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Pardiss Kebriaei, staff attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, discusses the ACLU/CCR joint lawsuit against the Treasury Department for ignoring a request for permission to represent the father of accused terrorist (and U.S. citizen) Anwar al-Aulaqi, the dubious legal gatekeeping role assigned to the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, the dozens of people on Obama’s extrajudicial executive assassination hit-list, why the Obama DOJ Office of Legal Council probably has memos that would make David Addington blush, the lawyer-free zone for Specially Designated Global Terrorists and how the post-9/11 Authorization for Use of Military Force is now used as a blanket justification for U.S. military or covert action anywhere on anyone.
MP3 here. (18:52)
Pardiss Kebriaei joined the Guantánamo Global Justice Initiative at the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in July 2007. She provides direct representation to several of CCR’s clients at Guantánamo and helps coordinate CCR’s network of hundreds of pro bono counsel representing other prisoners. She also focuses on using international human rights mechanisms to bring international pressure to bear on the U.S. government and hold other governments accountable for their role in the violations at Guantánamo.
Pardiss came to CCR after five years at the Center for Reproductive Rights, where she specialized in international litigation, working within the Inter-American, European and UN human rights systems, and in foreign jurisdictions including the Philippines, India, Nepal, Thailand, and Colombia.
She has also worked with Global Rights in Morocco and as an adjunct professor at Hunter College in New York, where she taught courses on international human rights and women’s rights. She is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School and has degrees in Middle Eastern studies and cello performance from Northwestern University. She speaks Farsi, Dari and French.
