October 2, 2006
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417

AMHERST, Mass.—Amherst College will join hundreds of academic institutions on Thursday, Oct. 5, in the first national effort to study the United States detention of hundreds of individuals claimed to be “enemy combatants” at the U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay Cuba. “Guantanamo: How Should We Respond?”will explore the legal, political and moral implications. Nasser Hussain, an assistant professor of law, jurisprudence and social thought at Amherst, has organized the event at the college. Free and open to the public, the program at Amherst begins at 10 a.m. and goes until 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 5, in Lecture Room 1 in Merrill Science Center.

President George W. Bush announced recently that 14 suspected terrorists previously held in secret United States facilities abroad will be transferred for trial by military commission at Guantánamo. This announcement raises issues about the meaning of a fair trial in Guantanamo. These are the issues the “virtual teach-in,” a series of panel discussions that will be simulcast from throughout the country from Seton Hall University in New York, will take up.

The speakers will include lawyers, law professors, physicians, journalists and military officers.

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