(AKI) - A group of independent human rights experts who advise the United Nations have welcomed US President-elect Barack Obama's decision to close the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, stressing it will end "a dark chapter in the country's history."
| How do you become a "human rights expert"? I think I've got the human part down, but I'm hazy on the rest of it. Is there some sort of course I could take, like "Recognizing atrocities 101"? |
In a statement issued in Geneva on Monday, four experts stated that "the regime applied at Guantanamo Bay neither allowed the guilty to be condemned nor secured that the innocent be released," adding that it also opened the door for serious human rights violations.
Following his election in November, Obama publicly stated his commitment to lead his administration's efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp and to strengthen the fight against torture. Both of which are part, he said, of his efforts "to regain America's moral stature in the world."
The experts strongly support his commitment which they said, in addition to restoring the moral stature of the US in the world, "will allow a dark chapter in the country's history to be closed and to advance in the protection of human rights."
Among those adding his name to the statement is the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, Martin Scheinin, who has warned that the US Government's system of military commissions planned for suspects detained at Guantanamo is unlikely to reach international standards on the right to a fair trial.
| Not that anyone knows what those standards are, but give Martin, Louise and Carla a couple decades and they'll come up with something ... |
In addition to being illegal, the experts said detention was "ineffective in criminal procedure terms," ...
| ... since it wasn't about criminal procedure in the first place ... |
... adding that similar severe abuses also occur at places of secret detention. "Thus, with the same emphasis, the experts urge that all secret detention places be closed and that persons detained therein be given due process."
| Unless they bomb the UN ... |
The experts stressed that detainees facing criminal charges must be provided fair trials before courts that afford all essential judicial guarantees.
| I'd settle for field hearings conducted under Protocols 1 and 2 of the Geneva Conventions ... |
"They emphatically reject any proposals that Guantanamo detainees could through new legislation be subjected to administrative detention, as this would only prolong their arbitrary detention," the statement said.
The experts, who function in an independent and unpaid capacity, report to the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council. |
