HeXp£Øi±
Well-Known Member
WASHINGTON, Feb. 7 (UPI) -- Five detainees at the U.S. military prison camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have attempted to hang themselves to death since Jan. 16 and one is still hospitalized, a Department of Defense spokeswoman told United Press International on Friday.
Navy Lt. Cdr. Barbara Burfeind told UPI that of the 15 attempted suicides since the camp was opened in 2001, five occurred in only the past three weeks, and the military is investigating the cause.
She said that all the detainees made their attempts by hanging themselves in their cells at Camp Delta, the detention camp built by the Defense Department on the naval base that the United States leases from Cuba. She said the guards foiled the attempts, but the first detainee, who was discovered on Jan. 16, is in "stable, but serious condition" at the Naval Hospital at Guantanamo.
The detention of these men, many seized by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and some arrested around the world in the past 16 months, has brought the United States extensive criticism from all over the world. Most of the detainees are Muslim. There are now 650 of them, Burfeind said, up 25 from the end of last October.
Amnesty International, a worldwide agency that works for human rights, called on the United States to "end the legal black hole into which it has thrown hundreds of detainees."
Amnesty said the detainees have had "no access to the courts, lawyers or relatives; the prospect of indefinite detention in small cells for up to 24 hours a day; the possibility of trials by executive military commissions with the power to hand down the death sentences and no right to appeal."
"Is this how the USA defends human rights and the rule of law?" the human rights group asked in a press release.
The U.S. military authorities have given the news media limited access to the camp, but no interviews with detainees. It has encouraged feature stories about how it prepares food to Muslim standards and provided some minimal creature comforts and denied it has mistreated the detainees.
But Amnesty International said it is investigating reports that two men, of Iraqi and Jordanian nationality, arrested and held incommunicado in Gambia in November 2002 on suspicion of al Qaida links, have secretly been transferred to Camp Delta.
Burfeind said the Defense Department declined to identify the countries of origin of the detainees or their names and identities.
Several reports over recent months said many of the detainees turned out be of no intelligence value to the United States. Others appear to have been brought there under dubious circumstances. Amnesty said among the early transferees were six Algerian nationals seized by U.S. officials in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their case was described by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as "one of extra-judicial removal from a foreign sovereign territory," Amnesty said.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030207-061637-6804r
Navy Lt. Cdr. Barbara Burfeind told UPI that of the 15 attempted suicides since the camp was opened in 2001, five occurred in only the past three weeks, and the military is investigating the cause.
She said that all the detainees made their attempts by hanging themselves in their cells at Camp Delta, the detention camp built by the Defense Department on the naval base that the United States leases from Cuba. She said the guards foiled the attempts, but the first detainee, who was discovered on Jan. 16, is in "stable, but serious condition" at the Naval Hospital at Guantanamo.
The detention of these men, many seized by U.S. forces in Afghanistan and some arrested around the world in the past 16 months, has brought the United States extensive criticism from all over the world. Most of the detainees are Muslim. There are now 650 of them, Burfeind said, up 25 from the end of last October.
Amnesty International, a worldwide agency that works for human rights, called on the United States to "end the legal black hole into which it has thrown hundreds of detainees."
Amnesty said the detainees have had "no access to the courts, lawyers or relatives; the prospect of indefinite detention in small cells for up to 24 hours a day; the possibility of trials by executive military commissions with the power to hand down the death sentences and no right to appeal."
"Is this how the USA defends human rights and the rule of law?" the human rights group asked in a press release.
The U.S. military authorities have given the news media limited access to the camp, but no interviews with detainees. It has encouraged feature stories about how it prepares food to Muslim standards and provided some minimal creature comforts and denied it has mistreated the detainees.
But Amnesty International said it is investigating reports that two men, of Iraqi and Jordanian nationality, arrested and held incommunicado in Gambia in November 2002 on suspicion of al Qaida links, have secretly been transferred to Camp Delta.
Burfeind said the Defense Department declined to identify the countries of origin of the detainees or their names and identities.
Several reports over recent months said many of the detainees turned out be of no intelligence value to the United States. Others appear to have been brought there under dubious circumstances. Amnesty said among the early transferees were six Algerian nationals seized by U.S. officials in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Their case was described by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights as "one of extra-judicial removal from a foreign sovereign territory," Amnesty said.
http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030207-061637-6804r
