:: NEWS COCKTAIL aka BlahBlahBlog ::

:: 5.25.2005 ::

:: "Guantanamo Bay branded the new gulag" ::

From The Age, Australia

Amnesty International has branded the US detention camp at Guantanamo Bay as "the gulag of our times".

Amnesty's annual report, which blamed governments around the world for abandoning the protection of human rights, called on the United States to close the Guantanamo Bay camp, Cuba, where about 540 men accused of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or the al-Qaeda terrorist network are held.

Some have been jailed without charge for more than three years, among them Australian David Hicks.

"Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time," Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan said in a reference to Stalin's Soviet-era prisons.

The comparison came as the London-based group launched its 308-page annual report, which accused the US of shirking its responsibility to set the bar for human rights protections.

The prison camp has been in the spotlight over the past year since the FBI cited cases of aggressive interrogation techniques and detainee mistreatment.

The US government has also been criticised for its failure to charge or try prisoners who are classified as enemy combatants, a vague distinction with less legal protection under the Geneva Conventions than prisoners of war.

Some have challenged their detentions in US courts but their cases have been stalled by appeals from the US government, which says the men do not have the right to challenge the detentions.

"Not a single case from some 500 men has reached the courts," Khan said.

Read more here.

ALSO

Amnesty accuses US over 'torture'
BBC News, UK

Amnesty takes aim at Gitmo
Newsday, NY

Amnesty condemns a world of deepening brutality
Scotsman, UK

posted by me

:: 9:02:00 PM [+] ::
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