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UN: Close down Guantanamo prison<br>
by <br>
Thursday 16 February 2006 12:18 PM GMT <br><br>
<b>The US should bring all prisoners being held in Guantanamo Bay to an
independent trial or release them, the United Nations has said in a
report. <br><br>
</b></font><font size=2>The 54-page report, summarising an investigation
by five UN experts, on Thursday called on the US government "to
close down the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and to refrain from any
practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading
treatment." <br><br>
But the US ambassador to UN offices in Geneva, Kevin Moley, responded
that the investigation had taken little account of evidence provided by
the United States, and that the five UN experts rejected an invitation to
visit Guantanamo. <br><br>
In a response that was included at the end of the report, Moley said:
"It is particularly unfortunate that the special rapporteurs
rejected the invitation and that their unedited report does not reflect
the direct, personal knowledge that this visit would have
provided." <br><br>
A preliminary version of the report was leaked earlier this week before
it included the US comment. <br><br>
The US is currently holding about 490 men at the US military detention
centre on the southeastern tip of Cuba. <br><br>
The detainees are accused of having links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban
regime or al-Qaida, though only a handful have been charged since the
mission opened in January 2001. <br><br>
The five UN experts who authored the report had sought invitations from
the US to visit Guantanamo Bay since 2002. Three were invited last year,
but refused in November after being told they could not interview
detainees. <br><br>
Only the International Committee of the Red Cross has been allowed to
visit Guantanamo's detainees, but the organisation keeps its findings
confidential, reporting them solely to the detaining power. <br><br>
Some reports have been leaked by what the organisation calls third
parties. <br><br>
The UN report's findings, which were being made public, were based on
interviews with former detainees, public documents, media reports,
lawyers and a questionnaire filled out by the US government. <br><br>
The treatment of detainees during transport and the use of violence when
they resisted amounted to torture, the UN report said. <br><br>
Although the investigators did not visit Guantanamo, they said
photographic evidence - corroborated by testimony of former prisoners -
showed that detainees were shackled, chained, hooded and forced to wear
earphones and goggles. <br><br>
They said prisoners were beaten, stripped and force shaved if they
resisted. <br><br>
The report said: "Such treatment amounts to torture, as it inflicts
severe pain or suffering on the victims for the purpose of intimidation
and/or punishment." <br><br>
Some of the interrogation techniques used at the detention facility
itself - particularly the use of dogs, exposure to extreme temperatures,
sleep deprivation for several consecutive days and prolonged isolation -
caused extreme suffering, the report said. <br><br>
<br>
</font><font face="verdana" size=2><b>UN report <br><br>
</b></font>The simultaneous use of such methods was "even more
likely to amount to torture," it said. <br><br>
It also concluded that the particular status of Guantanamo Bay under the
international lease agreement between the US and Cuba did not limit
Washington's obligations under international human rights law toward
those detained there. <br><br>
Many of the allegations have been made before, but the document
represented the first inquiry launched by the 53-nation UN Human Rights
Commission, the global body's top rights watchdog. <br><br>
The group of UN investigators included Leila Zerrougui, an expert on
arbitrary detention; Leandro Despouy, expert on judicial independence;
Manfred Nowak, expert on torture; Asma Jahangir, an expert on freedom of
religion; and Paul Hunt, expert on physical and mental health. <br><br>
The five were appointed by the commission to the three-year project. They
worked independently, with expenses covered but received no payment from
the UN.<br><br>
The five come from Argentina, Austria, New Zealand, Algeria and Pakistan.
<br><br>
The US, which is a member of the commission, has criticised the body
itself for including members from countries with poor human rights
records.<font size=3> <br><br>
<b>AP<br>
By <br><br>
</b>You can find this article at:<br>
<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8DC83769-B744-4C75-9EE1-2A583B9AA320.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/8DC83769-B744-4C75-9EE1-2A583B9AA320.htm</a>
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