AMNESTY International has renewed its call for the United States to close its Guantanamo Bay concentration camp and try or release the prisoners held there.
‘The US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is condemning thousands across the world to a life of suffering, torment and stigmatisation,’ the London-based human rights group says in a statement accompanying a new report.
‘Five hundred men from around 35 nationalities are detained in Guantanamo.
‘Dozens are currently on hunger strike and there have been numerous suicide attempts.
‘None of them have had the lawfulness of their detention reviewed in a court of law.’
Amnesty Americas program director Susan Lee says ‘despite widespread international condemnation, the US authorities continue in their attempts to strip all detainees of their right to challenge their detention in US courts’.
The rights group demanded that the US administration publish a list of all ‘war on terror’ detainees being held at Guantanamo and elsewhere, and try or release the prisoners.
Citing complaints from inmates of mistreatment and abuse, Amnesty also appealed to Washington to ‘close Guantanamo and open up all US detention facilities to independent scrutiny’ and to investigate allegations of torture.
It says the force-feeding of inmates on hunger strike, if it was done in a way that deliberately caused suffering, could constitute ‘cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment’.
The report quoted one inmate, Fawzi al-Odah, describing how he was force-fed through a nasal tube.
‘The nurse shoved a tube up my nose so quickly that I began choking, bleeding from the nose and spitting blood. They used no anaesthetic,’ he was quoted as saying.
Amnesty also said the families of detainees were not being given basic information about their loved ones.
Many of those prisoners who had been released or transferred from Guantanamo had faced ‘continued harassment, arbitrary arrest and ill-treatment’ in other places.
A US federal judge last month ordered the government to release the identities of hundreds of Guantanamo detainees, rejecting arguments that this might put their families in danger.
The government is expected to appeal.
US President George W Bush insisted last month the prisoners were being treated ‘humanely’.
‘Guantanamo is a necessary part of protecting the American people and so long as the war on terror goes on, and so long as there’s a threat, we will inevitably need to hold people that would do ourselves harm,’ he said.
Omar Deghayes fled to the UK from Libya in the 1980s
Human rights group Amnesty has renewed calls for long-term British residents detained in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be released.
It claims nine detainees have been UK residents, although no UK nationals are now held at the US naval base.
The British government has said it cannot represent people who choose not to seek British citizenship.
But Amnesty, highlighting the case of a Brighton man held since 2002, said the reluctance to act was shameful.
The charity’s UK director Kate Allen said: ‘These men have become forgotten prisoners.
‘After four years, Guantanamo has become a byword for abuse and an indictment of the US government’s failure to uphold human rights in the war on terror.’
Brighton student Omar Deghayes, 36, has been held at Guantanamo for three years.
He was arrested in Pakistan and accused of committing terrorist acts against the United States, but his lawyers claim it is a case of mistaken identity.
Deghayes was born in Libya, but fled the country in the 1980s when his father was assassinated and was granted refugee status in the UK, where he was educated and applied for British citizenship.
His sister, Amani Deghayes, who is campaigning for his release, said: ‘I am not looking for any special treatment for my brother. I just want his basic human rights to be respected.
‘What disappoints me most is the unwillingness of the UK government to lift a finger.’
Omar has been 179 days on hunger strike.
Along with an estimated 250 other detainees, Omar is on hunger strike asking for enforcement of Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo.
Omar is one of nine British residents still imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay. The British government have thus far used the excuse that he holds only refugee status to deny all responsibility for him.
Omar and his family left Libya for the UK in 1986, six years after his father, a democrat and trade unionist, was allegedly assassinated by Colonel Gadaffi’s regime.
They settled just outside Brighton, Omar with refugee status in the UK, and the remainder of his family as British citizens.
In 2001, after studying law at UK universities, Omar travelled with a friend to Malaysia, Pakistan and eventually to Afghanistan. There he met and married his Afghani wife, and had a son, Suleiman, who is now four years old.
When war broke out, Omar moved his family to Pakistan, fearing for their safety, and en route back to the UK.
There he was arrested by bounty-hunters along with his wife and young son (both later released) and taken to Bagram, which he describes as reminiscent of a Nazi prison camp.
He was later sent on to Guantanamo, where he has suffered further human rights abuses.
The only ‘evidence’ for Omar’s arrest is a video, allegedly showing Omar, from the Spanish authorities.
However experts have confirmed what is seemingly apparent; that the person in the video isn’t Omar.
On one occasion, guards attacked Omar with pepper spray, rubbing the chemical in his eyes, so that he is now completely blinded in one eye.
The US authorities have allowed Gadaffi’s Libyan interrogators to interview him.
They threatened him, saying: ‘In here I cannot do anything, but if I meet you later I will kill you, if you don’t kill me.’
