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McNamara
said Washington’s conduct in Guantanamo has been “an insult to
the values of all civilized countries”.
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CAIRO,
April 26, 2005 (IslamOnline.net) – Lawmakers from 46 European
countries on Tuesday, April 26, asked the Bush administration “to
cease torturing and mistreating detainees” at its notorious
Guantanamo detention.
“The
US government has betrayed its own highest principles in the zeal with
which it has attempted to purse the 'war on terror',” said a
resolution adopted almost unanimously by the Parliamentary Assembly of
the Council of Europe (PACE) at a session in Strasbourg.
“These
errors have perhaps been most manifest in relation to Guantanamo
Bay,” said the 46-member pan-European body.
The
resolution stressed that “many if not all detainees” have been
subjected to inhuman treatment mounting in some cases to
“torture”.
It
maintained that this was “a direct result of official policy,
authorized at the very highest levels of government”.
The
resolution challenged the US to either try them fairly or release
them, in line with international law.
British
parliamentarian Kevin McNamara told the session that Washington’s
conduct in Guantanamo has been “an insult to the values of all
civilized countries”.
“We
must respond firmly to threats but not in an unjust manner,” he
added.
Backing
a report by McNamara, PACE also called on Council of Europe member
states to refuse to extradite suspects liable to be held at Guantanamo
or provide incriminating evidence unless it was for legal proceedings
before “regularly constituted courts”.
The
assembly also pledged to pursue the issue through talks with the US
Congress.
The
US, which holds observer status with the Council of Europe, has been
keeping hundreds of detainees at its naval base at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, since the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.
Washington
has already released or handed over to authorities in other countries
more than 200 Guantanamo detainees but more than 500 men are still
held without charge.
The
New York Times revealed on October 17 that uncooperative detainees
in Guantanamo were regularly tortured by US guards.
In
a July letter to Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder, the Army's provost marshal,
FBI counterterrorism official Thomas Harrington confirmed that FBI
agents saw military interrogators use abusive tactics on
prisoners at Guantanamo.
The
International Committee of the Red Cross has accused the US of
committing “war
crimes” in Guantanamo.
In
June, the HRW issued a report entitled “The Road To Abu Ghraib”
linking the abuse of detainees in Iraq , Afghanistan and Guantanamo to
the policies adopted by US President George W. Bush in his so-called
war on terror.
