THE first UN investigator allowed inside the notorious US prison at Guantanamo Bay said the 30 remaining detainees in the facility are facing ongoing, cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment which breaches international law.
UN Special Rapporteur, Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, issued a report on the facility and told reporters in New York that significant improvements have been made at Guantanamo since torture at the prison was exposed but stressed that the 30 men who remain are living with their past experiences.
Fionnuala Ní Aoláin said: ‘I observed that after two decades of custody, the suffering of those detained is profound, and it’s ongoing.
‘Every single detainee I met with lives with the unrelenting harms that follow from systematic practices of rendition, torture and arbitrary detention,’ said the UN Special Rapporteur.
She slammed the treatment of the inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison by the United States.
The UN inspector reserved some of her harshest criticism for the fact that 19 of the 30 detainees have never been charged with any crime, a number of whom have been held in the military camp for two decades.
Aoláin said their situation was a matter of profound concern.
The problem was compounded by the post 9/11 CIA torture programme, which has become a roadblock for some of the detainees going to trial.
The UN inspector said the continued internment of some of the men stems from the unwillingness of the authorities to face the consequences of the torture and other ill treatment to which the detainees were subjected, not from any ongoing threat they are believed to pose.
Aoláin said that the use of torture had also been a betrayal of the rights of victims and called for an apology and guarantees that the abuses would not happen again.
She also said the detainees past experiences of torture live with them in the present, without any obvious end in sight, since they have not received any adequate torture rehabilitation to date.
The remaining 30 detainees still face harsh treatment, including constant surveillance, forced removal from their cells, and, the unjust use of restraints.
Since the infamous Guantanamo detention facility was set up by the George Bush administration in Cuba in 2002, after the invasion of Afghanistan and before the invasion of Iraq, it has been synonymous with abuse, torture and injustice.
Monday 26th June marked the UN International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
The US State Department issued a statement declaring that the US reaffirms its condemnation of torture wherever and whenever it occurs. And it stands in solidarity with victims and survivors of torture around the world.
The statement comes as the Biden administration is seeking the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for his role in exposing US war crimes.
Assange has been held in London’s Belmarsh Prison without having been charged since April 2019.
Professor Nils Melzer, Former Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (2016- 2022), has determined that Assange’s treatment amounts to prolonged psychological torture.
A Red Cross official says US-held captives in the Guantanamo military prison and torture facility show signs of ‘accelerated ageing.’
The US government gave its response to the UN report in a one-page letter from the ambassador to the Human Rights Council, Michelle Taylor.
It said that the US believed that all UN member states should be willing to open themselves to the scrutiny of outside observers.
Taylor added that the US was confident that the conditions of confinement at Guantanamo Bay are humane and reflect the United States respect for, and protection of, human rights for all who are within our custody.
In May the Guardian published a series of detailed drawings and writings by Abu Zubaydah, which gives the most comprehensive account yet seen of the torture to which he and other detainees were subjected by the CIA.
Zubaydah is known as a forever prisoner. He is being held at Guantanamo having never been charged and with no prospect of release.
Many of the individuals who were tortured under the CIA program have endured severe ongoing psychological and physical damage and trauma as a result.
The Guantanamo Bay Prison was set up in 2002 by US President George W. Bush, and held about 800 inmates at its peak before the numbers started to shrink.
President Joe Biden had promised to close the facility, but has yet to present a plan to do so.
Human Rights Advocates are increasingly frustrated with Biden for failing to deliver on his pledge to close the prison, leaving inmates languishing in the notorious offshore detention centre with no end in sight.
Guantanamo, which at its peak held over 700 inmates, has been synonymous with human rights abuses perpetrated by the US government in the name of the war on terrorism.
The case of America’s hypocritical actions in the field of human rights is something that has attracted the attention not only of international critics, but also of American experts.
America’s blatant crimes against humanity, including the wars in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and the brutal torture in Abu Ghraib, Bagram and Guantanamo Bay prisons are not hidden from anyone.
Nearly 160 international rights groups have called on the United States to close down its detention centre in Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.
- Russia’s Foreign Ministry has suggested that the US and its NATO allies have aided Ukraine in launching recent drone attacks on Moscow, insisting that the UAV raids would not have been possible without such help.
‘Such attacks would not have been possible without the help of the United States and its NATO allies to the Kiev regime, who continue to pump it with weapons, including drones, train drone operators, and provide intelligence necessary to commit such crimes, including images from the surface of the Earth obtained with the help of civilian and military satellites,’ the Russian Foreign Ministry declared in a statement on Tuesday.
‘All this makes Washington and its satellites complicit in preparing and carrying out terror attacks that are being prepared and carried out on Western money and with Western weapons,’ the ministry further insisted.
The statement was issued after Russian emergency services announced earlier in the day that five drones were shot downed in and around Moscow, but caused no casualties or damage. The incident, however, led to the temporarily disruption of flight operations at the Vnukovo international airport.
Elaborating on the circumstances of the Ukrainian drone raid, the ministry was quoted in a TASS report as adding, ‘According to the incoming information, this time, they targeted civilian infrastructure facilities, including a major international airport.
These plans were thwarted thanks to precise operation of Russian air defence and electronic warfare systems. Four drones were downed, one lost control and crashed. No injuries or damage were caused.’
Meanwhile, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova condemned the attack on the Vnukovo airport as an ‘act of terrorism’, blaming Kiev for attacking civilian areas.
‘The Kiev regime’s attempt to attack an area where civilian infrastructure is located, including the airport, which incidentally also receives foreign flights, is yet another act of terrorism,’ Zakharova underlined.
‘The international community should realise that the United States, Britain, France – permanent members of the UN Security Council – are financing a terrorist regime,’ she further noted.
