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Amnesty Slams U.S. Over Guantanamo Detainees
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| Amnesty International slams U.S. treatment of detainees at Guantanamo.
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LONDON, April 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Amnesty International published a report this week, sent last week to the U.S. government, hitting out at violations of the rights of prisoners held by the U.S. army in Cuba and Afghanistan.
News agencies reported Amnesty’s concern that treatment of detainees by the U.S. undermines human rights and may be cruel and degrading.
"The USA's 'pick and choose' approach to the Geneva Convention is unacceptable, as is its failure to respect fundamental international human rights standards," including refusing detainees access to legal counsel, the organization said in the 62-page document.
Among other charges, the group said Washington had transferred and held prisoners in conditions that could amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, news agencies reported.
In the strongly worded memorandum, Amnesty repeated its request to Washington to be allowed to visit the prisoners held in Afghanistan and at the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba, where some 300 alleged members of the al-Qaeda group or the Afghan Taliban were sent. Those detained represent some 33 countries.
Another 200 others are being held at U.S. facilities in Afghanistan. A previous request sent to the U.S. government in January came to nothing, the London-based human rights organization said.
In its report, Amnesty again accused the United States of failing to grant the detainees rights that are universally recognized for any suspect placed in provisional detention.
It denounced the American authorities' failure to give the detainees prisoner of war status, to grant them access to a lawyer or to bring them before a competent tribunal as laid down in the Geneva Conventions.
"The U.S. government must ensure that all its actions in relation to those in its custody in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay comply with international law and standards," Amnesty International wrote.
"This is crucial if justice is to be done and seen to be done, and if respect for the rule of law and human rights is not to be undermined."
Officials from the International Committee of the Red Cross have inspected the camp.
Concerns by human rights groups are that the U.S. will try the captives as "unlawful combatants" instead of "prisoners of war". Refusing them POW status allows the U.S. to hold them without having to follow Geneva Conventions on treatment of captured combatants during war.
It also allows, as U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld unveiled plans last month, the U.S. to try some of the suspects in special military tribunals, which would have the right to impose the death penalty in certain cases, reports news agencies.
Amnesty’s memorandum states that the U.S. has "undermined the presumption of innocence through a pattern of public commentary on the presumed guilt" of the detainees and has "raised the prospect of indefinite detention without charge or trial."
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