When President George W. Bush established a prison at Guantánamo Bay on land rented from the Cuban dictatorship, held detainees without charge, often without evidence, and then concocted a system of "military tribunals" to try those detainees, he effectively created a separate justice system.
Human Rights Watch has criticized the program for holding detainees without charge.
He kept the surveillance program, military commissions and rendition authority he inherited, and he plans to continue holding some detainees without charges.
"His statement was completely bogus," said Karim Medhat Ennarah, a researcher on policing at Egyptian Initiative on Personal Rights, whose lawyers were on hand about an hour after the speech when prosecutors released all the detainees without charges.
In concluding that it does not need specific permission from Congress to hold detainees without charges, the Obama administration is adopting one of the arguments advanced by the Bush administration in years of debates about detention policies.
According to Israel Prison Service figures published by human rights organization B'Tselem, as of the end of August, 5,505 Palestinian detainees and prisoners were held in Israeli jails; 473 were administrative detainees, held without charge or trial.
Peaceful protests are prevented, jails are crammed with political detainees, detention without charge is common, phones are partially blocked, the press censored and reporters beaten, broadcasters muffled and curfews imposed.
Under the terms of a military order initiated in November 2001, the president claimed that he could hold the detainees indefinitely, without charge or trial, as "enemy combatants".
Calling for the long-promised and long-delayed closure of Guantanamo, release of all detainees held without charge there, and an actual end to U.S. usage of torture, we had considered it our duty under international law, and our right under the Constitution, to assemble peaceably at the seat of government for redress of extremely serious grievances.
Israel said it had released all the detainees without pressing charges, part of an effort to prevent further diplomatic damage.
Nonetheless, the administration has faced strong criticism, especially from abroad, over holding the detainees without bringing charges until now.
