Hopes_Guevara
16th February 2006, 13:45
By Richard Waddington
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday faced mounting international calls to close its Guantanamo prison camp with U.N. investigators saying detainees there faced treatment amounting to torture.
In a 40-page report, which had been largely leaked, five United Nations special envoys said the United States was violating a host of human rights, including a ban on torture, arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial.
The report is likely to fuel new Arab anger over the treatment of Iraqi inmates at Baghdad's U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison after Australian TV broadcast more images of abuse there.
"The United States government should close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay," the human rights' rapporteurs declared.
Until that happened, the U.S. government should "refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", they added.
Harsh conditions, such as placing detainees in solitary confinement, stripping them naked, subjecting them to severe temperatures, and threatening them with dogs could amount to torture, which is banned in all circumstances and in all wars.
"The excessive violence used in many cases during transportation ... and forced-feeding of detainees on hunger strike must be assessed as amounting to torture," the report said.
In London, U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour told the BBC she saw no alternative to closing the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba where some 500 terrorism suspects are held, many of them for four years, without trial.
Speaking ahead of the release of the report, Arbour said that, although she did not endorse every recommendation it made, the United States should put inmates on trial or release them and shut down the prison.
This event and the images that have just made public about Abu Ghraib abuse shows how the Democracy under US style is!!!
GENEVA (Reuters) - The United States on Thursday faced mounting international calls to close its Guantanamo prison camp with U.N. investigators saying detainees there faced treatment amounting to torture.
In a 40-page report, which had been largely leaked, five United Nations special envoys said the United States was violating a host of human rights, including a ban on torture, arbitrary detention and the right to a fair trial.
The report is likely to fuel new Arab anger over the treatment of Iraqi inmates at Baghdad's U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison after Australian TV broadcast more images of abuse there.
"The United States government should close the Guantanamo Bay detention facilities without further delay," the human rights' rapporteurs declared.
Until that happened, the U.S. government should "refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment", they added.
Harsh conditions, such as placing detainees in solitary confinement, stripping them naked, subjecting them to severe temperatures, and threatening them with dogs could amount to torture, which is banned in all circumstances and in all wars.
"The excessive violence used in many cases during transportation ... and forced-feeding of detainees on hunger strike must be assessed as amounting to torture," the report said.
In London, U.N. Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour told the BBC she saw no alternative to closing the prison at the U.S. naval base in Cuba where some 500 terrorism suspects are held, many of them for four years, without trial.
Speaking ahead of the release of the report, Arbour said that, although she did not endorse every recommendation it made, the United States should put inmates on trial or release them and shut down the prison.
This event and the images that have just made public about Abu Ghraib abuse shows how the Democracy under US style is!!!