According to
this LA Times story the UN is set to release a report by five independent experts, appointed by the UN Commission on Human Rights, that accuses the US of abuse and torture in it's handling of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
(Note, this diary can be viewed as something of an adjunct to Welshman's excellent diary from earlier today:
The sanitized horrors at Guantanamo Bay , which has fallen off the rec list... victim to another Cheney diary.)
There's not a lot I can say about this story, so I'll just post a few snippets:
"A U.N. inquiry says the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay at times amounts to torture and violates international law.
"A draft United Nations report on the detainees at Guantanamo Bay concludes that the U.S. treatment of them violates their rights to physical and mental health and, in some cases, constitutes torture.
It also urges the United States to close the military prison in Cuba and bring the captives to trial on U.S. territory, charging that Washington's justification for the continued detention is a distortion of international law.
The report, compiled by five U.N. envoys who interviewed former prisoners, detainees' lawyers and families, and U.S. officials, is the product of an 18-month investigation ordered by the U.N. Commission on Human Rights. The team did not have access to prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.
Nonetheless, its findings -- notably a conclusion that the violent force-feeding of hunger strikers, incidents of excessive violence used in transporting prisoners and combinations of interrogation techniques "must be assessed as amounting to torture" -- are likely to stoke U.S. and international criticism of the prison.
...
"The findings also concluded that the simultaneous use of several interrogation techniques -- prolonged solitary confinement, exposure to extreme temperatures, noise and light; forced shaving and other techniques that exploit religious beliefs or cause intimidation and humiliation -- constituted inhumane treatment and, in some cases, reached the threshold of torture.
Nowak said that the U.N. team was "particularly concerned" about the force-feeding of hunger strikers through nasal tubes that detainees said were brutally inserted and removed, causing intense pain, bleeding and vomiting.
"It remains a current phenomenon," Nowak said.
...
"Wilner said Odah told him that on Jan. 9, an officer read what he said was an order from Guantanamo Bay's commander, Brig. Gen. Jay W. Hood, stating that hunger strikers would be strapped into a restraint chair and force-fed with thick nasal tubes that would be inserted and removed twice a day. After hearing a neighboring prisoner scream in pain and tell him not to go through it, Odah reluctantly ceased his hunger strike, Wilner said."
Note that there were originally about 85 hunger strikers. The Pentagon now reports only four are still going without food. Gee... I wonder why.
And what's the White house say to this:
"White House spokesman Scott McClellan dismissed Odah's allegations Thursday.
"Well, yes, we know that Al Qaeda is trained in trying to make wild accusations and so forth," McClellan said in response to a question about Odah. "But the president has made it very clear what the policy is, and we expect the policy to be followed. And he's made it very clear that we do not condone torture, and we do not engage in torture."
BTW, the UN now joins the Red Cross, the Eurpoean Parliment, and several human rights groups in accusing the US government of using torture at Gitmo. The whole world is watching. It is absolutely clear the we are breaking international law by these blatant violations of human rights. But, I fully expect that in the face of this report, absolutely nothing will change.