Muslim Ban to be decided this week

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Oral arguments on the Muslim Ban (AKA the Travel Ban and Hawaii v. Trump), are slated for Wednesday. The Supreme Court reinstated the Muslim Ban Dec. 4 and lifted the injunctions granted by the Fourth and Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Although the Supreme Court did not reach the merits of the Muslim Ban, it allowed the ban to take full effect. The Muslim Ban is the culmination of a long assault on Muslim communities, and its reinstatement has emboldened Trump who continues to champion a white supremacist and Islamophobic agenda.

No Muslim Ban-related events

• Join CCR Wednesday, as Al Jazeera Fault Lines launches its short film, “Between War and the Ban,” which examines how the war in Yemen and Trump's Muslim ban are leaving Yemeni-Americans and their families stranded between two home countries and unable to reunite. Following the screening, panelists will discuss their work documenting the experiences of Yemeni-Americans in the U.S. and Djibouti, and the impact of the Muslim Ban more broadly. 
• Panelists include CCR Staff Attorney Diala Shamas and Legal Worker Ibraham Qatabi. The event is from 7-9 p.m. at George Washington University, School of Media and Public Affairs, 805 21st St. N.W. in Washington, D.C. This event is sponsored by the GWU Muslim Students' Association and is free and open to the public.
• The Center for Constitutional Rights is proud to endorse the National Day of Action in Washington, D.C., during oral argument in Hawaii v. Trump.

Gitmo Lawyers Urge Medical Review of Mentally Ill Detainee

Attorneys Thursday urged a federal judge to appoint a Mixed Medical Commission to assess whether Guantánamo prisoner Mohammed al Qahtani's mental illness is so severe that he must be repatriated. Al Qahtani is the only Guantánamo prisoner the U.S. government has explicitly acknowledged torturing. His attorneys with the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Immigrant & Non-Citizen Rights Clinic at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Law say he is deeply psychologically unwell, and seek his repatriation from Guantánamo into custodial psychiatric care in Saudi Arabia.

“Mr. Al Qahtani was already suffering from psychosis when he was brought to Guantanamo and systematically tortured,” said Center for Constitutional Rights Senior Managing Attorney Shayana Kadidal. “His psychosis casts serious doubt on all the government speculations that led them to torture him in the first place. He belongs in a psychiatric hospital in Saudi Arabia, not talking to the walls of a cell in Guantánamo.

Mamani trial video

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In a landmark decision, a federal jury in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida found the former president of Bolivia, Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, and his former Minister of Defense, Carlos Sánchez Berzaín, responsible for extrajudicial killings carried out by the Bolivian military, which killed more than 50 of its own citizens and injured hundreds in September and October 2003.

The decision comes after a ten-year legal battle spearheaded by family members of eight people killed in what is known in Bolivia as the "Gas War." The case, Mamani, et al. v. Sánchez de Lozada and Sánchez Berzaín, marked the first time in history a former head of state sat before his accusers in a U.S. human rights trial.

The Center for Constitutional Rights commissioned a video that highlights the case.