Christians welcome UN report on Guantanamo
-13/02/06
Christian campaigners are welcomin
Christians welcome UN report on Guantanamo
-13/02/06
Christian campaigners are welcoming the news that a United Nations inquiry will call for the immediate closure of America’s Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the prosecution of officers and politicians “up to the highest level” who are accused of torturing detainees.
The UN Human Rights Commission report, due to be published this week, concludes that Washington should put the 520 detainees on trial or release them.
It calls for the United States to halt all “practices amounting to torture”, including the force-feeding of inmates who go on hunger strike.
It comes as seven Christians, who protested the denial of rights to prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base, have been served papers by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and face jail terms of up to 10 years.
This is despite the fact that their trip was a response to a challenge by the US president that those concerned with the conditions there should go down and ‘take a look’.
The UN report wants the Bush administration to ensure that all allegations of torture are investigated by US criminal courts, and that “all perpetrators up to the highest level of military and political command are brought to justice”.
It does not specify who it means by “political command” but logically this would include President George W Bush.
The demands are contained in the final report of the commission’s working group on arbitrary detention, which will be presented at its Geneva headquarters in the next few days. A copy of the report was obtained exclusively by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Washington officials yesterday denounced it as “a hatchet job” when informed of the contents by the newspaper.
The authors of the report question the right of America to classify the detainees as “enemy combatants” and argue that the “war on terror” is no justification for holding them indefinitely without charge.
The report is also deeply critical of the US over recent disclosures that some of the detainees have been subjected to force-feeding when they have gone on hunger strike.
The authors argue that force-feeding is akin to torture, and demands that “the authorities in Guantanamo Bay do not force-feed any detainee who is capable of forming a rational judgment and is aware of the consequences of refusing food.”
But US officials refuted the suggestion that force-feeding is torture, arguing that they had a duty under international law to protect the lives of the detainees.
“We have a duty to prevent people killing themselves,” said an official, “and we are proud of the fact that none of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay has died since it opened.”
The Bush administration also challenges whether it is the responsibility of a body such as the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate Guantanamo.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the internationally recognised body responsible for monitoring detention facilities, visits Guantanamo on a monthly basis.
Christians welcome UN report on Guantanamo
-13/02/06
Christian campaigners are welcoming the news that a United Nations inquiry will call for the immediate closure of America’s Guantanamo Bay detention centre and the prosecution of officers and politicians “up to the highest level” who are accused of torturing detainees.
The UN Human Rights Commission report, due to be published this week, concludes that Washington should put the 520 detainees on trial or release them.
It calls for the United States to halt all “practices amounting to torture”, including the force-feeding of inmates who go on hunger strike.
It comes as seven Christians, who protested the denial of rights to prisoners at the U.S. Naval Base, have been served papers by the US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) and face jail terms of up to 10 years.
This is despite the fact that their trip was a response to a challenge by the US president that those concerned with the conditions there should go down and ‘take a look’.
The UN report wants the Bush administration to ensure that all allegations of torture are investigated by US criminal courts, and that “all perpetrators up to the highest level of military and political command are brought to justice”.
It does not specify who it means by “political command” but logically this would include President George W Bush.
The demands are contained in the final report of the commission’s working group on arbitrary detention, which will be presented at its Geneva headquarters in the next few days. A copy of the report was obtained exclusively by The Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Washington officials yesterday denounced it as “a hatchet job” when informed of the contents by the newspaper.
The authors of the report question the right of America to classify the detainees as “enemy combatants” and argue that the “war on terror” is no justification for holding them indefinitely without charge.
The report is also deeply critical of the US over recent disclosures that some of the detainees have been subjected to force-feeding when they have gone on hunger strike.
The authors argue that force-feeding is akin to torture, and demands that “the authorities in Guantanamo Bay do not force-feed any detainee who is capable of forming a rational judgment and is aware of the consequences of refusing food.”
But US officials refuted the suggestion that force-feeding is torture, arguing that they had a duty under international law to protect the lives of the detainees.
“We have a duty to prevent people killing themselves,” said an official, “and we are proud of the fact that none of the detainees held at Guantanamo Bay has died since it opened.”
The Bush administration also challenges whether it is the responsibility of a body such as the UN Human Rights Commission to investigate Guantanamo.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), the internationally recognised body responsible for monitoring detention facilities, visits Guantanamo on a monthly basis.