment apply) while they are at GITMO; nor a no need/requirement to attach 5 and 6th amendment protections because military law applies.

BTW, I have always held the position that the U.S. indict and try those detainees that are indictable (in civilian court), and free those that are unindictable.

[Ed Suspicious]

9. Yeah that was a jarring little reality check. We need to let these people go.

If they cannot be charged they need to be turned loose. Were we even engaged in a war 15 years ago? I thought they were enemy combatants. It sounds less about public safety and more about gitmo operating as a terrorist creation entity. Why are we such violent oppressors? I didn't vote for that.

[latin73]

16. detainees

Agree...government eventually has to let them go. Just because the law says so.

[Ed Suspicious]

17. Thanks. Detainees is more convenient for them and probably more accurate. Not sure where I got the

idea that they were "enemy combatants."

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

22. They are "enemy combatants" because George W. Bush said they were.

And would George W. Bush say anything that was not the absolute truth?

[MisterP]

10. more on the nose, we've been encouraging and funding ultrasalafists since the 70s

just because we have periods where we denounce them and send special forces after them doesn't mean we don't ever flip back (or sometimes fund AND fight them simultaneously--it gets weird, but we're actually following Mossad's footsteps on this: didn't help them either)

[ReRe]

18. Yes!

I've said it a million times, myself. What have we become???? Our WWII enemies?
Where did America go?

[Nuclear Unicorn]

5. Seriously?

[tclambert]

6. Easy. Corporations are people, my friend. But Gitmo detainees do not have legal standing as people

or citizens, or even prisoners of war. That's why we call them "Double secret, ultra-enhanced enemy combatants." See? If we call them by a different name, we can pretend they aren't what they really are, and that the laws passed to protect prisoners, suspected criminals, citizens, non-citizens, people, dogs, and cats do not apply.

[Comrade Grumpy]

8. "held without charge or trial for nearly fifteen years." That's not my America.

More human rights for corporations that for actual humans. That's fucked up.

[malaise]

11. Them their terrorists

'is' Muslims. Don't yah know that?

[Ed Suspicious]

13. Indeed. And what could be more terrifying than the fear that an invading nation can come in, scoop

up your family members in a raid, and export them without explanation to an over seas prison without any idea as to whether said family would ever be united again. It is terrorism that drives people to commit acts of terror because terror is their only recourse and the only way in which they can hope to be heard.

Gitmo is a terror factory.

[malaise]

15. +1,000

I have long been convinced that there are interests who need perpetual war and non-stop enemies. Why else would you invade countries and bomb innocents to smithereens.

I don't like conspiracy theories but isn't it strange that the Muslim 'threat' replaced the cold war with tasteless haste. Sadly terror is a business and many are getting rich.

[onecaliberal]

12. They aren't a closely held corp.

That is recognized more than most people.

[rbrnmw]

14. I wasn't aware President Obama decided the Hobby Lobby case!!!

I also don't think he can do anything about Gitmo. Give the Congress until 6pm to tell you

[bigtree]

19. Prez is in charge of GITMO - they are held there without charges on his authority

. . . he is bound to adhere his policy to conform with the law. He'll need to address why GITMO prisoners aren't entitled to have their own religious beliefs and practices respected, under the Court's new interpretation.

[rhett o rick]

21. The President deciding the Hobby Lobby case? Where did you come up with that

crazy idea? Isn't interesting how the President of the USofA, arguably the most powerful man in the world, can't do anything about the prisoners in GITMO. He can kill anyone he wants with drones and he can send troops anywhere he wants to fight, but he can't do anything about GITMO. But maybe you're right. The final decision probably rests with the head of the NSA/CIA.

[msongs]

20. hobby lobby can give them jobs n let em pray 5X day in their lunch room nt

[aikoaiko]

23. They can refuse to buy contraceptive for their employees too.