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News Reports
The NY Times Denounces Bush Violations Washington, December 8, 2008. In the name of his anti-terrorist campaign, US President George W. Bush has violated rights of foreigners and nationals, The New York Times daily denounced Monday. The magnitude of the damage caused by the Republican administration and how long it will last depend partly on the results of two cases that justice is currently studying, the newspaper said. The Supreme Court accepted to debate a lawsuit against Bush, for indefinite imprisonment of Qatari Ali al-Marri, who lives in the United States and was arrested in 2003 on a ship of the navy, with no charges against him, according to the daily. The intolerable interpretation of the law by the White House would leave a president free to suspend the rights of any person, including US citizens, said the paper. The other case is that of Canadian of Syrian origin Maher Arar, a victim of Bush's policy, the newspaper said. Arar was arrested in 2002, maintained in solitary confinement in a prison, without the right to see his lawyer, and tortured, said the New York Times. After the scandal, Ottawa accepted to have sent mistaken information to the US officials, and paid compensation. A court of appeals is studying a lawsuit by Arar, who denounced the violation of his basic rights and the tortures practiced on him. The newspaper wondered what the stance of President elect Barack Obama would be in relation to these cases. (Cubaminrex- PL) Full text of the article: Tortured Justice The nation’s courts continue to grapple with the abuses committed by President Bush’s administration in the name of fighting terrorism. The extent of the damage to American liberties, and how lasting it will be, will be told in part by the outcome of two cases that are to be heard by the federal courts. On Friday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case that turns on Mr. Bush’s claim that he can order people living in the United States to be detained by the military indefinitely without charges. The case involves Ali al-Marri, a citizen of Qatar who was in the United States legally. He was declared an enemy combatant in mid-2003 and has been held in a Navy brig since then. The detention was upheld by an appeals court panel, which should be quickly and definitively reversed by the Supreme Court. This intolerable reading of the law would leave a president free to suspend the rights of anyone, including American citizens. The other, equally notorious case is being heard on Tuesday by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, in Manhattan. It involves Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian with no ties to terrorism who became a victim of the Bush team’s lawless policy of “extraordinary rendition” — the outsourcing of interrogations to foreign governments known to torture prisoners. Mr. Arar’s ordeal began in 2002, when he was seized by federal agents as he tried to change planes on his way home to Canada from a family vacation. After being held incommunicado in solitary confinement and subjected to harsh interrogation without proper access to a lawyer, he was “rendered” to Syria, where he was tortured. He was locked up for almost a year in a dank underground cell the size of a grave before he was finally let go. The Canadian government later declared that it had provided erroneous information about Mr. Arar to American authorities. It apologized to him in 2007 and agreed to pay him $10 million. Last June, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general, Richard Skinner, and its former inspector general, Clark Ervin, said at a Congressional hearing that officials may have violated federal criminal laws in sending Mr. Arar to Syria, knowing he was likely to be tortured. Yet that same month, a three-judge federal appeals panel dismissed Mr. Arar’s civil rights lawsuit on flimsy national security grounds and, absurdly, his failure to seek court review of his rendition within the time period specified in immigration law. In essence, the 2-to-1 ruling rewarded the administration’s egregiously bad behavior in denying Mr. Arar’s initial requests to see a lawyer, and then lying to his attorney about his whereabouts, which obstructed his access to the courts. In addition, by treating this as an immigration case, the ruling overlooked reality. The salient issue is the improper and unconstitutional tactics used by United States officials to obtain information they wrongly thought Mr. Arar possessed. That point was emphasized by Judge Robert Sack in his cogent dissenting opinion from the first appeals court ruling. We took it as an encouraging sign when the appellate court took the rare step of scheduling Tuesday’s rehearing before its entire bench before an appeal was filed. A decision allowing Mr. Arar’s case to proceed would recognize the court’s essential role in protecting constitutional rights. It also would firmly reject the Bush administration’s seamy efforts to frustrate accountability for executive branch excesses. The Obama administration will then have to decide whether to defend the indefensible when the case comes to trial. That will provide an interesting test of the new Justice Department’s commitment to due process. (Taken from The New York Times) (Cubaminrex- PL) GUANTANAMO BASE: US LEGAL BLACKHOLE In 1902, as a precondition to give Cuba its independence and withdraw their troops from the island, the United States imposed the concession of the Naval Base in Guantánamo Bay, 920 km east of Havana, 64 km east of Santiago de Cuba, covering 117,6 sq. Km of the eastern part of one of Cuba’s largest natural bays which environment has been seriously damaged by the 104 year old military presence since they took possession in December 1903. The North American troops´ exercises have caused ecological damages to the surroundings; they have even used nuclear submarines. The Cuban Constitution of 1902 had an embedded text of