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Mainstream Media Blasts Torture in Guantanamo

Havana, Feb 14, 2006 (AIN) Though Bush administration has rejected a United Nation's draft report blasting the violence suffered by prisoners at the US naval base in Guantanamo, press publications continue to criticize the US' criminal policy.

According to a Los Angeles Times editorial, "The Gitmo Disgrace," an 18-month investigation carried out by members of the UN's Working Group of the Commission on Human Rights concluded that mistreatment experienced by several detainees in Guantanamo can be considered torture.

"This situation definitively violates international law and conventions on human rights and against torture," pointed out the distinguished investigative reporter Manfred Nowak.

On the other hand, the US State Department's spokesman Sean McCormack criticized the UN experts for rejecting Washington's offer to visit Guantanamo after they were informed they wouldn't meet the prisoners.

McCormack also expressed his disapproval of UN's specialists for quoting statements by former prisoners from Guantanamo and public declarations of their lawyers.

Some 500 detainees are kept behind bars at the US' illegally-held naval base in Guantanamo, Cuba. The have been held as "enemy combatants" since 2002, even though most of them face no legal charges and have no access to a fair trial.

 

 

 

 

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