* Blogmanac | U.S. Again Uses "Enemy Combatant" Label to Deny Basic Rights
The Bush Administration's designation of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, a Qatari national living in the United States, as an "enemy combatant" threatens basic rights safeguards, Human Rights Watch said. The U.S. Justice Department has announced that it is dropping criminal charges against al-Marri and that he will instead be held without charge by the U.S. military.

"The Bush Administration has once again done an end run around the criminal justice system," said Wendy Patten, U.S. advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "It is invoking the laws of war in the United States to justify locking people up without charge and without access to a lawyer. This kind of military detention has no place in a country committed to the rule of law."

Al-Marri is the third person held in the United States under military authority as an "enemy combatant."

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