a document, a US legislation, known in History as the Platt Amendment (the name of the US Senator who wrote it) that had been passed in the US Congress and signed by President McKIinley, which provided the right of the US to intervene in Cuba whenever they felt the “independence of Cuba” was threatened, and obliged the new-born republic to a series of concessions. As a consequence in 1903 the Cuban government had to signed the agreement giving birth to Guantanamo Base, which stipulated that the time for the “leasing” agreement will be perpetual, and that could only be terminated by the two parties agreement. The US Treasury Department, for its yearly leasing, issues every year a check for 4085 USD (35 cents per Hectare), never cleared by the Cuban Government in a show of dignity and disagreement for their illegal occupation of part of Cuba’s territory. Before the Cuban Revolution the base promoted prostitution, drugs and gambling amongst the local population. After 1959, they fired the 3000 member Cuban staff -today only 10 Cubans work there- and started a series of provocations that cost lives both of military and civilian Cubans. In many opportunities, the Cuban authorities have declared they will not accept any other negotiation concerning this territory illegally occupied unless the unconditional withdrawal of the foreign troops quartered there against Cuba's people will. With equal seriousness, the Cuban government has ratified they will not try to recover its legitimate rights by force and will patiently wait until justice prevails. In the last 20 years, with the fast development of high-tech military technology and weapons, the imperial police role of the base in the Caribbean has vanished, losing its military relevance. Nevertheless, they have remained there to humiliate the Cuban People. But the Bush regime has found a new role for the ailing facility. It has become a concentration camp for Muslims. Similar to Abu Ghraib and probably the other secret prisons they have we do not know where, outside their territory, the detainees in Guantánamo are not considered POWs, are not under US or any other country’s jurisdiction, so once they entered there, they disappeared as human beings entitled to respect for their rights. Law is sucked off in Guantánamo, as well as matter in space black-holes. On January 19, 2005, reflecting the indignation of our people at the atrocities committed on prisoners held at the US Naval Base in Guantánamo, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs presented the US governmental authorities in Havana and Washington with a diplomatic note denouncing the flagrant violations of human rights that the said government is daily committing on Cuban territory illegally occupied by the above-mentioned naval base. This communication called for an immediate end to that inhuman and criminal conduct. The note reminded the US government that the atrocities being committed on the base and the very fact of utilizing that illegally occupied Cuban territory as a prison, is in violation of numerous instruments of international law and international humanitarian law, and moreover, violates the Coal and Naval Stations Agreement signed in February 1903 by the government of the United States and the Cuban government of that period, in conditions of inequality and disadvantage for our country, whose independence was circumscribed via the Platt Agreement. According to Article II of that agreement, the US government committed itself to doing everything necessary to ensure that those locations should be exclusively used as coal or naval stations and for no other objective. It is also important to recall that when the Cuban authorities were informed - although not consulted - of the US government decision to transfer a group of prisoners from the war in Afghanistan to this US military enclave in Guantánamo, the government of the Republic of Cuba informed national and internal opinion in a statement dated January 11, 2002, that "although the transfer of foreign prisoners of war on the part of the government of the United States to one of its military installations located on part of our national territory over which we have been deprived of the right to exercise jurisdiction is not in line with the regulations that gave rise to that installation, we shall not create any obstacles to the development of the operation." Moreover, the statement highlighted that our government had "taken note with satisfaction of public statements from the US authorities in the context of the prisoners receiving adequate and humane treatment." The dramatic reality of the prisoners detained on the Guantánamo Naval Base, reported by the media to amount more than 300 at the present time, likewise reveals the double standards of the US government in its hackneyed and manipulative campaigning on behalf of human rights. The arbitrary detention of these foreign prisoners without the mediation of a legal trial, as well as the torture and degrading treatment to which they are being subjected, constitute a gross violation of human rights and numerous international treaties and conventions, in particular, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. With this hypocritical conduct, the government of the United States has demonstrated the falsity of its own public statements and once again has lied to the government of the Republic of Cuba, to its own people and to the international community by concealing the horrific acts of torture, cruelty and humiliating and denigratory treatment committed on prisoners detained on the Guantánamo Naval Base, only comparable with the torture inflicted on inmates in the prison of Abu Ghraib and other penitential establishments in occupied Iraqi territory. Cuba adds its voice to the calls and demands of the international community that the government of the United States instantly end these flagrant violations of prisoners that, moreover, are being committed on illegally occupied Cuban territory. The photographs of dantesque scenes of torture and humiliation to those detainees are all well known. The Bush regime has shown a complete disregard for Human Rights and International Law. And with supreme hypocrisy, they play the judge then to trial Third World countries regarding their Human Rights record. (Cubaminrex-Embacuba Malasia)
