The South Asian Bar Association presents an evening with CCR staff attorney Gitanjali Gutierrez. She will give a lecture entitled "American-Style Torture: Guantanamo, Black Sites and American Values".

Gitanjali’s work focuses on challenges to unlawful Executive detention and torture, national security issues, and anti-terrorism practices. She has been working on legal challenges to Guantánamo since 2003, first as a CCR cooperating attorney and public interest fellow, and then as a CCR staff attorney beginning in 2005. She was a member of the legal team in Rasul v. Bush before the Supreme Court in 2004 and is part of the legal team in Al Odah v. Bush, consolidated with Boumediene v. Bush, argued before the Supreme Court in December 2007.

Following CCR's victory in Rasul, Gitanjali was the first habeas attorney to meet with clients at the base and currently travels regularly to the military prison for client meetings. She is counsel for Mohammed al Qahtani, a Saudi citizen detained in Guantánamo, who was subjected to the "first special interrogation plan" at Guantánamo, authorized by the Secretary of Defense, and Majid Khan, a U.S. resident and citizen of Pakistan who was transferred to Guantánamo in September 2006 from secret detention in CIA black sites. She also represents a Libyan citizen, Abu Abdul Ra’ouf Qassim, who is challenging the military’s efforts to transfer him from Guantanamo to Libya.

Gitanjali graduated magna cum laude from Cornell Law School and was a Managing Editor for the Cornell Law Review. Following graduation, she clerked for the Honorable Guido Calabresi, United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, taught International Human Rights Law and Terrorism at Cornell Law School, and served as a Gibbons Fellow in Public Interest and Constitutional Law at Gibbons, P.C.

Time: 7:00 - 9:00 pm (Networking from 7:00 - 7:30 pm)

Metro: Farragut West, Farragut North

Cost: Free

Space is limited, please RSVP Ranga at [email protected]