Eleven detainees at the US military’s Guantanamo Bay prison sued President Donald Trump Thursday saying they were being illegally held on the basis of being Muslims.
Following a strategy previously used by opponents of Trump’s travel ban on visitors from six mostly-Muslim countries, the detainees cited Trump’s tweets and other comments expressing anti-Islam sentiments as evidence.
They also cited his comments that no Guantanamo detainees should ever be released, a shift from previous administrations’ stances that the 41 detainees there should still face status reviews or be tried by military tribunals — even if few of those proceedings have begun.
“The president’s opposition to prisoner releases from Guantanamo tracks other indiscriminate policy initiatives of his –- which have been struck down by the courts –- including the iterative bans on travel to the United States from certain majority-Muslim countries and the ban on transgendered Americans serving in the armed forces,” the suit said.
“His stance on Guantanamo calls for no less searching judicial scrutiny.”
It took note of recent mass murder attacks inside the United States to underscore Trump’s alleged anti-Muslim views.
Trump “more recently called for a Muslim man who killed several people in New York to be sent to Guantanamo and denied constitutional process, though he has never suggested that white male mass killers should ever be denied due process,” it said.
Source: thepunch
