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Obama criticized over military tribunals
The military commissions legislation that President Barack Obama signed into law today does not remedy the commissions' inherent flaws, Human Rights Watch said today.
The Military Commissions Act of 2009, which was included in the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), significantly improves upon the Bush administration's system of military commissions, but still departs in fundamental ways from the fair trial procedures used in US federal courts and courts martial. Human Rights Watch warned that even with the new changes, the military commissions will be viewed globally as illegitimate and harm international counterterrorism cooperation.
"The new law can't salvage these discredited commissions," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch.
Human Rights Watch also expressed concern over Congress's refusal to exempt children from prosecution by military commissions. In recognition that children are less criminally culpable than adults, and that emphasis on adjudicating children should be on rehabilitation rather than punishment, no international tribunal since Nuremberg has prosecuted a child for alleged war crimes and the United Nations has condemned the practice.
The group also says that the fact that only non-US citizens were subject to trial in military commissions raised serious concerns about fairness and discrimination.
"The overt discrimination codified in the new military commissions law will offend US allies," Mariner said. "If the commissions are too unfair to be used on US citizens, they're too unfair to be used on anyone."