White House Says Guantánamo Prison Camp to Remain Open During Current Administration WASHINGTON , 26 March, 2007.- A White House spokesman says that the Guantánamo military prison in Cuba will most likely remain open beyond the end of President Bush's term. Though Bush has intimated that he might be willing to shut down the infamous facility, White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday that conducting military commissions for the most-dangerous remaining detainees and resolving where to put others will take time. Snow admitted that Defense Secretary Robert Gates, shortly after taking office last year, had argued for shutting down the prison quickly. But, Snow noted that Gates raised his concerns with Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and deferred to his arguments for keeping Guantánamo open. (Cubaminrex- RHC) Pentagon Manual Allows for Prisoner Executions at Guantanamo WASHINGTON, January 19, 2007 — The Defense Department has drafted a manual for trying prisoners and even executing them on the basis of hearsay evidence or coerced testimony at the Guantanamo naval base the US maintains on illegally-occupied Cuban territory. According to a copy of the manual obtained by AP, a terror suspect's defense lawyer cannot reveal classified evidence in their defense until the government has had a chance to review it. The manual, sent to Congress on Thursday and scheduled to be released soon by the Pentagon, is intended to track a law passed last fall in which lawmakers restored President George W. Bush's plans to have special military commissions try terror suspects. From Berlin, DPA news service reported that Murat Kurnaz, a Turkish-German who spent four and a half years at Guantanamo, recounted Thursday the odyssey he lived in captivity to a commission of the German parliament. Kurnaz gave details about the physical and psychological abuse he suffered in the hands of the US military, which included the use of "knockout" gas and being chained for 12 hours a day. (Cubaminrex-Granma)
International Delegation To Visit Guantanamo, Cuba to Protest Infamous US Prison Havana, January 4, 2007. A First-ever international delegation of former prisoners, families of current prisoners, US lawyers and human rights activists will travel to Guantanamo, Cuba to hold a conference on prison abuses and march to the Cuban-side security gate of the US Naval Base to call for the closure of the illegal prison. The January 9 -13 protest in Cuba is part of the January 11 International Day to Shut Down Guantanamo, the day that marks the 5-year anniversary of the first prisoners being sent to Guantanamo. "All prisoners deserve humane treatment and fair trials, which is not happening in Guatanamo," says retired US Army Colonel and delegate Ann Wright. "US federal courts, not military commissions, should hear the cases against those charged with terrorist acts and the infamous prison in Guantanamo should be immediately shut down." The group, organizing by US groups CODEPINK: Women for Peace and Global Exchange, will hold a press conference in Havana on January 9, a conference in Guantanamo on January 10 on prison conditions and international law, and then on January 11 will march from the center of Guantanamo to the security gate of the US Naval Base where the prison is located to hold an interfaith service and call for the closing of the prison. The group will then travel to Havana to debrief the press on January 13. A smaller group will then travel to the US to lobby Congress to shut the prison, restore Habeas Corpus, repeal the Military Commissions Act, and give all detainees fair trials or release them. The 12-person delegation also includes renowned US "peace mom" Cindy Sheehan whose son was killed in the war in Iraq; Adele Welty whose firefighter son was killed on 9/11; US human rights/peace leader Medea Benjamin of Global Exchange and CODEPINK; retired US Colonel and diplomat Ann Wright who resigned over the invasion of Iraq; and legal director of the US Center for Constitutional Rights Bill Goodman who has taken the cases of Guantanamo detainees to the US Supreme Court. ( Cubaminrex- PL) Taken from Latin Press Washington, Jun 15, 2006. (Prensa Latina) The US military command cancelled the already limited visits of lawyers and journalists to the Guantanamo naval base after three prisoners died in that enclave. According to lawyers of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the restriction against legal representatives almost coincided with a denial to reporters interested in visiting the military base. Journalists aspiring to enter the prison were from the Los Angeles Times, Miami Herald and Charlotte Observer papers. CCR lawyer Barbara Olshansky said although her colleagues suspected the visits would be suddenly suspended, they would bring a lawsuit before Washington federal court to obtain access to their clients. Olshansky noted the base authorities cited the soldiers were collaborating with an inquiry by the Naval Criminal Investigative Service into the three suicides and could not receive visitors. Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Commander Jeffrey D. Gordon said the press people´s trip was cancelled because the military trials they were to cover were suspended. Other media threatened to sue if they were not allowed to enter the base after the death of three prisoners who hung themselves in their cells. Experts from the International Committee of the Red Cross released they would visit the detention camp and repeated their concern about the convicts´ uncertainty over their fate or inadequate legal status, which affects their physical health.
