America's Disappeared: Secret Imprisonment, Detainees and the War on Terror

(Paperback)

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September 11 sparked a firestorm of racial profiling, detentions and deportations by the US government. Thousands have been arbitrarily imprisoned or detained without trial or judicial hearing. This latest instalment of the hugely successful Open Media series brings together, for the first time, detainees' own testimonies within a comprehensive framework for understanding the issues by leading constitutional scholars working for their release.

Reviews

To readAmerica's Disappearedis to be moved by the personal stories of human beings plucked out of our midst, tortured, kept away from family, from legal counsel, from the world. To read these stories is to be shocked by the way our constitutional rights have been violated again and again, with the government justifying this as a 'war on terrorism'. The essays in this collection not only confront us with the human reality of the detentions at Guantnamo and the tortures of Abu Ghraib. They also scrutinize and dissect the legal arguments of the government, as it tries to defend the indefensible. This volume informs us as it angers us, and provokes us to act in whatever way we can to bring democracy alive in our country. Howard Zinn


America's Disappearedis a strong, eloquent and necessary book, one that presents its readers with a challenge and a charge to not sit by and allow the juggernaut of the Bush Administration to roll over our Constitution, our human rights, and our fellow human beings. Lewis H. Lapham, Editor of Lapham's Quarterly


Here are further proofs, as though any more were needed, of what a loathsome nation we've become. Kurt Vonnegut

Author Bio

Michael Ratner is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. He has led several cases representing detainees held at Camp X-Ray in Cuba. Rachel Meeropol is the centre's equal justice work fellow. Barbara Olshansky is the assistant legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of Secret Trials and Executions (available from Turnaround). Steven MacPherson Watt is human rights fellow at the centre.