WASHINGTON, 11 January 2003 —The Bush administration was yesterday accused of violating basic human rights by persistently refusing to allow 600 prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay access to lawyers or rights afforded under the Geneva conventions. The British government was also criticized for failing to protect the rights of the eight Britons among the prisoners.
A year after the Pentagon first began transferring alleged Al-Qaeda and Taleban prisoners to the American naval base on the south-east tip of Cuba, human rights campaigners and lawyers have accused the administration of creating an unprecedented legal black hole.
“No access to the courts, lawyers or relatives; the prospect of indefinite detention in small cells for up to 24 hours a day; the possibility of trials by executive military commissions with the power to hand down death sentences and no right of appeal. Is this how the USA defends human rights and the rule of law?” asked Amnesty International. “This legal limbo is a continuing violation of human rights standards which the international community must not ignore.” The first prisoners were flown to Guantanamo Bay a year ago today, blindfolded, handcuffed, their ankles shackled and wearing ear-muffs.
Despite widespread concern that the men were not being granted the rights afforded to them by international agreements, the Bush administration refused to recognize them as prisoners of war and instead described them as “enemy combatants”.
At the time, Rear Adm. John Stufflebeem of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of the men held in the temporary prison dubbed Camp X-Ray: “They are bad guys. They are the worst of the worst and if let out on the street, they will go back to the proclivity of trying to kill Americans and others.” Despite this claim and the subsequent interrogation of the prisoners by the CIA and FBI, none of the men has been charged with any crime. Three Afghan prisoners — including two elderly and frail men — were returned home, the government having decided they were “no longer a threat”.
Campaigners complain that the fate of the prisoners does not appear to be an issue to the Bush administration, the prisoners’ own governments or the US public. (The Independent)
