Detainees brutalized at Guantanamo detention center, says first independent investigator

The first independent UN investigator to visit the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay said on Monday that 30 male prisoners held there were being “treated in an extremely cruel, inhumane and degrading manner under international law”. Presenting her 23-page report to the United Nations Human Rights Council at a press conference, Fionnuala Ni Aolainn, a professor of law in Ireland, said that the 2001 terrorist attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, which killed nearly 3,000 people, “ Were crimes against humanity.” However, he said the torture and ill-treatment meted out to the alleged plotters and their associates by the US in the years following the attacks violated international human rights law.

Nie Aolen said the US administration has allowed a UN investigator like her to visit the Guantanamo Bay detention center, which opened in 2002, for the first time. He praised President Joe Biden’s administration for leading by example by allowing access to Guantanamo Bay and for being “willing to address the most difficult human rights issues.” Ni Naolen also urged some other countries to follow in the footsteps of the Biden administration, which have denied the UN access to detention centres. The UN investigator said that everything he had asked for permission was granted. This includes allowing meetings with ‘high priority’ and ‘non-high priority’ detainees at the detention center in Cuba.

In its submission to the UN Human Rights Commission on the report’s findings, the US said the special investigator’s findings were “entirely his own” and that “the US disagrees extensively with many of the factual and legal assertions contained in his report.” Ni AoLen said in her report that “significant improvements” had been made to the conditions at the detention center for prisoners, but she expressed “deep concern about the 30 male detainees who continue to be subjected to extremely cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment there”. ” Ni AoLen said, “I realized that despite more than two decades of detention, the abuse of prisoners continues. Every one of the prisoners I met lived a life of constant loss due to the process of punishment, torture and arbitrary detention.”

The UN investigator also made several recommendations, saying that the Guantanamo Bay detention center should be closed. On this, the US issued a statement saying, “Prisoners live in harmony and cook meals together; they have been provided with specialized medical and psychiatric care; they are given full access to legal advice; They can communicate with their family members regularly.” “Nevertheless, we are carefully reviewing the recommendations (of the special investigator) and will take all appropriate steps as necessary,” the statement said.

Disclaimer:IndiaTheNews has not edited this news. This news has been published from PTI-language feed.