Rights group turns down offer to visit Gitmo

[unhappycamper]

Rights group turns down offer to visit Gitmo
By Ben Fox - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Oct 23, 2009 17:49:08 EDT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Three human rights groups said Friday they will spurn an invitation to tour the Guantanamo Bay prison next month because it doesn’t include an opportunity to speak with prisoners.

Amnesty International USA, the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights Watch all said the recent Defense Department invitation falls short of the full access to the prison at the U.S. base in Cuba that they jointly requested in a January letter to President Barack Obama.

“What is needed and is still being denied ... is full access to the detention camps, including detainees, so that we may independently review and report on the conditions of confinement there,” said Jamil Dakwar, director of the ACLU’s Human Rights Program.

A fourth group invited on the tour, Human Rights First, raised similar objections but hasn’t decided how to respond to the invitation, which came in an Oct. 8 letter from Philip E. Carter, a deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee policy.

The four regularly send observers to the proceedings of the war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo but have sought to inspect the prison camps and meet with prisoners, hoping to provide the Obama administration with an outside assessment of conditions.


Rest of article at: http://www.armytimes.com/news/2009/10/ap_guantanamo_invitation_rejected_102309w/