Editorial: A Minnesota voice in Guantanamo debate

There's nothing especially unusual about Sami al-Haj -- unfortunately. He's just one of the hundreds of detainees being held at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. There's no known evidence of his guilt. He has not been charged with any crime. He has no rights, only limited access to his lawyer and no reasonable hope of release anytime soon. Again: nothing too unusual.

But he does have one distinction: a defender in the U.S. Congress. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., has taken notice of al-Haj's case and has helped draw attention to it. That the sole Muslim member of Congress would speak up for a Guantanamo detainee might seem to play into the hands of critics like CNN's Glenn Beck, who challenged Ellison to "prove to me that you are not working with our enemies."

Ellison, though, thinks those enemies are drawing strength from U.S. practices at Guantanamo. "I really am concerned about how killers across the water use this stuff" to recruit suicide bombers, he said recently. "One of the best defenses America has is the good will of the people of the world. ... Guantanamo is a stain on America."

Ellison explained that he took up al-Haj's cause because al-Haj was working as a journalist when he was arrested. "How can we know what is being done in our name," he asked, "if the journalists have to be concerned about going to Guantanamo?" A Sudanese cameraman for the Qatar-based network Al Jazeera, al-Haj was detained by Pakistani authorities on Dec. 15, 2001, at a border crossing into Afghanistan. After a few weeks Pakistani intelligence handed him over to U.S. forces, who held and interrogated him in Afghanistan until the following June. Then they shipped him to Guantanamo, where he's been ever since.

U.S. officials have leveled various allegations at al-Haj -- that he carried money for terrorist operations, that he spread terrorist propaganda, that he helped obtain a visa for an Al-Qaida figure, for example -- but have not offered evidence, let alone proof. Other allegations apparently involve acts of -- gasp! -- journalism, such as interviews with members of Al-Qaida.

"There's no evidence I could find that would justify his detention," Ellison said, adding that such evidence might indeed exist somewhere. To be useful, though, such evidence would have to be examined and subject to challenge in court. That's part of due process -- of which Guantanamo has precious little.

Another al-Haj advocate, lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, charges that nearly all of al-Haj's interrogation sessions have focused on his work as a journalist. He told Columbia Journalism Review that his client "is clearly in Guantanamo for one reason only, and that's because he's an employee of Al Jazeera."

Al-Haj, who has a wife and young son at home, seems to share that perception. He reportedly told interrogators, "I am not sure I can ever go back to journalism. It is too dangerous, and I want to be with my family."

In other words, if al-Haj's detention really is meant to deter journalists, it's working.