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Presumed Guilty; The Bush
administration takes unlawful detentions to the next level
- by Mary Shaw
www.OpEdNews.com
Recent news reports indicate that the U.S. government is preparing
to hold terror suspects indefinitely without trial, replacing the
Guantanamo Bay prison camp with a permanent facility currently
referred to as Camp 6.
These reports suggest that the Bush administration is seeking to
extend indefinitely its misguided policies regarding the illegal
detention and ill-treatment of terror suspects. This must not be
tolerated. The U.S. government must immediately end its practice of
denying basic human rights to detainees.
The "war on terror" can only be won through full respect for human
dignity and the rule of law. However, over the past three years,
Guantanamo has become an icon of lawlessness. As it stands now, most
of the 550 people detained at Guantanamo remain held without charge
or trial, and without access to any court or legal counsel. These
detainees are being denied their rights under international law and
held in conditions which reports indicate may amount to cruel,
inhuman, or degrading treatment.
Interrogation techniques authorized for use at Guantanamo have
included stress positions, isolation, hooding, sensory deprivation,
and the use of dogs. Among the abuses reported by FBI agents are the
cruel and prolonged use of shackling, and the use of loud music and
strobe lights. They have also reported witnessing the use of dogs to
intimidate detainees; yet military officials, including those
involved in earlier investigations, have previously given assurances
that no dogs have been used in this way at the naval base.
None of the detainees have been granted prisoner of war status nor
brought before a "competent tribunal" to determine their status, as
required by Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention. The U.S.
government refuses to clarify their legal status, despite calls from
the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to do so.
Instead, the Bush administration labels them "enemy combatants"
or "terrorists", flouting their right to be presumed innocent and
illegally presuming justification for the denial of many of their
most basic human rights.
Despite these blanket allegations, several detainees have been
released from the base without charge. No compensation has been
offered for the many months they were illegally detained at
Guantanamo.
President Bush has made it a mantra of his time in office that the
U.S. is committed to the rule of law and the "non- negotiable
demands of human dignity." The U.S. government's own National
Security Strategy and National Strategy for Combating Terrorism
stress that respect for such standards must be central to the
pursuit of security. The administration's policy in Guantanamo, like
the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, is now a notorious symbol of its
failure to live up to its promises.
These practices must not be made permanent. The U.S.
government must take immediate measures to establish policies and
procedures that will end the legal limbo of all detainees, ensure
that all those held are charged and given fair trials or released,
and guarantee that they are treated humanely, in accordance with
international law.
After all, surely we would want nothing less for any of our own U.S.
citizens who might be detained by enemy forces.
-----
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She currently
serves as Philadelphia Area Coordinator for Amnesty International,
and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues
have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and
magazines worldwide. E-mail
mary@maryshawonline.com
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