Gitmo Conditions Worsening: Amnesty
- From: "Kayid Al-Kuffar" <Kayedhom@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 6 Apr 2007 06:29:41 -0700
Gitmo Conditions Worsening: Amnesty
By IOL Staff
CAIRO - Conditions in the US detention facility in Guantanamo are
worsening with the sweeping majority of detainees being held in cruel
isolation, Amnesty International said in a new reported issued on
Thursday, April 5.
"It appears that detainees are being placed in extreme lock-down
conditions not because of their individual behavior but because of
harsher camp operating procedures," reads the report posted on
Amnesty's website.
"A new facility that opened in December 2006, known as Camp Six, has
created even harsher and apparently more permanent conditions of
extreme isolation and sensory deprivation."
The report, "USA: Cruel and inhuman - Conditions of isolation for
detainees in Guant?namo Bay", says 165 detainees have since been
transferred to the new facility.
It notes that a further 100 detainees are being held in solitary
confinement in Camp 5, another maximum security facility.
Twenty others are being held in solitary confinement in Camp Echo,
where conditions have been described by the International Committee of
the Red Cross (ICRC) as "extremely harsh."
"Detainees are confined for 22 hours a day to individual, enclosed,
steel cells where they are almost completely cut off from human
contact.
"The cells have no windows to the outside or access to natural light
or fresh air," said the international watchdog.
"In some respects, they appear more severe than the most restrictive
levels of "super-maximum" custody on the US mainland, which have been
criticized by international bodies as incompatible with human rights
treaties and standards."
Washington has been holding hundreds of detainees, mostly arrested in
Afghanistan, at the top security detention facility since 2001.
Amnesty has branded Guantanamo the new gulag prisons, the Soviet
detention centers notorious for torturing political prisoners and
suspects.
Travesty
Kate Allen, Amnesty's UK director, described conditions at the US Navy-
run facility as "a travesty of justice".
"With many prisoners already in despair at being held in indefinite
detention... some are dangerously close to full-blown mental and
physical breakdown," Allen told the BBC News Online.
"The US authorities should immediately stop pushing people to the edge
with extreme isolation techniques and allow proper access for
independent medical experts and human rights groups."
Amnesty accused the Bush administration of using the cloak of national
security to justify human rights violations.
"Perhaps President Bush needs to think again, because the voices
calling for the closure of this disgrace to American values are only
getting louder," said Larry Cox, the executive director of Amnesty
International USA.
The group urged the Bush administration to take immediate steps to
alleviate the harsh conditions at the detention facility.
"Such steps include ensuring that no detainee is subjected to
prolonged solitary confinement in conditions of reduced sensory
stimulation," it said.
Detainee should also be allowed more association and activities as
well as regular contact with their families with opportunities for
phone calls and visits.
"While the United States has an obligation to protect its citizens...
that does not relieve the United States from its responsibilities to
comply with human rights."
Click to read the Report
http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGAMR510512007
http://tinyurl.com/yw96oc
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