- On the day America marked its 229th birthday, lawmakers
from 55 countries received a report criticising the handling of prisoners
at the U.S. military base at Guantanamo and called for its closure.
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- Though the 15-page report to members of the Organization
for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Parliamentary Assembly absolved
the U.S. of torture and abuse claims at the detention facility, it argued
that the facility is ineffective in fighting the "war on terrorism"
and damaged the U.S. reputation, particularly among democratic countries.
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- "We know it is not possible for closure in two weeks...
but a one- or two-year calendar should be drafted for closure of this jail,"
said the report's author, Anne-Marie Lizin, speaker of the Senate in Belgium
and executive secretary of the assembly's Committee on Democracy, Human
Rights and Humanitarian Questions.
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- U.S. Representative Alcee Hastings, who is also the president
of the Parliamentary Assembly, declined a request for an American reply
to the report but noted that "there is robust debate in the United
States about Guantanamo." The report will contribute to that discussion,
he said.
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- Hastings and Representative Steny Hoyer called the report
"balanced," and said they wanted further U.S. hearings on the
facility.
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- According to Hastings, although he did not endorse the
call for closing the facility, "I have strong feelings about the holding
of people without trial."
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- The Bush administration has consistently refused to close
the Guantanamo center claiming it is producing valuable intelligence in
the "war against terrorism".
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- The report found that the transfer of prisoners to Guantanamo
"at the time was justified by reasons of security," it added
that the "exceptional procedures set up did not always function in
an appropriate manner."
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- Instead, the report suggests that imprisonment has furthered
"a deep hatred of the United States" in prisoners who already
held strong religious and political beliefs contrary to American interests.
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- It also argues that many of those detained at Guantanamo
"are there by mistake or are only second-rate combatants who know
very little about theplots of Al-Qaeda leaders."
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- Although Lizin said the U.S. military refused several
requests for assembly members to inspect the facility, the report indicates
there was sufficient information from members of Congress, the Pentagon
and observers who have visited the prison to reach conclusions and make
recommendations.
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- It concludes that, although interrogation techniques
used on prisoners at Guantanamo "are hard..., they do not constitute
acts that would be considered torture."
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- The report predicts that leaving the Guantanamo facility
open "will become completely counter-productive," also warning
that real or supposed abuses could seriously affect the treatment of American
military personnel in future conflicts.
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- Gitmo shutdown protests
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- Feminist author Gloria Steinem on Monday joined about
200 protesters to demand the closure of Gitmo, saying holding prisoners
indefinitely without charging them violates the values upon which the United
States was founded.
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- Steinem compared Guantanamo to the kind of autocratic
rule early colonists were trying to flee from.
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- "They came to escape the very things - detention
without due process, bias, a religious government ... that we protest today,"
Steinem said.
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- Some detainees have been held at the camp in Cuba for
more than three years without being charged. The U.S. government contends
the prisoners are "enemy combatants" and are not entitled to
constitutional protections.
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- Rachel Meeropol, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional
Rights that has filed lawsuits in federal court challenging the detentions,
also addressed the crowd.
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- The Bush administration "has claimed the power to
kidnap men anywhere in the world and hold them, interrogate them, detain
them without any process of law," said Meeropol, the granddaughter
of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed in 1953 after being convicted
of conspiring to commit espionage for the Soviet Union.
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- http://www.aljazeera.com/me.asp?service_ID=8790
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