Guantánamo: A Prison That Should Have Never Existed Taken from Radio Habana Cuba (RHC) Nevertheless, he once again attempted to hide behind the hackneyed argument of national security to insist that the existence of the center is necessary to defend the United States. The Pentagon has kept more than 700 prisoners in Guantánamo since the illegal prison was opened four and a half years ago. It currently lodges more than 400 inmates. The situation of the prisoners, who have not even been tried, is desperate. Victims of humiliation and torture, dozens of inmates have gone on hunger strikes and according to news agencies, 23 inmates have attempted suicide, many more than one time. The suicides of three prisoners at Guantánamo last Saturday has increased the pressure on the Bush administration to define the status of those prisoners and to close down the prison. Even some within the British government, faithful followers of the United States, have expressed their uneasiness over the existence of a prison in Guantánamo. British Justice Minister Charles Falconer, stated that the Guantánamo prison camp "should have never been opened and should be closed down". Last month, Peter Goldsmith, main legal advisor to the London government, also commented that "the existence of Guantánamo is unacceptable and it is time for it to be closed". In addition, several special reporters have questioned the existence of Guantánamo, and recently the UN Committee against Torture called for its closure and for prisoners to be properly tried in a court of law or released. What's more, just days ago the European Parliament passed a resolution by a wide margin, that reiterates the lawmakers' appeal to the U.S. government to close the Guantanamo detention center. The document also insists that the treatment of all prisoners be in accordance with Humanitarian International Law. Many voices around world are demanding that the US's Guantánamo prison camp be close. The concentration camp was opned after the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and behind which the United States has hidden on the pretext of fighting terrorism. But in fact, Washington was manufacturing its own state terrorism, in open violation of the principles of International Law. No Lawyers or Reporters Allowed into Guantanamo Prison Havana, June 16/2006 (ACN) The US military has prohibited visits by lawyers and journalists to the naval base that Washington maintains in the illegally-occupied Cuban territory of Guantanamo. The prohibition came after three detainees committed suicide in the detention center set up in the US military facility. According to the New York-based non-governmental Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the restriction of visits by legal representatives was imposed coinciding with a similar measure not allowing reporters into the prison camp, PL reports on Friday. The US dailies the Los Angeles Times, The Miami Herald and The Charlotte Observer all protested about the measure on Thursday. The prohibition was described by The Los Angeles Times editor, Dough Frantz, as an attitude from the Stone Age, which only increases doubts about what is really happening in the prison camp. Meanwhile, CCR lawyer Barbara Olshansky said that her colleagues had suspected that visits to the area would be suddenly prohibited, though they would file suit at a Washington federal court in order to have access to their clients in the detention center. Naval base authorities said that the troops were supporting an enquiry by the US Navy’s Criminal Investigation Service on the three recent suicides and so they could not receive visitors, said Olshansky.
More Prisoners on Hunger Strike at Guantanamo Washington, May 30, 2006. (RHC)-- More prisoners have joined the hunger strike at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay -- located in eastern Cuba and illegally occupied by the United States. According to Prensa Latina news agency, the number has now grown to 75. Xinhua news reports that the U.S. military is admitting that more prisoners at Guantanamo are refusing to eat, but spokespersons for the detention center claim that the hunger strike is merely an attempt by the prisoners to gain media attention. Commander Robert Durand, a military representative at Guantanamo, told reporters that prisoners are considered hunger strikers if they miss nine consecutive meals. According to reports from the prison, most of the 75 prisoners on strike hit that mark on Sunday. The U.S. military says that four of the prisoners on hunger strike are being force-fed, including the three who have participated in the protest since last August. Seventy-six prisoners began the hunger strike in August last year to protest their indefinite confinement. A month later, the number of hunger strikers grew to 131, according to the military, but reportedly went down to three earlier this year. Prensa Latina news agency says that the main problem is the U.S. government's total disregard for the widespread international call to end the torture of detainees and for the prisons immediate closure. From governments to human rights organizations to the United Nations itself, more voices are being raised -- demanding that the United States simply shut down Guantanamo... now!
Tony Blair's Attorney General against US Guantanamo Prison Havana, May 8, 2006. (ACN) British Attorney General Lord Peter Goldsmith is Goldsmith will make his announcement at the Royal United Services Institute later this week, The Observer reported. The statement by the attorney general would be the first in public from a Blair cabinet member. Washington is still holding over 500 persons without charges or proper legal rights at Guantanamo. While the prime minister has only dared to call the improvised prison where physical and psychological torture is routinely carried out an anomaly, several cabinet members have expressed in private their belief that the detention camp should be closed.
