Open Letter
to President G.W.Bush

Zagreb, 17 November 2001

H.E. George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
White House
Washington, D.C.
United States

Dear Mr. President:

We, the representatives of 38 independent human rights organisations from throughout the OSCE region, gathering in Zagreb for the 19^th annual meeting of our Federation, are deeply concerned with your recent Presidential emergency order establishing special military commissions to try aliens accused of being international terrorists of al-Qaeda.

There is no doubt that each person indicted of playing any role in the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001 or thereafter, and persons who are connected to al-Qaeda or any other terrorist organisation, must be brought before an orderly established criminal court.

There is also no doubt that to bring any terrorist before an established para-judicial body (which did not exist before the attacks) as opposed to an ordinary court is a symbol of manifest disrespect for the due process of law. The principle of due process is one of the most important values enshrined within the Constitution of the United States. It is also one of the basic rights protected under the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, to which your country is a party.

According to the emergency order you have issued, the President of the United States alone would have the power to initiate criminal proceedings and have the final say once a verdict has been issued. In a closed trial, a commission comprised solely of military officers could potentially render a death sentence with no right to judicial review.

The United States plays a special role in disseminating throughout the world the very idea of due process of law and the system of checks and balances, which has been historically central to American democracy, and remains so.

Your emergency order, Mr. President, sets a very bleak example not only for non-democratic regimes, but also for emerging democracies established in the last 15 years, many of which countries we now represent. The emergency order provides that a military tribunal, which can be issued without any public and Congressional debate and without any vote, need not insist on a public fair trial and proof beyond any reasonable doubt, both of which principles lie at the very heart of the rule of law.

We cannot agree that any precedence for the emergency order is established in either American or international law. That precedence which has been cited is not applicable today in light of the development of international law, which offers efficient instruments to try any person suspected of committing terrorist attacks. The most recent examples include the Hague and Arusha International Tribunals.

For the above reasons, Mr. President, we kindly request that you review your decision and cancel the emergency order you have issued, and leave the punishment of terrorists to established judicial bodies.

Sincerely yours,

Ludmilla Alexeyeva
President of the IHF