The D.C. Court of Appeals has upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by four British men who were held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay. The four men had sued former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other top military officers for ordering torture and religious abuse. The judges effectively ruled that the detainees are not persons at all for purposes of U.S. law. The court ruling read in part, “Because the plaintiffs are aliens and were located outside sovereign United States territory at the time their alleged claim arose, they do not fall with the definition of 'person.'” The ruling was issued on Friday just as thousands of human rights activists were gathering around the world to protest the sixth anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo.