www.csua.org/u/gyg -> news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20060921/ts_nm/rights_un_usa_dc_3
In a statement to the UN Human Rights Council, the five independent envoys also said Washington's admission of secret detention centres abroad pointed to "very serious human rights violations in relation to the hunt for alleged terrorists." They again called for the closure of the US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where hundreds of foreign terrorism suspects are being held, alleging continued violations of international law on torture and arbitrary detention. Despite US declarations of intent to shut Guantanamo, Washington had done nothing yet and was even planning to open a new cell bloc at the end of this month, they said. "We call on the government to close down the Guantanamo Bay detention center and, until that time, to refrain from any practice amounting to torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," they said. The statement was read out by Leila Zerrougui, the Algerian chairwoman of the UN working group on arbitrary detention. She is one of the five investigators who have tried since June 2004 to visit Guantanamo detainees. Washington has said it would allow three of them to go for one day, but not to see prisoners privately, a key demand of the investigators. In reply, US ambassador to the UN in Geneva Warren Tichenor reiterated Washington's desire to close Guantanamo but said that this could only be done when other countries agreed to take some of the prisoners being held there. He regretted the investigators' decision not to make the visit and accused them of basing their report on "second- and third-hand allegations." "LEGALISE" RIGHTS VIOLATIONS The Bush administration says that with the transfer of 14 detainees, including one of the alleged masterminds of September 11, to Guantanamo earlier this month there are no more suspects being held in secret jails. But Manfred Nowak, the UN special rapporteur on torture, told journalists that others remained unaccounted for, which he said amounted to the banned crime of "enforced disappearances." "We have a number of further individuals that have been detained and we do not know where they are," he said, adding that the Council should give the five envoys a mandate to investigate all past and present secret centres. On Wednesday, a US House of Representatives panel endorsed Bush's bill for tough interrogations and trials of foreign terrorism suspects. Washington says such techniques have helped obtain information that has prevented attacks. The other special envoys report on freedom of religion, physical and mental health and the independence of judges. The five said that the bill, which has still to be approved by the full House and the Senate, amounted to an attempt to "legalise" rights violations that have been condemned in Guantanamo and elsewhere. The proposed legislation was "in breach with United States' human rights obligation as identified in our report and with the requirement of article 3 of the Geneva Conventions," they said, referring to the 1949 treaty which lays down basic guarantees of protection for detainees. The plan would allow the US government to arrest and detain indefinitely people who were not involved in any armed conflict and torture was not banned outright, they said.
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