UN report denounces US torture and calls for closure of Guantánamo prison camp

The probe was conducted by a five-member panel of the UN Commission on Human Rights. Its report says detainees at the US facility have been subjected to force-feeding, prolonged solitary confinement and other abuses, and have been denied the right to a fair trial, as well as religious freedom.

The UN panel rejects the legal arguments made by the US to justify its detention of prisoners as “enemy combatants,” and calls for the detainees to either be immediately released or brought to trial. It also calls for the US to revoke all special interrogation techniques authorized by the Defense Department.

In the view of the report’s authors, “The legal regime applied to these detainees seriously undermines the rule of law and a number of fundamental universally recognized human rights, which are the essence of democratic societies.”

The US government immediately attacked the report and made clear it had no intention of accepting its findings. The abusive and dismissive US response was an implicit affirmation that Washington did not consider itself in any way bound by the recommendations of the United Nations or any other international body or legal convention.

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http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/un-f17.shtml