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AI Index: AMR 51/096/2004
USA: An urgent call for the release of prisoner
of conscience, Camilo
Mejia Castillo
An open letter to President George W. Bush
George W. Bush
The President
The White House
Office of the President
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington DC 20500
USA
14 June 2004
Dear Mr President,
On 21 May 2004, a US military court sentenced
Staff Sergeant Camilo
Mejia Castillo of the Florida National Guard to
the maximum penalty of
one yearšs imprisonment for desertion. He had
refused to return to his
unit in Iraq, citing moral reasons and his
misgivings about the legality
of the war and the conduct of US troops towards
Iraqi civilians and
prisoners. He is currently detained in a military
prison at Fort Sill,
Oklahoma.
Amnesty International considers him to have been
imprisoned
because of his refusal on conscientious grounds
to perform military
service. The organization has accordingly adopted
him as a prisoner of
conscience and is calling for his immediate and
unconditional release.
Camilo Mejia is Amnesty Internationalšs first
prisoner of conscience in
the USA since the first Gulf War, when the
organization campaigned for
the freedom of a number of prisoners of
conscience in the USA.
Camilo Mejiašs trial and sentencing went ahead
despite a
pending decision by the army on his application
for conscientious
objector status and despite his previous efforts,
based on his
nationality, to secure his discharge from
military obligations. Amnesty
International believes that in these
circumstances he should not have
faced a penalty for ½desertion and calls
upon you to take steps to
secure his immediate and unconditional release.
While recognizing that Camilo Mejia went absent
without
leave from the army, Amnesty International
considers that he did take
reasonable steps to secure his discharge from
military obligations
through legal means, including applying for
conscientious objector status.
Amnesty International considers that Camilo Mejia
has
genuinely conscientious grounds for his objection
to war, which evolved
during the period he served in Iraq in 2003 and
in particular in
response to his witnessing human rights
violations by US agents in
Iraq. He has spoken about the abuses
he witnessed, the conditions of
detention and treatment of detainees and the
killing of civilians,
including children. His objections to
such abuses were made before the
publication in April 2004 of photographs of US
agents submitting Iraqi
detainees to torture and other cruel, inhuman or
degrading treatment.
Amnesty International is of the view that the
right to
refuse to perform military service for reasons of
conscience is inherent
in the notion of freedom of thought, conscience
and religion as
recognised in Article 18 of the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights
(UDHR) and Article 18 of the International
Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights (ICCPR). In its general comment
No. 22 on article 18 of
the ICCPR, the Human Rights Committee of the
United Nations has
reaffirmed that the right to conscientious
objection to military service
is a legitimate exercise of the right to freedom
of thought, conscience
and religion.
Thousands of Amnesty International members around
the world
are campaigning for the release of Camilo Mejia,
calling on the US
authorities to immediately and unconditionally
release him. We ask you,
as Commander-in-Chief of the US armed forces, to
take action now to
secure Camilo Mejiašs release and to ensure that
in future no-one in the
USA is imprisoned for reasons of
conscience. No member of the US armed
forces who has, or who develops over time, a
conscientious objection to
performing military service should be imprisoned
on that account where
they have taken reasonable steps to secure their
discharge.
I trust that you will give this matter your
urgent attention,
Yours sincerely
Irene Khan
Secretary General.
Cc Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
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Copyright material is distributed without profit
or
payment for research and educational purposes
only,
in accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107.
Reference: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
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