I have the utmost respect for the work David Remes, a partner at Covington & Burling, is doing in defense of detainees at Guantanamo. And I think the strategy of dramatically illustrating how they are mistreated is not a bad one, even if that involves disrobing to demonstrate how humiliating a body search can be.
I'm just not sure I would have done so at a press conference.
Remes removed his pants at a press conference in Yemen, where he had gone as part of his representation of 15 Yemeni detainees. In addition to the normal miserable conditions of confinement, he said, detainees are also now subjected to constant body searches in the course of which they must drop their pants. "And that's what I was trying to dramatize," he said.
Remes told the Wall Street Journal that he hoped his point would not be overlooked despite the publicity surrounding his action. "I wish people paid as much attention to the suffering and torment in Guantanamo as they paid to the way I sought to dramatize it," he said. That is a fair point, and so -- also in accordance with long-standing policy here not to show pictures of attorneys in their underwear -- the dramatization will not be depicted again here.
Link: Law Blog - WSJ.com
