NEW YORK (AP) -- A former detainee is allowed to keep former Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller and others in a lawsuit that claims prisoners were mistreated and subject to ethnic and religious discrimination after Sept. 11, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said it fully recognized the gravity of the situation confronting government investigators after the 2001 attacks and agreed that some forms of government action that otherwise would not be proper are permitted in emergencies.

But it said most of the rights cited in the lawsuit "do not vary with surrounding circumstances, such as the right not to be subjected to needlessly harsh conditions of confinement, the right to be free from the use of excessive force and the right not to be subjected to ethnic or religious discrimination."

"The strength of our system of constitutional rights derives from the steadfast protection of those rights in both normal and unusual times," it said.

The ruling came in a case originally brought by Javaid Iqbal and Ehab Elmaghraby. The former detainees said Ashcroft, Mueller and others implemented a policy of confining detainees in highly restrictive conditions because of their religious beliefs and race.

http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2007/06/14/news/news684.txt