Supreme Court Challenges Bush Over Detainees` Rights

The Supreme Court has announced, amid mounting casualties of U.S. soldiers in Iraq and intensifying anti-war sentiments in the United States, that it will review whether prisoners of war held at the Guantanamo Detention Center should be protected under the U.S. law, foreign media reported Tuesday.

It is the first time for the Supreme Court to reveal its intention to intervene the Bush administration`s prosecution of the war on terrorism, The Washington Post interpreted. The court`s decision, in particular, is likely to make the human rights issue of the detainees become an international controversy.

660 foreign prisoners from 42 countries captured during the war in Afghanistan and the war against terrorism in Pakistan between 2001 and 2002, after the September 11strikes, are detained at the detention center. The U.S. has been holding them indefinitely, claiming the detainees are involved in either al Qaeda or the Taliban, so that they can not be released until the war against terrorism is over.

The Bush administration has been holding the detainees without trial, argueing they are not entitled to prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions. They are also not entitled to basic rights that any convicts are entitled to like access to family or legal counsel. Some detainees have been detained at the center for 18 months without basic rights.

On such rigorous treatment, senior officials of detainees` countries like Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, as well as human rights activists describe the detention center even as `a contemporary version of limbo`,

The Bush administration has been saying that there are sufficient reasons to detain them and detainees will soon stand before military tribunals. White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, also refuted such criticism, saying "The U.S. administration has consistently treated the detainees in accordance of international law and we believe that we`re right in this."

If the hearing of the Supreme Court opens early next year, one side that stands by `human rights of individuals` and its opposing side that claims importance of `the national security` over the rights of individuals are likely to clash over the controversy. It is first time since the September 11 for the high court to review justification of the detention.

For practical sides, the controversy of the hearing is likely to focus on whether the the Guantanamo Detention Center is on American territory.

The Bush Administration argues that the detainees are foreigners and the detention center is not on American territory where U.S. courts have no jurisdiction. The Guantanamo Detention Center is on Cuban territory leased to the U.S. since 1903.

The court decision came after lawyers of detainees, two British and Australian detainees, respectively, and 12 Kuwaiti detainees argued the high court to take the case. The counsel filed a protest in March against the U.S Court of Appeals but the court dismissed it, saying "U.S. courts have no jurisdiction on the Guantanamo Detention Center as the center is not on American territory."

Jin Lee leej@donga.com