Reply #21: US rejects calls to shut Guantanamo (AFP)

[Up2Late]

(I guess that had to ask...)

US rejects calls to shut Guantanamo

17/02/2006 02h20

WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States has angrily rejected calls by UN human rights monitors to close the Guantanamo detention camp calling their report "a discredit" to the world body. But UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said that "sooner or later" the controversial camp will have to be shut down -- stepping up pressure on the US administration....

(clip)

...The 54-page document strongly condemned the treatment of the 500 detainees at the Guantanamo Bay US Naval Base in Cuba. It pointed to cases of "excessive violence" during transportation of detainees and force feeding of hunger strikers. These "must be assessed as amounting to torture", the report said.

The investigators said the US military acted as judge, prosecutor and defence in the special trials at the base. They said the US authorities should "expeditiously bring all Guantanamo Bay detainees to trial" under international law, "or release them without further delay".

The White House quickly hit back at the investigators, criticising them for writing the report without having been to Guantanamo. The experts cancelled a planned visit to the camp last year because the United States refused to give them free access to all prisoners....

(more at link below)

<http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/060217022058.dvdnch0j.html>