News & Commentary

WHEN GULET MOHAMED FINALLY returned home on a chilly Virginia morning in January, the 19-year-old from Fairfax was wearing the same outfit he had on when he disappeared a month earlier in Kuwait. Clad in a fleece hat and a gray Real Madrid sweatshirt, the straggly-bearded, wide-eyed teenager stepped out of arrivals at Dulles Airport and into a phalanx of television cameras. He wore a bewildered smile—as if he was still unsure of what had happened to him but was just grateful it was over.

 

The voices have been there for years, if you were listening – horrific stories of abuse of inmates at Los Angeles County jails; not by other inmates, but by the deputies guarding them. The brutal conditions could only have persisted due to the willful ignorance or even tacit support of Sheriff Lee Baca – and that’s why we’re now calling on him to step down.

I had vowed never to return to the United Arab Emirates. In 2008-09, I represented Naji Hamdan, a Lebanese-American businessman who was tortured for three months in a secret prison and prosecuted on baseless terrorism charges. I observed Naji’s trial in the United Arab Emirates and came face to face with the injustices of its criminal justice system. I had vowed never to return to the UAE but human rights abuses happen in every part of the world, and the case of the men the media are calling the “UAE 5” drew me in.

The ACLU of Southern California recently released its 2011 Annual Report. Below is a welcome letter from ACLU/SC Executive Director Hector Villagra.