9/11 Family Members Challenge Legitimacy Of Guantánamo Military Commissions

As family members who lost loved ones on 9/11, we feel compelled to speak out about this week's proceedings at Guantánamo. Recently, the Guantánamo military commissions office announced that victims' family members would be permitted, on a lottery basis, to attend the Guantánamo legal hearings of those accused of planning the 9/11 attacks. The lottery system inherently results in the granting of media attention to the select few who are chosen, and whose views are not necessarily representative of all victims' families. The media coverage of Monday's commission hearings included statements attributed to attending family members that the tribunals provided a fair hearing for these prosecutions and that family members "were struck by the extensive rights accorded the accused men."...

We are strongly encouraged by the incoming administration's promise to end this shameful system, and we are hopeful for a fresh start for these and all other Guantánamo prosecutions in U.S. courts worthy of American justice. It is time for our nation to stop betraying its own values – and the values of so many who died on 9/11....