Within the past hour
This story released from Geneva
-- U.N. human rights experts said Thursday they have reliable accounts of detainees being tortured at the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The experts also said Washington had not responded to their latest request to check on the conditions of terror suspects at the facility in eastern Cuba. That request was made in April.
MORE BELOW
U.S. officials so far have allowed only the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit Guantanamo detainees.
A U.S. spokeswoman said the request was being reviewed in Washington.
The experts, who report to U.N. bodies on different human rights issues, said their request for a visit was "based on information, from reliable sources, of serious allegations of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, arbitrary detention, violations of their right to health and their due process rights."
"Many of these allegations have come to light through declassified (U.S.) government documents," they said."
I wonder if they are referring to the "FOIA" documents obtained by the Associated Press, now being reviewed by SusanHu et al. Or, very likely, to the MD/Gitmo/torture article in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In addition to this story and the many others in the past, a prominent civil rights lawyer from New Orleans, Clive Stafford-Smith is getting involved in the case of an al-Jazeera cameraman who was taken to Gitmo in 2001 and has been tortured.
Another leak in the dam. Bushco's parlor tricks may not be enough to staunch the flow this time. Once you get Amnesty International, the International Red Cross, and the UN on your ass, it gets a little hard to keep calling foul.
The news comes a little late for Dick Durbin, but not everyone has abandoned him. The Houston Chronicle says:
That's what Durbin wanted to talk about, before he was shouted down. It's still worth talking about.
UPDATE 1 PM Central Time US from
Guardian
The four independent specialists told reporters that U.N. experts had made numerous requests since early 2002 to check on the conditions of terror suspects at the U.S. Naval base in Cuba, as well as at U.S. facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.
They cited ``information, from reliable sources, of serious allegations of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of detainees, arbitrary detention, violations of their right to health and their due process rights.
...
A U.S. spokeswoman said the experts' request to visit Guantanamo was being reviewed in Washington.
The four experts are appointed to their three-year terms by the 53-nation U.N. Human Rights Commission, the global body's top rights watchdog. They are unpaid for their work, although their expenses are paid.
The United States has criticized the commission because its members include countries with tyrannical governments and poor human rights records, but the experts operate autonomously, often criticizing their own countries and others in the commission.
The failure of the United States to respond is leading the experts to conclude that Washington has something to hide, said the specialist on torture, Manfred Nowak, a professor of international law in Vienna, Austria.``At a certain point, you have to take well-founded allegations as proven in the absence of a clear explanation by the government,'' he said, though he also noted: ``We are not making a judgment if torture or treatment under degrading conditions has taken place.''
Brooks Robinson, spokeswoman for the U.S. mission:
``The main point is that their request is being addressed and discussed and reviewed in the United States,'' Robinson told The Associated Press. ``That process is underway.'' She also noted that U.S. policy ``prohibits and condemns torture.''
...
In an April meeting, U.S. officials refused to guarantee the right to speak to detainees in private - an ``absolute precondition'' for such a visit, Nowak said.
``We deeply regret that the government of the United States has still not invited us to visit those persons arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism or other violations,'' the experts said.
``The time is up. We have to act now,'' said Leila Zerrougui, an Algerian magistrate who reports on arbitrary detention. ``If not, we won't have any credibility left.''
Paul Hunt, a law professor from New Zealand who monitors physical and mental health, said he wanted to investigate in person ``persistent and credible reports'' of alleged violations. ``Reportedly medical staff have assisted in the design of interrogation strategies, including sleep deprivation and other coercive interrogation methods,'' Hunt said.
The experts said they decided to express their misgivings because ``the lack of a definitive answer despite repeated requests suggests that the United States is not willing to cooperate with the United Nations human rights machinery on this issue.''
``We are all worried about this situation,'' said Argentinian jurist Leandro Despouy, specialist on the independence of judges and lawyers.
U.S. officials so far have allowed only the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit detainees at Guantanamo, which started being used as a detention center for terror suspects allegedly linked to the Taliban and al-Qaida after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.
The US excuses are patently bullshit.