Archbishop Rowan Williams Criticizes US Prison in
Taken from Altercom ThisRepublican administration has always shown an Olympic disdain for international public opinion about any issue. However, regarding the political detainees in Guantanamo and other clandestine prisons spread around the world, President Bush should start listening to the clamoring voices coming not only from his enemies but from close allies as well. They all agree in saying: close those reprehensible prisons!
In his press conference, the cardinal said every person has the right to a fair trial and to know why they have been arrested which, he said, is not the case for the 500 people held by the Martino made the accusations following the Los Angeles Times publication of the testimony of Thomas Wilner, lawyer for six Kuwaitis confined in Guantánamo. The attorney affirmed that very few people are permitted to visit the prisoners, and that even representatives of the UN and human rights organizations are taken "on tour" but not allowed to converse with the inmates. Wilner reported it took him two and a half years to even get access to his clients, none of whom were captured in situations of battle; rather they were captured by Afghanis or Pakistanis for such "suspicious activities" as wearing a Casio watch, and sold to the The UN recently asked the
Italian Prime Minister Denounces Torture at the Guantanamo Naval Base
U.S. Should CloseDownGuantanamoBay, Says Malaysian Prime Minister Tomado de Agencia Nacional Bernama States to close down the GuantanamoBay detention centre in Cuba following the disclosure of photographs and stories about the centre becoming more of a torturing camp.
European Diplomats Call on Washington to Close Guantánamo Washington, February 21, 2006 (RHC)-- The British, French and German ambassadors to the United States have called on Washington to close its Guantánamo prison camp, as pressure increases on the White House. The three European diplomats issued their statements following the release of a report by UN human rights experts calling for the prison at Guantánamo -- located in eastern Cuba and illegally occupied by the United States -- to be closed as soon as possible. Berlin's ambassador to Washington, Wolfgang Ischinger, told reporters in the U.S. capital that "the sooner it is closed, the better it will be for the image of the United States." The French ambassador to the U.S., Jean-David Levitte, said that "Guantánamo is an embarrassment, and so it has to be solved one way or the other." And British ambassador Sir David Manning reaffirmed Prime Minister Tony Blair's comment last week that the U.S. prison camp was "an anomaly." UN Secretary General Kofi Annan distanced the United Nations from the report, which was commissioned by the UN but carried out through the Geneva-based Human Rights Commission by independent human-rights experts. At the same time, he supported its message, saying that "sooner or later," Guantánamo would have to be closed. Kofi Annan said that "the basic point -- that one cannot detain individuals in perpetuity, and that charges have to be brought against them and be given a chance to explain themselves, prosecuted, charged or released - I think is something that is common under any legal system." According to the UN secretary general, the U.S. is walking a fine line in Guantánamo. Annan said that "the basic premise is, we have to be particularly careful to keep a balance between effective anti-terror measures, and individual freedom and human rights."
UN to US: Close Gtmo, Free Prisoners Geneva, Feb 16, 2006 (Prensa Latina) The demanded closing of the US base in the Cuban occupied territory of Guantanamo is the core of a UN report published Thursday in Geneva. The document is based on an investigation by five experts of the UN Human Rights Commission, whose content was leaked to press over the last few days. Based on testimonies by some of the freed prisoners, the text denounces the tortures by US guards against the over 500 prisoners on the base, while demanding that they are either tried or released. The UN experts, specialized in international and human law, also used public documents, press stories, a questionnaire, and interviews with the prisoners´ lawyers to elaborate the report. In the text, the UN speakers urge the US government to close the military base and end the tortures without delay, assuring the conditions in the facility are a flagrant violation of human rights.
Mainstream Media Blasts Torture in Guantanamo
London, Feb 13, 2006 (Prensa Latina) A demand to try torturers and close the US prison camp in Guantanamo,an illegally occupied territory in eastern Cuba, is included in a report to be submitted this week to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR). The London newspaper Daily Telegraph, which had access to the document, reported Monday the report urges the George W. Bush government to put an end to tortures and forced practices on hunger striking prisoners in that penal institution. The article criticizes the US procedure of calling "enemy combatants" those prisoners they have in Guantanamo, as part of its war against terrorism, and states that the over 500 detainees in that US base should be tried or released. The UNCHR, which will present the report on arbitrary detention in Geneva, demands investigation of all torture accusations, as well as requests the highest political and military heads to face justice.
