Guantanamo prisoners not 'persons'

In the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court's refusal Monday to review a lower court's dismissal of a case brought by four British former Guantanamo prisoners against former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the detainees' lawyers charged Tuesday that the country's highest court evidently believes that "torture and religious humiliation are permissible tools for a government to use". The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Washington, DC had ruled that government officials were immune from suit because at that time it was unclear whether abusing prisoners at Guantanamo was illegal. Channeling their predecessors in the George W. Bush administration, Obama Justice Department lawyers argued in this case that there is no constitutional right not to be tortured or otherwise abused in a U.S. prison abroad. The Obama administration had asked the court not to hear the case. By agreeing, the court let stand an earlier opinion by the D.C. Circuit Court, which found that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act - a statute that applies by its terms to all "persons" - did not apply to detainees at Guantanamo, effectively ruling that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law.