Detainees at a United States military prison camp in Guantánamo Bay need to be charged or released and the jail shut down, human rights groups said on Wednesday ahead of the fifth anniversary of the camp’s opening in Cuba.
Global vigils have been planned by Amnesty International — in countries including Australia, Israel, Italy, the United States, Japan, Paraguay, Spain, Tunisia and Britain — to mark the anniversary on Thursday and urge closure of prison.
”Few people would have imagined the U.S. government, even in the pursuit of national security, would ignore basic human rights principles by holding hundreds of men indefinitely without due process or the rule of law,” a spokesperson for Amnesty International said. ”It is time to close Guantánamo and return America to leading the world on human rights again.”
Human Rights Watch also wants the US Congress to restore the rights of detainees in the naval base camp to contest their imprisonment, removed under tough new anti-terrorism laws signed by President George Bush in October of last year.
The first detainees flown to Guantánamo five-years-ago were captured in the US-led war on Afghanistan following the September 11 2001, hijacked airliner attacks on the United States.
Since then more than 770 captives have been held there and of those 10 have been charged with crimes, sparking criticism by foreign governments and rights groups. About 395 suspects remain in the dry, dusty camp in south-east Cuba.
”The rules that were used to put them there have not been rescinded by the United States. They are still in place,” Katherine Newell Bierman, Human Rights Watch counter-terrorism counsel, told Reuters.
”I don’t think any government should have that much power to act on a whim. They can make mistakes, they can do things that are flat out wrong,” said Newell Bierman, who is writing a report on Guantánamo’s operations.
Human Rights Watch said military hearings that allow prisoners to challenge their detention before a neutral decision maker are inadequate.
” … Without Habeas Corpus proceedings there is no check on the executive power or decisions just to lock people up indefinitely,” Newell Bierman said
In 2004, the US Supreme Court ruled detainees could go to American courts to seek their release or changes in the conditions of their confinement.
But in October 2006 Bush signed tough new anti-terrorism laws that suspend prisoners’ rights to Habeas Corpus.
The charges against 10 Guantánamo detainees were nullified in June when the Supreme Court struck down the military tribunal system created to try the suspects, but the military expects to file revised charges by February. – Reuters