Reporters sans frontières maintain silence over journalist tortured in Guantánamo THE silence maintained by Reporters sans frontières (RSF), the "freedom of the press" organization, on Sudanese journalist Sami al Haji raises many questions as to the impartiality of the association headed by Robert Ménard. Always quick to stigmatize – often in an arbitrary way – certain countries in Washington’s sights like Cuba, Venezuela and China, the RSF has completely ignored the Calvary suffered by Al Haji, who works for the Qatari television network Al Jazeera. On September 22, 2001, Al Jazeera sent a team of journalists, including Al Haji, to investigate the conflict in Afghanistan. After 18 days of reports, the group withdrew to Pakistan. In December 2001 Al Haji returned there with his colleagues to cover the investiture of the new Afghani government. But, before he reached the border, the Pakistani police proceeded to arrest the Sudanese journalist, while releasing the other members of the Qatari team. Handed over to the U.S. authorities installed in Afghanistan, Al Haji was about to live through a veritable nightmare on the Bagram airbase. "They were the worst (days) of my life," he testified. He confided that he suffered sexual abuse and threats of rape on the part of U.S. soldiers. He was also badly tortured for long months, and suffered all kinds of maltreatment. He was forced to kneel on the floor for hours on end. He was constantly chased and attacked by dogs. The Sudanese journalist was also shut in a cage and put in an airplane de-icing hangar. He explained how his tormenters pulled out strands of his hair and beard one by one. The guards beat him regularly and refused to let him wash for more than 100 days while his body was covered in lice. On June 13, 2002, Sami al Haji was sent to Guantánamo. During the flight he was kept chained and tied up with a bag over his head. Every time sleep overcame him, his guards woke him up violently with blows to the head. Before his first interrogation he was not allowed to sleep for more than 48 hours. "For more than three years, the major part of my interrogations were aimed at making me say that there is a relation between Al Jazeera and Al Qaeda," he told his lawyer. In the Cuban territory illegally occupied by the United States the Sudanese reporter received no medical attention, not even for a throat cancer he suffered in 1998 or his rheumatism. They hit him on the soles of his feet and intimidated him with threatening dogs. He was the victim of racist humiliation and never allowed to enjoy the recreation periods on account of the color of his skin. He was also witness to the profanation of the Koran in 2003 and, with his imprisoned comrades, went on hunger strike. The U.S. army’s reaction to the protest was extremely violent: they hit him and threw him down the stairs, seriously wounding him in the head. Then he was put into isolation before being transferred to Camp 5, the harshest of all the Guantánamo detention centers, where he was classified at security four level, a category synonymous with the worst brutalities. This testimony, overwhelming for the Bush administration, which is still refusing to grant prisoner of war status to the Guantánamo detainees, is compounded by two equally accusatory statements to Amnesty International from other victims. However, they merely constitute the tip of the iceberg. In Guantánamo, the crime is a double one: the United States is inflicting the most inhumane barbarities on persons kidnapped without any formal evidence, and is occupying by force a part of Cuba’s sovereign national territory. The collusion between the RSF and Washington has already been illustrated by the case of Spanish cameraman José Couso, killed by the coalition forces. In a report, the Paris-based agency exonerated the U.S. armed forces of all responsibility, despite flagrant evidence to the contrary. The connivance between RSF and the U.S. State Department was such that the journalist’s family condemned the report and asked Ménard to withdraw from the matter. Its complicity is also evident in the case of Cuba, where RSF is transforming U.S.-subsidized agents into "independent journalists," while information on this issue is available and incontestable. The U.S. authorities are delighted with the RSF’s tendentious reports and have even used them in their propaganda war on Cuba. Michael Parmly, head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, affirmed that 20% of imprisoned journalists in the world "are in Cuba." RSF recently established a classification of 164 countries in terms of press freedom; Cuba was classified the penultimate, just ahead of North Korea. Placed in the dock by its stigmatization of Cuba on the basis of erroneous factual elements and for its alignment with the U.S. point of view, RSF attempted to respond to the charges. But the lack of coherence of its communiqué as well as the contradictory language observed only reinforced suspicions. In fact, Ménard has not given any explanation of his organization’s dubious links and various meetings with the Cuban extreme right in Florida. The RSF general secretary has even made public his admiration for Frank Calzón, president of the Center for a Free Cuba, an extremist organization funded by the U.S. Congress. "He is doing a fantastic job for Cuban democrats," he assured in that context. Subsequently, RSF had to publicly confess that it had received money funding from that very center. Similarly, RSF has received emoluments from the National Endowment for Democracy, a congressional agency responsible for promoting U.S. foreign policy. This funding is occasioning a conflict of interests in the heart of the French organization, which is not inclined to expose the outrages