GENEVA , June 26 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – In an unprecedented move, 31 United Nations human rights experts pressed Friday, June 25, for access to so-called terror suspects around the world.

Putting their names to a rare joint statement, the experts, who usually operate separately, said they want a four-member team to check on conditions for those held in " Iraq , Afghanistan , the Guantanamo Bay military base and elsewhere," reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The team members were identified as Theo Van Boven, special rapporteur on torture, Paul Hunt, special rapporteur on the right to health, Leandro Despouy, special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, and Leila Zerrougui, the head of the UN working group on arbitrary detention.

The experts said they had a "unanimous desire" for the team to visit "together and at the earliest possible date", people "arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism or other violations".

The aim would be "ascertain... that international human rights standards are properly upheld with regard to these persons," the statement added.

In a veiled reference to Abu Ghriab scandal, the UN experts said they were motivated by "a number of recent developments that have alarmed the international community with regard to the status, conditions of detention and treatment of prisoners in specific locations".

The abuse scandal broke in April when the American news network CBS aired photographs of Iraqi detainees being tortured of sexually assaulted by US soldiers.

Recent reports indicated the torture was okayed by senior Pentagon officials, including US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the then top US commander in Iraq , Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez.

The Washington Post revealed on Saturday, June 12, that Sanchez "borrowed heavily" from the Guantanamo high-pressure interrogation selection, which included the use of military dogs, temperature extremes, reversed sleep patterns, sensory deprivation and poor diets.

The Guantanamo list was originally given the thumbs-up in a series of memos singed by top Pentagon officials, including Rumsfeld, arguing that torturing detainees outside the US "may be justified."

Absolute Prohibition

Rumsfeld had also approved the use of so-called aggressive interrogation techniques, such as the use of stress positions, forced nudity and dogs in Guantanamo Bay , de-classified White House documents unveiled.

However, UN human rights spokesman Jose Diaz averred that the International Convention Against Torture -- signed by 136 states including the United States -- outlaws not only torture but also cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

"The prohibition is an absolute one, it may not be derogated in any circumstances," he told AFP, referring to US officials condoning some stressful or humiliating interrogation techniques for terror suspects.

The UN experts also voiced fears that some detainees may be held secretly in undisclosed locations, well away from scrutiny by the International Committee of the Red Cross or other international agencies.

A Pentagon spokesman admitted Thursday, June 17, that Rumsfeld personally ordered a secret detention of an Iraqi detainee without giving him an identification number so that he can escape the eyes of ICRC teams.

In a recent report, the American Human Rights First watchdog said Washington has more than 24 world detention camps, at least half of them operate in total secrecy, where the abuse of detainees is "inevitable."

In March, Antonio Taguba, the US Army officer who investigated abuses at the Abu Ghraib, criticized the practice of allowing ghost detainees as "deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law."

Unprecedented

The UN experts have never made such a collective approach to governments before, Diaz said.

Van Boven told reporters that individual UN experts had asked to visit detention centers such as Guantanamo before, "but no answer has been forthcoming".

"So this is now a collective demarche in the hope that it will have more effect," the UN expert said.

The New York-based pressure group, Human Rights Watch, agreed the statement was "extraordinary" and showed "how devastating the prisoner scandal is not just for the United States and the victims, but for human rights as a whole."

"The UN is saying this cannot be allowed to go unchecked," the group's director Reed Brody told AFP.

He urged US President George W. Bush's administration to allow UN inspectors to visit the prisons and detention camps.

"This is an opportunity to come clean."

The UN experts intend to present the results of their approach -- whether successful or not -- in public at the annual meeting of the UN Commission on Human Rights in spring 2005.