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Britain Urges U.S. to Respect Taliban, Al-Qaeda Prisoners
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| Straw says the conditions of Al Qaeda prisoners is unsatisfactory. |
LONDON, Jan. 15 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Britain has urged U.S. officials to uphold the rights of Britons being held among suspected Taliban and Al-Qaeda prisoners, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Tuesday, January 15, 2002.
The statement followed what the Foreign Office called a "frank" telephone conversation over the weekend between Straw and his U.S. counterpart, Secretary of State Colin Powell, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
BBC’s online news service reported Tuesday that Britain is to seek assurances about the welfare of three Britons among suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners being held by U.S. forces in Cuba.
But Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said the U.K. Government would not automatically protest against detainees reportedly being ill-treated en route on Guantanamo Bay.
Straw said that if Britain regarded the conditions the men were being held in as unsatisfactory, "we will say so," adding, "I made my own representations about this."
He denied he had protested at the way the 50 prisoners were hooded and shackled en route to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
However, Straw said they still had normal rights under international law, and that Britain would do all it could to ensure they were upheld.
A British Foreign Office spokeswoman said that (Britain’s position) included Britain's opposition to the death penalty that the men could possibly face if convicted.
"These people ... are accused of having been members of the most dangerous terrorist organization which the world has ever seen," Straw told BBC radio.
"It does not mean for a second that they do not have rights, and where they are British citizens, it's our responsibility to ensure that they receive those rights."
Straw added, “whether or not they were covered by the Geneva Convention, they had rights "in customary international law, and all of us who are either involved as their representatives, as their governments or those holding them, have obligations.”
Straw said these obligations had been acknowledged by Powell.
British diplomats have been told they will get access to the first Briton who arrived at Guantanamo Bay over the weekend. Two more Britons arrived late Monday.
The Foreign Office spokeswoman said it was unclear when the diplomats would actually get in to see the men.
"It is not a normal consular situation. Hopefully it will be sooner rather than later."
She said the United States "told us they will be treated humanely" and it would be monitoring their welfare.
"At the same time, we also recognize they have got the right to bring them to justice."
She said it was thought more Britons were being held following the downfall of Afghanistan's former ruling Taliban, which was accused of having harbored Al-Qaeda group blamed for the September 11 deadly attacks in the United States.
Straw said he had not protested about the men being shackled because of the "special particular circumstances" of the accusations against them.
Britain has an understanding with the U.S. government that anyone (Briton) extradited to the United States should not face the death penalty, the Foreign Office spokeswoman said.
"We do seek reassurances that they will not face it," she said, adding that London wanted the same policy also to apply to the Britons held at Guantanamo.
British Labor members of Parliament (MPs) Jeremy Corbyn, Tam Dalyell, Alan Simpson and John McDonnell called on the government on Monday to press the U.S. to observe the Geneva Convention in its treatment of the prisoners, BBC reported.
After a controversial statement by U.S. Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, last week that captured Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters "have no rights" under the Geneva Convention, experts and human rights groups said Monday that the U.S. detention of prisoners has plunged international law into a complex and potentially dangerous limbo.
They said they were seriously concerned over the conditions in which they are being held and the legal minefield ahead.
If the situation was not clarified quickly, they warned, the United States risked losing the moral high ground it has claimed since the September 11 attacks.
"One of the elements which is disturbing is the lack of transparency about their treatment," Adam Roberts, a professor of international relations at Oxford University in the U.K, said Monday.
Roberts, the co-editor of a book on the laws of war, said it was important U.S. officials observed the underlying principle of the 1949 Geneva Convention, which is that anyone captured in war should be treated humanely.
"There's some justice in the U.S. side," he said, "but what's very disturbing is the lack of a clear acceptance that they are still subject to human rights principles."
Washington is qualifying the prisoners as "unlawful combatants," according to Rumsfeld, who said that this categorization allowed the U.S. to deny them rights.
"They will be handled not as prisoners of war - because they're not - but as unlawful combatants," Rumsfeld said Friday. "As I understand it, technically, unlawful combatants do not have any rights under the Geneva Convention."
He said, however, that the prisoners would be treated "for the most part" in a manner "reasonably consistent" with the convention.
The human rights group, Amnesty International, for one, is concerned as to what exactly "reasonably consistent" means.
In a letter to U.S. authorities, it said the hooding of suspects in detention could breach international law, as could their imprisonment at Guantanamo Bay in chain-link cages partially open to the
elements.
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