Two spectrums, or aspects, of so-called justice reported in the Washington Post.
First, the USA - which so loudly proclaims its core values of justice and humanity :
"Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is obsessed with the noise variations in an industrial fan, the buzzing of fluorescent lights overhead and the preparation of his dinners. He has stuffed his air vents with food to prevent what he believes are noxious fumes from streaming into his cell, and he worries at times that his lawyers are part of a government conspiracy against him.
The only person currently held as an "enemy combatant" on U.S. soil, Marri has been accused of being a sleeper agent for al-Qaeda, but he is not charged with any crime. After 6 1/2 years of confinement -- the past five in a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. -- Marri's lawyers argue that his isolation has degraded his mental state and that years of being held incommunicado have left him unable to help in his own defense.
Marri's captivity in an often-forgotten part of the U.S. military detention system, outside the established legal process at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, raises the legal question of whether the United States can hold him without trial under those conditions until the end of the "war on terror," as the government has argued in court."
Read the rest of the piece here.....and then ponder how the Chinese take things in their own hands in dealing with, and meting out, so-called justice:
"Chinese judicial authorities have in effect disbarred two activist lawyers who offered to defend Tibetans arrested in a recent Chinese security crackdown, lawyers said Tuesday.
The two, Jiang Tianyong and Teng Biao, were denied renewal of the annual licenses necessary to practice law in China because of what Beijing Judicial Bureau officials described as a willingness to take on "sensitive" cases such as those involving charges of human rights abuses by the government, Jiang said.
The decision was consistent with a broad security tightening in recent months in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics in August. Authorities have shown particular sensitivity about Tibet, which is still closed to foreign tourists and reporters, and Xinjiang, where the Public Security Bureau has accused Muslim separatists of plotting terrorist attacks to disrupt the games.
Jiang and Teng were among 18 Chinese lawyers with a record of human rights activism who signed an open letter offering legal help to Tibetans arrested after riots erupted March 14 in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and quickly spread to a number of other Tibetan-inhabited areas of the country."
First, the USA - which so loudly proclaims its core values of justice and humanity :
"Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri is obsessed with the noise variations in an industrial fan, the buzzing of fluorescent lights overhead and the preparation of his dinners. He has stuffed his air vents with food to prevent what he believes are noxious fumes from streaming into his cell, and he worries at times that his lawyers are part of a government conspiracy against him.
The only person currently held as an "enemy combatant" on U.S. soil, Marri has been accused of being a sleeper agent for al-Qaeda, but he is not charged with any crime. After 6 1/2 years of confinement -- the past five in a U.S. Navy brig in Charleston, S.C. -- Marri's lawyers argue that his isolation has degraded his mental state and that years of being held incommunicado have left him unable to help in his own defense.
Marri's captivity in an often-forgotten part of the U.S. military detention system, outside the established legal process at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, raises the legal question of whether the United States can hold him without trial under those conditions until the end of the "war on terror," as the government has argued in court."
Read the rest of the piece here.....and then ponder how the Chinese take things in their own hands in dealing with, and meting out, so-called justice:
"Chinese judicial authorities have in effect disbarred two activist lawyers who offered to defend Tibetans arrested in a recent Chinese security crackdown, lawyers said Tuesday.
The two, Jiang Tianyong and Teng Biao, were denied renewal of the annual licenses necessary to practice law in China because of what Beijing Judicial Bureau officials described as a willingness to take on "sensitive" cases such as those involving charges of human rights abuses by the government, Jiang said.
The decision was consistent with a broad security tightening in recent months in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics in August. Authorities have shown particular sensitivity about Tibet, which is still closed to foreign tourists and reporters, and Xinjiang, where the Public Security Bureau has accused Muslim separatists of plotting terrorist attacks to disrupt the games.
Jiang and Teng were among 18 Chinese lawyers with a record of human rights activism who signed an open letter offering legal help to Tibetans arrested after riots erupted March 14 in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, and quickly spread to a number of other Tibetan-inhabited areas of the country."
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