6-21-06, 9:54 am
Human rights organization, Amnesty International, last week described the Bush administration’s decision to expand the prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as a 'wrong decision.'
Amnesty is calling for a full and impartial international investigation into the failure to apply due process and other abuses at US prison facilities in Guantanamo Bay as part of its 'USA: Close and Disclose' campaign.
The administration’s announcement came after a week of hemming and hawing about the future of the controversial prisons. Some administration officials, including President Bush and Alberto Gonzales, signaled their consideration of closing the prisons.
Finally, Vice President Cheney announced late last week that the prison camps would remain open.
Human rights advocates argue that prisoners held in these camps have not been charged, do not have full access to legal defense or the ability to confront the evidence the government claims to hold against them, have suffered mistreatment, and whose general condition represents a growing disregard for human rights and international law by the Bush administration.
The 'Foreword' to a recent Amnesty International report written by Amnesty International’s General Secretary, Irene Khan, characterized the camps as a 21st century gulag.
Republican Senator John McCain (R-AZ) argued that without 'some adjudication' the condition of US prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay would provoke further hostility against the US.
McCain told NBC’s Meet the Press, that the administration has to consider 'what it’s doing to our reputation throughout the world and whether it’s enhancing recruiting for people to join al-Qaida and do bad things to the United States of America.'
In reporting its findings last month on the US operations at the Guantanamo camps, Amnesty said that it, 'concludes that hypocrisy, an overarching war mentality, and a disregard for basic human rights principles and international legal obligations continue to mark the USA’s ‘war on terror.’
'Guantánamo,' the respected human rights organization, '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.'
Amnesty International calls for closing the Guantanamo prisons and for charging the prisoners held there under US laws in US courts or release them.
Further, Amnesty demands that the US disclose to the international community the full truth about its other prisons at Bagram (Afghanistan), Abu Ghraib, and other secret locations where prisoners have been 'disappeared' or held incommunicado. Amnesty further calls for an open and thorough investigation into the abuse of prisoners and torture policies implemented by the US administration and military.
--Reach Roberta Jones at pa-letters@politicalaffairs.net.
