Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Study Finds

[babylonsister]

Guantánamo Meets Geneva Rules, Study Finds

By WILLIAM GLABERSON
Published: February 20, 2009

A Pentagon report requested by President Obama on the conditions at the Guantánamo Bay detention center concludes that the prison complies with the humanitarian requirements of the Geneva conventions, but it makes many recommendations for increasing human contact among the prisoners, according to two government officials who have read portions of it.

A report requested by President Obama determined that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay meets the humanitarian standards of the Geneva Conventions.

The review, requested by President Obama on the second day of his administration, is due to be delivered to the White House this weekend.

The request, made as part of a plan to close the center within a year, was widely seen as an effort by the new administration to defuse the power of allegations during the Bush administration that there were widespread abuses at Guantánamo, and that many detainees were suffering severe psychological effects after years of isolation.

The review, conducted by Adm. Patrick M. Walsh, the vice chief of naval operations, describes a series of steps that could be taken to allow detainees to speak to one another more often and to engage in group activities, the government officials said. For years, critics of the prison have said that many detainees spend as many as 23 hours a day within the confines of cement cells and were only permitted recreation alone in fenced-off outdoor pens.

The report, which Admiral Walsh is scheduled to discuss publicly at the Pentagon next week, is being presented to a White House that some government officials have described as caught off guard by the extreme emotions and political cross-currents provoked by Guantánamo. Some critics said that the report’s conclusions are likely to intensify the debate about the prison, and put the Obama White House for the first time in the position of defending it.

more...

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/us/21gitmo.html?_r=1&hp

[spanone]

1. conditions vs. torture.....two extrememly different things i suspect

i really don't think we can rely on the pentagon to write a report on itself

it really doesn't matter, the shitstain it has left on our reputation is already there.

[Thothmes]

2. It remains there into this administration.

[spanone]

3. do you have a link to the Obama administration ordering torture?

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/01/president-oba-4.html

[Thothmes]

4. Never claimed they did

Gitmo remains open. It still contains prisoners that may or may not be still "tortured". Do you have a link that there has been no "torture" since the current Administration came into power. My answer was refering to the facility itself. That is what the original OP was refering to..

[NNN0LHI]

5. The children of Guantanamo Bay

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-children-of-guantanamo-bay-480059.html

The notorious US detention camp in Guantanamo Bay has been hit by fresh allegations of human rights abuses, with claims that dozens of children were sent there - some as young as 14 years old.

Lawyers in London estimate that more than 60 detainees held at the terrorists' prison camp were boys under 18 when they were captured.

They include at least 10 detainees still held at the US base in Cuba who were 14 or 15 when they were seized - including child soldiers who were held in solitary confinement, repeatedly interrogated and allegedly tortured.

The disclosures threaten to plunge the Bush administration into a fresh row with Britain, its closest ally in the war on terror, only days after the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, repeated his demands for the closure of the detention facility. It was, he said, a "symbol of injustice".

Whitehall sources said the new allegations, from the London-based legal rights group Reprieve, directly contradicted the Bush administration's assurances to the UK that no juveniles had been held there. "We would take a very, very dim view if it transpires that there were actually minors there," said an official.

One child prisoner, Mohamed el Gharani, is accused of involvement in a 1998 al-Qa'ida plot in London led by the alleged al-Qa'ida leader in Europe, Abu Qatada. But he was 12 years old at the time and living with his parents in Saudi Arabia.