committed by one of its sponsors, namely the U.S. government. Before the publication of the Amnesty International testimony, Ménard could have pretended not to know of the existence of Sami al Haji. But, despite the strong international media coverage of these new cases of torture on the U.S. Guantánamo naval base, the RSF has still not deigned to interest itself in this scandal and has taken refuge in a revealing muteness. The censoring of this new case of serious violation of the freedom of the press committed by the Bush administration merely confirms the double discourse of Reporters sans frontières. While the organization takes pains to vent itself in an unbridled manner against Cuba, although the cases evoked are far from being convincing, it is remaining silent over a flagrant attempt on the integrity of a journalist, imprisoned and tortured solely because he works for the Qatari Al Jazeera network, which has much influence in the Arab world and little indulgence for Washington. The credibility of Ménard’s organization, already heavily cracked by its partial treatment and its links with the U.S. government, is becoming constantly weaker given that such omissions compared to its obsessive recurrence to certain issues like Cuba cannot be pure coincidence. (Taken from Rebelión)
Humanitarians Condemn Guantanamo Internment Camp
Procedures
In an extensive commentary on the issue, the daily said that since Jan 2002, when it became an international prison, the so-called Gitmo has broadened its capacities and currently holds 500 prisoners from about 30 countries. The fourth anniversary of the facility comes amid a scandal over US clandestine prisons in East Europe and other places, where interrogation methods first tried in A photo of hooded, chained detainees ready to be sent to the facility accompanies the article which describes the place as the final destination of every detainee held clandestinely by the After recalling that the order to apply practices that violate UN principles was given by top officials in the Granma referred to denunciations by UN Special Rapporteur for Torture Manfred Nowak over cruel methods applied in the base to feed strikers by force, making them bleed and vomit. Despite numerous efforts, the Office of the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights was not able to verify the situation of the detainees as it was denied any direct contact with them. The daily said that in order to silence the press, Bush summoned main Probably, detainees transferred from the closed facilities ended up in
New testimonies of torture in Guantánamo Taken from Granma International LONDON, January 10, 2006.—An international human rights organization has revealed fresh details of atrocities perpetrated by the United States in its prison in Guantánamo, an illegally occupied territory where the empire has been holding some 500 prisoners for four years without trial, AFP reports. In Guantánamo, some 500 men have been treated with a contempt that nobody should be forced to endure, says the London-based organization on the fourth anniversary of the opening of the Guantánamo camp, whose closure is once again being demanded. The 500 prisoners of 35 nationalities in Guantánamo were mostly detained in Afghanistan in October 2001 by the U.S. authorities, who refer to them as enemy combatants. According to the exposé U.S. soldiers have been seen shoving the heads of prisoners in toilet bowls and then releasing the flush, almost to the point of drowning them. Blows were inflicted by U.S. soldiers on prisoners who were sick or wounded, and in front of doctors and nurses. The soldiers tortured the detainees in the name of the law. “There are too many incidents to mention or list,” said one of the witnesses, who added that, in Guantánamo, “I was threatened that I would be raped…, that my family would be attacked, my daughter kidnapped, and that I would be killed by (U.S.) spies if I returned to Saudi Arabia.” TRIALS OF U.S. PRISONERS RESTART U.S. military tribunals reinitiated trials for alleged war crimes against two prisoners on the naval base occupied by the United States in Guantánamo. One is a Yemeni accused of protecting Osama bin Laden and the other a Canadian accused of killing a U.S. army doctor, Reuters announced.
"Why Me?" Asks Guantanamo Prisoner
By Nestor Nunez January 5, 2006
US Activists Thank Cuban Treatment Guantanamo, Cuba, Dec 15, 2005. (Prensa Latina) Members of the US group Witnesses against Torture, who has been camping outside the illegal US Naval Base in Guantanamo, thanked the Cuban people and authorities treatment while protesting against abuses of prisoners held in that military complex. Several participants expressed gratitude to remain near the place where hundreds of detainees have been held for more than three years under horrific conditions that violate international laws. Since December 12 and after a 50-mile march to Guantanamo Bay, peace fighters camped outside the military enclave living on natural fruits and drinks as part of their protests. The 25 people, most of them from Catholic Worker movement, hold a fast in solidarity and a vigil to pray for the immediate abolition of torture by all nations near the gates of the naval base. Activists opined they received warm hospitality tokens by Cuban families sideways and stayed overnight in the backyards of two of them receiving disinterested help from residents. Witness against Torture, headquartered in New York, was supported by US Center for Constitutional Rights whose jurists questioned the legality of detention methods used by their government. At Guantanamo´s military installation there are 500 convicts who are labeled as "enemy combatants" by the US, without charges against them or being committed for trial.
