Dozens of Abu Ghraibs

[struggle4progress]

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, Oct 25 (IPS) - U.S. human rights groups have denounced before the U.N. Human Rights Committee that there are perhaps dozens of secret detention centres around the world where Washington is holding an unknown number of prisoners as part of its "war on terror". <snip>

On Monday, the members of the Committee, made up of 18 independent experts with recognised competence in the field of human rights, heard presentations from U.S. non-governmental organisations that accuse Washington of grave rights violations. <snip>

For example, Patel remarked, "we don't know if people have been held in Diego Garcia (a small island in the Indian Ocean, home to a U.S. military base), but we have enough credible reports to make us believe it." <snip>

The Committee is currently holding its last session of the year, which will wrap up Nov. 3. The first session next year will take place in March at U.N. headquarters in New York. <snip>

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30773



Priti Patel, an attorney and representative of the New-York based group Human Rights First, reported to the Committee members on the secret detention centres for individuals allegedly linked to terrorism.

"There are locations you know about, like Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram in Afghanistan," commented Patel, "but there are other locations which you know exist, but you don't know exactly how many or where they are."

According to Patel, these are transient facilities in Iraq and Afghanistan that are close to conflict zones, but move around, to wherever the United States decides.

"There are around 20 of them in Afghanistan, but you don't know how many people are being held there, and you don't know how they are being treated," Patel told IPS.

[madeline_con]

1. Diego Garcia...

The Toronto Star July 2, 2005

Island paradise or torture chamber?
CIA under fire for secret detentions
Indian Ocean atoll alleged abuse site
In-Depth Coverage By Lynda Hurst

From satellite pictures, Diego Garcia looks like paradise.


The small, secluded atoll in the Indian Ocean, with its coral beaches, turquoise waters and vast lagoon in the centre, is 1,600 kilometres from land in any direction.

A perfect hideaway. But no one is allowed to set foot on it.

The little-known British possession, leased to the United States in 1970, was a major military staging post in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It continues to be, in effect, a floating aircraft carrier, housing 1,700 personnel who call it Camp Justice.

But intelligence analysts say Diego Garcia's geographic isolation is now being exploited for other, darker purposes.

They claim it is one in a network of secret detention centres being operated by the Central Intelligence Agency to interrogate high-value terrorist suspects beyond the reach of American or international law.

These prisoners are known as "ghost detainees" or the "new disappeared," and they're being subjected to treatment that makes the abuses at the military-run Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba look small-time, say intelligence analysts.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2005/050702-island-torture.htm
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Letter to Prime Minister Tony Blair
British Territory Must Not Be Used for Torture
December 28, 2002

Rt Hon Tony Blair MP
10 Downing Street
London SW1A 2AA
United Kingdom

Dear Prime Minister:

We write to urge you to take steps to ensure that torture does not take place on British soil, including the islands that are part of British Indian Ocean Territory. According to press reports in the United States, U.S. forces are holding and interrogating suspected al-Qaeda detainees at a U.S. operated facility on the island of Diego Garcia. ("U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations," the Washington Post, December 26, 2002). U.S. interrogations of al-Qaeda detainees reportedly include "stress and duress" interrogation techniques and other abusive practices that violate customary and conventional international law prohibitions against torture and mistreatment.

The allegations reported in the Washington Post, if true, would place the United States in violation of some of the most fundamental prohibitions of international human rights and humanitarian law. We have asked President Bush as a matter of urgency to clarify that the use of torture is not U.S policy, to investigate the Post's allegations, to adopt all necessary measures to end any ongoing violations of international law, and to prosecute those implicated in such abuse.

http://www.hrw.org/press/2002/12/uk1230ltr.htm

[struggle4progress]

3. !

[mike_c]

2. we MUST get these sick bastards out of office and into an "interview room"

and find out where all their dungeons are. This makes me utterly ashamed to be an American.