Liberals and Zaoui II

The Whig, commenting on the Zaoui case, trots out the old lie that liberals are somehow inconsistent in standing up for his human rights:

What really gets my goat, however, is, well... everybody involved in this argument. Firstly you've got the "left wing", who allegedly are supposed to support human rights and liberal politics. Zaoui, however, is a fundamentalist. Can you see them sticking up for any other kind of fundie than an Islamic one? Again, it ain't gonna happen.

To which my only response is that when a fundamentalist Christian is imprisoned without charge or trial on secret evidence, then I will indeed be speaking up in their defence. As I told Sock Thief several months ago, liberals do not oppose the government's treatment of Zaoui because of who he is or what he believes; we oppose it because of who we are and what we believe: that imprisonment without charge or trial can never be justified, regardless of who it is done to. Sadly, The Whig seems unable to look past the man and his religion to these underlying principles.