UK: Amnesty says UK must act on Guantanamo Britons
01 March 2006
In a report published on 6 February Amnesty International urged the government to intervene on behalf of the nine British residents being held unlawfully at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The report,
Guantanamo: Lives Torn Apart - The Impact of indefinite detention on detainees and their families, argues that the government's refusal to act on behalf of long-term UK residents is "shameful" and must change. It examines the long term effects on the 500 prisoners and their families who have been detained for four years, (see Statewatch Vol. 16 no 1). Amnesty also expressed its support for a report by a United Nations team of experts, published later the same month, which called for the US to close its Cuban torture centre. The Amnesty report summarises developments related to the ongoing hunger strike (Section 1) and the resulting suicide attempts (Section 2). It assesses the cases of nine men who have been deemed by the US to no longer be "enemy combatants", but remain detained (Section 3). In Section 4 the document discusses the continued plight of the detainees before assessing the impact on their families (Section 5).
The information released by the US authorities on the ongoing hunger-strike at Guantanamo has been minimal and, judging from independent sources, misleading. The US Department of Defense (DoD) even has problems admitting that a hunger strike for justice is taking place, claiming that there are 32 or 33 people participating in "voluntary fasting". This number was said to have conveniently increased to 131 around the fourth anniversary of the 11 September attacks on the USA. The DoD has also claimed that "the intravenous and nasogastric feeding methods being used are humane and within standards of medical care".
Lawyers representing the detainees have given much higher figures for those participating in the hunger strike and the contradiction seems to originate in the method by which the US authorities count the participants. It would seem that, according to the US, a detainee is only officially on hunger strike when they have missed nine consecutive meals; this conveniently excludes from consideration those hunger strikers who are accepting some meals in order not to be force fed. The US attitude was expressed by Guantanamo spokesman, Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy Martin, who said: "This [the hunger-strike] is consistent with al-Qaeda training and reflects detainee attempts to illicit media attention and bring pressure on the United States government." The report remarks that "Such attitudes call into doubt the veracity of official claims to be prioritising the physical welfare of the detainees".
In the UN expert report five independent investigators from the UN Committee on Human Rights call for the "immediate closure" of the US torture centre at Guantanamo Bay and for all of the illegally detained prisoners to be brought before an independent and competent tribunal or released. The call came after an 18-month study based on information from the US government and from interviews with former detainees in the UK, Spain and France; the UN representatives request for the right to carry out private interviews with prisoners was dismissed out of hand by the US. Among its other recommendations the working group calls for the US to "...refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, discrimination on the basis of religion and violations of the rights to health and freedom of religion."
Amnesty International "Guantanamo: Lives Torn Apart - The Impact of indefinite detention on detainees and their families" 6.2.06.
http://web/amnesty.org/library/print/ENGAMR510072006 ;United Nations Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights "Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Civil and Political Rights. Situation of Detainees at Guatanamo Bay. Report of the Chairperson of<