Aljazeera Guantanamo inmate 'abused'

[POA]

Aljazeera Guantanamo inmate 'abused'
By Roshan Muhammed Salih

Wednesday 22 June 2005, 21:55 Makka Time, 18:55 GMT


An Aljazeera cameraman who has been incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay since 2001 has suffered extreme physical, sexual and religious abuse, his lawyer says.

Clive Stafford-Smith, who visited clients in the US detention camp in Cuba a few weeks ago, told Aljazeera.net that Sami al-Hajj had been beaten by his interrogators.

Al-Hajj, a Sudanese national, was arrested in late 2001 while working for Aljazeera in Afghanistan.

"Sami has endured horrendous abuse - sexual abuse and religious persecution," said Stafford-Smith, who is on a visit to Qatar, on Tuesday.

"He has been beaten. He had a huge scar on his face when I saw him."

The British lawyer said that al-Hajj witnessed the Quran being flushed down the toilet by US soldiers in Afghanistan, and also witnessed expletives being written on the Muslim holy book.

'Completely innocent'

"He is completely innocent. He is about as much of a terrorist as my granddad. The only reason he has been treated like he has is because he is an Aljazeera journalist. The Americans have tried to make him an informant with the goal of getting him to say that Aljazeera is linked to al-Qaida.

"The problem is that nobody is putting pressure on the Americans to release him. One word from the government of Sudan or Qatar would suffice."

Stafford-Smith also said that inmates who were children when they were arrested have been held in Guantanamo Bay since 2001.

Despite the US government's denials, he said they are being held in pitiful conditions.

Moreover, he predicted that the detention centre will soon be closed down.

Public relations disaster

"Guantanamo is a PR disaster. It is one of the most iconic symbols of hypocrisy in the world. It is just incredible how the US has squandered all the goodwill it had after the September 11 attacks.

"What George Bush says about Guantanamo is absolute rubbish. He has never been there himself and he should go there and take a visit to see what it is really like."

The lawyer added: "But we must remember that Guantanamo is just a diversion. It only holds a few hundred inmates while there are around 30 secret US detention centres around the world which hold up to 12,000 inmates. Conditions are worse there than in Guantanamo."

There are currently more than 500 Muslim men detained at Guantanamo Bay without charge in conditions that have provoked worldwide concern.

Most were arrested in Afghanistan and Pakistan in the aftermath of the 2001 US-led war to topple Afghanistan's Taliban government.

War on terror

Several US politicians, including former President Bill Clinton, have called for the camp to be either "cleaned up" or "closed down".

However, the Bush administration has consistently defended Guantanamo, arguing that most of the people detained there are terrorists who pose a risk to American citizens.

In response to a question about the camp on Monday, US President George Bush said its inmates are treated humanely in accordance with the Geneva Convention.

He said the Red Cross has 24-hour access to the camp and journalists and activists are welcome to visit it to see how it operates.

[Moses]

The lies of the Administration are so demoralizing and scarey. It is also a symbol of our devolustion and hypocrisy that the political leadership here and in Britain have turned the presumptiion of innocence on its head. Can we not acknowledge that "Atlanticist" now means "fascist"? How did this happen?

It is a relief to see mentioned the other detention centers as the issue of Gitmo is mentioned. The way the pieces of news are isolated is also a feature of the media propaganda.

[POA]

admin said:

The lies of the Administration are so demoralizing and scarey. It is also a symbol of our devolustion and hypocrisy that the political leadership here and in Britain have turned the presumptiion of innocence on its head. Can we not acknowledge that "Atlanticist" now means "fascist"? How did this happen?

It is a relief to see mentioned the other detention centers as the issue of Gitmo is mentioned. The way the pieces of news are isolated is also a feature of the media propaganda.

Al-Jazeera really has little motive to cover for the Bush fascists. I wonder how many of their personnel have gotten shot, tortured, so on, since I suspect the number's a lot higher than commonly known?

[Moses]

Reuters personnel, also, were beaten and tortured and sexually abused-- and the media hasn't mentioned this, either. They deliberately keep all these little pieces isolated, and then say they are just isolated incidents, and a few "bad apples".

[Moses]

US acknowledges torture at Guantanamo and Iraq, Afghanistan: UN source

1 hour, 56 minutes ago




Washington has for the first time acknowledged to the United Nations that prisoners have been tortured at US detention centres in Guantanamo Bay, as well as Afghanistan and Iraq, a UN source said.

The acknowledgement was made in a report submitted to the UN Committee against Torture, said a member of the ten-person panel, speaking on on condition of anonymity.

The US mission to the UN institutions in Geneva was unavailable for comment on the report late Friday..

"They are no longer trying to duck this, and have respected their obligation to inform the UN," the Committee member told AFP, adding that the US described the incidents as "isolated acts" carried out by low-ranking members of the military who were being punished.

"They will have to explain themselves" to the committee, the member said. "Nothing should be kept in the dark."

UN sources said it was the first time the world body has received such a frank statement on torture from US authorities.

The Committee, which monitors respect for the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, is gathering information from the US ahead of hearings in May 2006.

Signatories of the convention are expected to submit to scrutiny of their implementation of the 1984 convention and to provide information to the Committee.

The document from Washington will not be formally made public until the hearings.

"They haven't avoided anything in their answers, whether concerning prisoners in Iraq, in Afghanistan or Guantanamo, and other accusations of mistreatment and of torture," the Committee member said.

"They said it was a question of isolated cases, that there was nothing systematic and that the guilty were in the process of being punished."

The US report said that those involved were low-ranking members of the military and that their acts were not approved by their superiors, the member added.

The US has faced criticism from UN human rights experts and international groups for mistreatment of detainees -- some of whom died in custody -- in Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly during last year's prisoner abuse scandal surrounding the Abu Ghraib facility there.

Scores of US military personnel have been investigated, and several tried and convicted, for abuse of people detained during the US-led campaign against Islamic terrorist groups.

At the Guantanamo Bay naval base, a US toehold in Cuba where around 520 suspects of some 40 nationalities are held, allegations of torture have combined with other claims of human rights breaches.

The US has faced widespread criticism for keeping the Guantanamo detainees in a "legal black hole," notably for its refusal to grant them prisoner of war status and allegedly sluggish moves to charge or try them.

Washington's report to the Committee reaffirms the US position that the Guantanamo detainees are classed as "enemy combatants," and therefore do not benefit from the POW status set out in the Geneva Conventions, the Committee member said.

Four UN human rights experts on Thursday slammed the United States for stalling on a request to allow visits to terrorism suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base, and said they planned to carry out an indirect probe of conditions there.

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Copyright © 2005 Agence France Presse.