Washington, Jun 16 (Prensa Latina) Debate in Washington over conditions at the US detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, is escalating into a larger argument and critics of Congress think shutting down the detention center is the best thing to do. Media outlets report the hearing on Wednesday in Congress resulted in a divide between the Bush administration and critics over the role of detention at the Guantanamo jail. Opponents say the continued uncertain legal status of Guantánamo detainees undermines US values and its image abroad and that closing the camp is now the administration´s best option. The most recent round of dispute over the Guantánamo facility began with Amnesty International, when it issued an annual report on human rights about the extralegal nature of the camp. Hundreds of detainees continue to be held at the Cuban base without charges or trial, the report said. The study says that neither the identities nor the precise numbers of detainees held in Guantánamo are being provided by the Department of Defense and detainees can be transferred to and from the base without appearing in official statistics.
Pentagon Admits Guantanamo Sexual Abuse The military Investigation found that female interrogators repeatedly used sexual tactics to humiliate Muslim convicts, revealed the daily. At least eight prisoners have accused female interrogators of violating Muslim taboos about sex and contact with women. The convicts said the women rubbed their bodies against them and touched them provocatively, added the Post. That newspaper says the inquiry proves that sexual tactics are part of the Guantanamo prison interrogation methods, and the military investigation of US detention and interrogation practices worldwide also confirmed that female interrogators, using red dye, pretended to spread menstrual blood on Muslim men. There is one case in which an Army interrogator took off her uniform top and paraded around in a tight T-shirt to make a Guantanamo detainee uncomfortable. A Red Cross commission, which visited Guantanamo detention center in 2004, said US troops have been practicing torture on its prisoners there, where about 600 convicts are currently imprisoned.
Taken from Washington Post (Editorial) December 23, 2004 THANKS TO a lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union and other human rights groups, thousands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA -- truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. Since the publication of photographs of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison in the spring the administration's whitewashers -- led by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld -- have contended that the crimes were carried out by a few low-ranking reservists, that they were limited to the night shift during a few chaotic months at Abu Ghraib in 2003, that they were unrelated to the interrogation of prisoners and that no torture occurred at the Guantanamo Bay prison where hundreds of terrorism suspects are held. The new documents establish beyond any doubt that every part of this cover story is false. Though they represent only part of the record that lies in government files, the documents show that the abuse of prisoners was already occurring at Guantanamo in 2002 and continued in Iraq even after the outcry over the Abu Ghraib photographs. FBI agents reported in internal e-mails and memos about systematic abuses by military interrogators at the base in Cuba, including beatings, chokings, prolonged sleep deprivation and humiliations such as being wrapped in an Israeli flag. "On a couple of occasions I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water," an unidentified FBI agent wrote on Aug. 2, 2004. "Most times they had urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18 to 24 hours or more." Two defense intelligence officials reported seeing prisoners severely beaten in Baghdad by members of a special operations unit, Task Force 6-26, in June. When they protested they were threatened and pictures they took were confiscated. Other documents detail abuses by Marines in Iraq, including mock executions and the torture of detainees by burning and electric shock. Several dozen detainees have died in U.S. custody. In many cases, Army investigations of these crimes were shockingly shoddy: Officials lost records, failed to conduct autopsies after suspicious deaths and allowed evidence to be contaminated. Soldiers found to have committed war crimes were excused with noncriminal punishments. The summary of one suspicious death of a detainee at the Abu Ghraib prison reads: "No crime scene exam was conducted, no autopsy conducted, no copy of medical file obtained for investigation because copy machine broken in medical office." Some of the abuses can be attributed to lack of discipline in some military units -- though the broad extent of the problem suggests, at best, that senior commanders made little effort to prevent or control wrongdoing. But the documents also confirm that interrogators at Guantanamo believed they were following orders from Mr. Rumsfeld. One FBI agent reported on May 10 about a conversation he had with Guantanamo's commander, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, who defended the use of interrogation techniques the FBI regarded as illegal on the grounds that the military "has their marching orders from the Sec Def." Gen. Miller has testified under oath that dogs were never used to intimidate prisoners at Guantanamo, as authorized by Mr. Rumsfeld in December 2002; the FBI papers show otherwise. The Bush administration refused to release these records to the human rights groups under the Freedom of Information Act until it was ordered to do so by a judge. Now it has responded to their publication with bland promises by spokesmen that any wrongdoing will be investigated. The record of the past few months suggests that the administration will neither hold any senior official accountable nor change the policies that have produced this shameful record. Congress, too, has abdicated its responsibility under its Republican leadership: It has been nearly four months since the last hearing on prisoner abuse. Perhaps intervention by the courts will eventually stem the violations of human rights that appear to be ongoing in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan. For now the appalling truth is that there has been no remedy for the documented torture and killing of foreign prisoners by this American government.
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