Guantanamo inmates denied trial

Prisoners at Guantanamo Bay cannot challenge their detention in US courts, an appeal court has ruled.

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled 2-1 that civilian courts no longer have the authority to consider whether the military is illegally holding the prisoners, a decision that will strip court access for the hundreds of detainees with cases currently pending. The White House deputy press secretary, Dana Perino, said the decision was "a significant win" for the Bush administration.

Lawyers for the detainees said they would appeal to the US Supreme Court, which last year struck down the Bush administration's plan for trying detainees before military commissions. "We're disappointed," said Shayana Kadidal of the Centre for Constitutional Rights. "The bottom line is that according to two of the federal judges, the President can do whatever he wants without any legal limitations as long as he does it offshore."

There are currently some 395 detainees at the US military base in Cuba.

The Military Commissions Act, which Mr Bush pushed through Congress last year, allows the government to detain foreigners who have been designed as "enemy combatants" to be detained indefinitely and authorises the CIA to use aggressive but undefined interrogation tactics.

This Republican administration will be studied in years to come as an example of how near the US came to becoming a dictatorship. That this can happen in a democracy is simply shameful.

If the government has a case against these men, they should try them. If they have no case against them, they should let them go. Why is that such a difficult concept for this administration to grasp?

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Tags: Guantanamo Bay, Habeas Corpus, Bush, Republicans, Democracy in the US