Japanese-Americans challenge U.S. detention of Muslims

[fushigi]

Story.

But Yasui, an American citizen of Japanese ancestry, had reason to take it personally. Her grandparents were among thousands of Japanese immigrants in the United States who were wrongfully detained as enemy aliens during World War II. And her father was one of three Japanese-Americans who challenged the government's racial detention and curfew programs in litigation that reached the Supreme Court in the 1940s. Now, Yasui, along with Jay Hirabayashi and Karen Korematsu-Haigh, a son and a daughter of the two other Japanese-American litigants, is urging an appeals court in New York to overturn the sweeping language of the judge's ruling last year.

Personally, I don't think the two are anywhere near equal. Japanese in the US were never actually proven guilty of committing or planning terrorist attacks, while Islamists have.

[tinybear]

Anyone duly convicted beyond reasonable doubt of a criminal offense is liable to be detained in jail custody. Being Muslim or otherwise has got nothing to do with it.

[fushigi]

Quote by: tinybear Anyone duly convicted beyond reasonable doubt of a criminal offense is liable to be detained in jail custody. Being Muslim or otherwise has got nothing to do with it.

That's the problem. The muslims being detained, like Japanese put into internment camps, haven't been convicted but are rather suspected.

It's still not the same situation, and I don't think these Japanese can sustain a case that the two are equivalent. But they do share that fact - indefinite detention without conviction - in common.

[tinybear]

Indefinite detention without cause is wrong. If a trial is not possible or practicable, there ought be a hearing before a special tribunal of independent judges to see if further detention is warranted.

[fushigi]

Quote by: tinybear Indefinite detention without cause is wrong.

But that's just the point. There is a cause. To extract information for use in the war on terror.

With the Japanese, there was no reason to believe that they were going to somehow assist Imperial Japan in its war against the US. There wasn't a single act of treasono or terrorism carried out by an overseas Japanese or Nissei during the war.

For these Japanese to conflate the two is disrespectful to their own history IMO.

[tinybear]

I'm all for extracting info for the war against terror. But is there reason to believe these detainees have such info though?

[GHook93]

Quote by: fushigi Story. Personally, I don't think the two are anywhere near equal. Japanese in the US were never actually proven guilty of committing or planning terrorist attacks, while Islamists have.

I agree. Although I am one of the few that would agree with the Japanese detention at the time. War is war my friends and it is more dangerous now then it has ever been.

[GHook93]

Quote by: tinybear Indefinite detention without cause is wrong. If a trial is not possible or practicable, there ought be a hearing before a special tribunal of independent judges to see if further detention is warranted.

They get military tribunals to contest there incarceration. That is exactly what the Austriallian Taliban received!

[Zeebadee]

Quote by: tinybear I'm all for extracting info for the war against terror. But is there reason to believe these detainees have such info though?

Sure, bush says they do.

Quote by: GHook93 They get military tribunals to contest there incarceration. That is exactly what the Austriallian Taliban received!

Yeah, he only had to wait for 5 years to get his "trial". There's also some evidence that he pleaded guilty just to get out of U.S. custody at Gitmo.

"Hicks' father, Terry Hicks, told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio on Tuesday that he believed his son pleaded guilty as part of a bargain with prosecutors that would get him out of Guantanamo: "It's a way to get home, and he's told us he just wants to get home."

The guilty plea came at the opening session of a new military tribunal signed into law in October by President Bush after the Supreme Court struck down the previous system.

Critics of the commissions said the plea reflected Hicks' despair over his prospects for justice from Guantanamo courts.

"He and his attorneys knew he could not receive a fair trial, so Hicks pleaded guilty," said Marine Lt. Col. Colby Vokey, the lawyer for Omar Khadr, a Canadian detainee who is expected to face charges before the commission."
Dad: Gitmo prisoner wants to go home - Yahoo! News