[Peace-discuss] Guantanamo

[Morton K. Brussel]

The whole article is given in the URL below.



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na- 
gitmo13feb13,0,3215042.story?coll=la-home-headlines

 From the Los Angeles Times

Report: U.S. Is Abusing Captives

A U.N. inquiry says the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay at  
times amounts to torture and violates international law.

By Maggie Farley

Times Staff Writer

February 13, 2006

  NEW YORK — A draft United Nations report on the detainees at  
Guantanamo Bay concludes that the U.S. treatment of them violates  
their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases,  
constitutes torture.

  It also urges the United States to close the military prison in  
Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that  
Washington's justification for the continued detention is a  
distortion of international law.

  The report, compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former  
prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, is  
the product of an 18-month investigation ordered by the U.N.  
Commission on Human Rights. The team did not have access to prisoners  
at Guantanamo Bay.

  Nonetheless, its findings — notably a conclusion that the violent  
force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence  
used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation  
techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" — are likely to  
stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison.

  Nearly 500 people captured abroad since 2002 in Afghanistan and  
elsewhere and described by the U.S. as "enemy combatants" are being  
held at Guantanamo Bay.

  "We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by  
the U.S. government," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur  
on torture and one of the envoys. "There are no conclusions that are  
easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas  
violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture."

Etc.
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