USA: Reaction to plans to expand Guantánamo camp

international | anti-war / imperialism | other press

Sunday June 19, 2005 01:28

by Jon Glackin - Street seen

Following a week of mixed signals from the US Administration about the future of
the Guantánamo Bay detention camp, Amnesty International said that the
Administration's announcement that it is to expand the prison is the wrong
decision and will fuel worldwide concern over the stories of torture and
ill-treatment, religious humiliation and arbitrary detention that are seeping
from the facility.

President Bush should close Guantánamo and disclose the situation in the USA's
shadowy network of detention centres around the globe. An independent
investigation into US policies and practices on detention and interrogation,
including torture and ill-treatment, would reassure the world that the US
administration has nothing to hide.

Guantánamo has become a symbol of abuse and represents a system of detention
that is betraying the best US values and undermines international standards.
This is not the time to talk about expansion of Guantánamo camp. It is time to
close Guantánamo and disclose the rest.

Guantánamo Bay - a human rights scandal

As evidence of torture and widespread cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment mounts, it is more urgent than ever that the US Government bring the Guantánamo Bay detention camp and any other facilities it is operating outside the USA into full compliance with international law and standards. The only alternative is to close them down.
http://web.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobay-index-eng

Comments (1 of 1)

“The whole place appears to be one giant human experiment.”

by eeekkkk

Mon Jul 11, 2005 21:25

With this major caveat, they bent over backward to allow access to a number of fascinating scenes in Guantánamo, including allowing me to attend one of the Administrative Review Board hearings in which detainees can challenge their status as a danger to the U.S. In the one I attended, the detainee, whose name I had to agree not to release, demanded to see the evidence that the U.S. had against him, so that he could refute it. But much of the evidence, U.S. military authorities told him, was classified, and he would not be allowed to see it. The detainee, a Saudi, wore handcuffs, ankle cuffs, and a belly chain, and was shackled to a bolt in the floor. He spoke very little English, and became increasingly frustrated and angry. At one point, instead of relying on his translator, he started yelling at the three presiding military officers, "Shut up! Shut UP!"