 |
Amnesty said most detainees are held in cruel isolation in windowless cells at Guantanamo |
CAIRO — Conditions in the US detention facility in Guantanamo are worsening with the sweeping majority of detainees being held in cruel isolation, Amnesty International said in a new reported issued on Thursday, April 5.
"It appears that detainees are being placed in extreme lock-down conditions not because of their individual behavior but because of harsher camp operating procedures," reads the report posted on Amnesty's website.
"A new facility that opened in December 2006, known as Camp Six, has created even harsher and apparently more permanent conditions of extreme isolation and sensory deprivation."
The report, "USA: Cruel and inhuman – Conditions of isolation for detainees in Guant?namo Bay", says 165 detainees have since been transferred to the new facility.
It notes that a further 100 detainees are being held in solitary confinement in Camp 5, another maximum security facility.
Twenty others are being held in solitary confinement in Camp Echo, where conditions have been described by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) as "extremely harsh."
"Detainees are confined for 22 hours a day to individual, enclosed, steel cells where they are almost completely cut off from human contact.
"The cells have no windows to the outside or access to natural light or fresh air," said the international watchdog.
"In some respects, they appear more severe than the most restrictive levels of "super-maximum" custody on the US mainland, which have been criticized by international bodies as incompatible with human rights treaties and standards."
Washington has been holding hundreds of detainees, mostly arrested in Afghanistan, at the top security detention facility since 2001.
Amnesty has branded Guantanamo the new gulag prisons, the Soviet detention centers notorious for torturing political prisoners and suspects.
Travesty
|
|
Allen said conditions at the Guantanamo Bay were "a travesty of justice"
|
Kate Allen, Amnesty's UK director, described conditions at the US Navy-run facility as "a travesty of justice".
"With many prisoners already in despair at being held in indefinite detention... some are dangerously close to full-blown mental and physical breakdown," Allen told the BBC News Online.
"The US authorities should immediately stop pushing people to the edge with extreme isolation techniques and allow proper access for independent medical experts and human rights groups."
Amnesty accused the Bush administration of using the cloak of national security to justify human rights violations.
"Perhaps President Bush needs to think again, because the voices calling for the closure of this disgrace to American values are only getting louder," said Larry Cox, the executive director of Amnesty International USA.
The group urged the Bush administration to take immediate steps to alleviate the harsh conditions at the detention facility.
"Such steps include ensuring that no detainee is subjected to prolonged solitary confinement in conditions of reduced sensory stimulation," it said.
Detainee should also be allowed more association and activities as well as regular contact with their families with opportunities for phone calls and visits.
"While the United States has an obligation to protect its citizens... that does not relieve the United States from its responsibilities to comply with human rights."
Click to read the Report
|
