Today, in an
important victory in our efforts to restore the rule of law, Mohammad
Jawad was released from Guantánamo.
Several of us have blogged about Jawad. Having been detained as a
teenager, Jawad was subject to torture and coercive interrogation tactics over the course of seven years at Guantánamo.
Earlier this summer, a US District Judge granted Jawad a habeas corpus petition
and ordered the Justice Department to release Jawad, acknowledging there was no
credible evidence to continue his detention.
Several years ago
the ACLU had a Habeas Corpus public education campaign. The icon of the campaign
was an expressionless man, meant to represent habeas itself, and the tagline “Where’s Habeas?”, meant to highlight the absence of
habeas corpus since passing of the USA PATRIOT Act.
For Mohammad Jawad,
habeas corpus is no longer missing.