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Groups urge end to Guantanamo
Detainees at the US military prison camp in Guantanamo Bay need to be charged or released and the jail shut down, human rights groups have said.
Amnesty International has undertaken global vigils in countries including Israel, Italy, the US, Japan, Spain, and the UK, to mark the fifth anniversary of the camp's opening.
Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based centre for constitutional rights, said: "It has become iconic in the Muslim world and the wider world ... for everything that the US has done wrong in the war on terror."
Irene Khan, Amnesty International's secretary-general, said: "No individual can be placed outside the protection of the rule of law, and no government can hold itself above the rule of law.
"The US government must end this travesty of justice."
Five years
The first detainees flown to Guantanamo five years ago were captured in the US-led war on Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
Harry Harris, a navy commander of the detention centre, said: "What we are doing is an important and integral part of the global war on terror."
"We're keeping enemies of our nation, enemy combatants, or terrorists if you will, off the battlefield.
"We don't do anything today that's coercive in nature. I believe we are doing things correctly here."
The detention camp itself has undergone a transformation since the early days when prisoners were kept in metal open-air cages and used buckets for toilets.
Jumana Musa, Amnesty's advocacy director for international justice, told Al Jazeera: "People ask, have conditions improved since it was opened five years ago? Absolutely.
"But one of the things that is a lot less tangible and harder to understand is not the physical abuses, but the mental pressure, the mental stress and the psychological strain of indefinite arbitrary detention."
James Carafarno, Heritage Foundation expert on military affairs, however, denied this interpretation.
More
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2CC001B4-5CFE-4E9E-A83D-A76D39989715.htm
Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based centre for constitutional rights, said: "It has become iconic in the Muslim world and the wider world ... for everything that the US has done wrong in the war on terror."
Irene Khan, Amnesty International's secretary-general, said: "No individual can be placed outside the protection of the rule of law, and no government can hold itself above the rule of law.
"The US government must end this travesty of justice."
Five years
The first detainees flown to Guantanamo five years ago were captured in the US-led war on Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
Harry Harris, a navy commander of the detention centre, said: "What we are doing is an important and integral part of the global war on terror."
"We're keeping enemies of our nation, enemy combatants, or terrorists if you will, off the battlefield.
"We don't do anything today that's coercive in nature. I believe we are doing things correctly here."
The detention camp itself has undergone a transformation since the early days when prisoners were kept in metal open-air cages and used buckets for toilets.
Jumana Musa, Amnesty's advocacy director for international justice, told Al Jazeera: "People ask, have conditions improved since it was opened five years ago? Absolutely.
"But one of the things that is a lot less tangible and harder to understand is not the physical abuses, but the mental pressure, the mental stress and the psychological strain of indefinite arbitrary detention."
James Carafarno, Heritage Foundation expert on military affairs, however, denied this interpretation.
More
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/2CC001B4-5CFE-4E9E-A83D-A76D39989715.htm
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Relatives of some of the 400 prisoners held there will take part in the march, marking the fifth anniversary of the first "war on terror" detentions.
The facility was set up at a US base in Cuba after the invasion of Afghanistan, to interrogate "enemy combatants".
The treatment of the prisoners and the legal uncertainty about their fate have drawn international condemnation.
The protesters include a British former detainee, Asif Iqbal, the mother and brother of a current detainee, Omar Deghayes, and Cindy Sheehan, a well-known American peace activist.
Omar Deghayes' mother, Zohra Zewawi, says the pain she feels being so close to her imprisoned son with no chance of seeing him is excruciating.
Correspondents say the Cuban authorities are unlikely to allow the demonstrators to get close to the American-controlled area, and they will probably hold a vigil just outside the restricted Cuban military zone which surrounds the area.
More
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6250095.stm