UN rights experts call for US to address ongoing violations at ‘Kafkaesque’ Guantánamo military prison

This should include investigating alleged torture and other ill-treatment at the facility, which was set up to house foreign terrorist suspects in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on New York and Washington, said a statement from the UN rights office, OHCHR.

The new United States administration said on 12 February, it was launching the formal review in an effort to finally close the military prison, reviving a stalled effort to shutter it during the Obama administration, where Mr. Biden served as Vice President.

“We welcome the goal of closing the detention facility, consistent with our previous calls to end impunity for the human rights and humanitarian law violations committed during the ‘war on terror’” said the group of UN experts.

“As the 20th anniversary of 9/11 looms, we urge a transparent, comprehensive, and accountability-focused review of the operation and legacy of the prison and the military commissions”, they added.

The experts said that many of the remaining detainees are vulnerable and now elderly, according to the statement. In many cases, their physical and mental integrity has been compromised by “unending deprivation of freedom and related physical and psychological torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment”.

The independent experts stressed “the need to repudiate the policies of and practices that led to the creation of the prison and the military commissions, in order to prevent recurrence of practices that are in clear breach of international law.”

They also said it was now essential that those who had been subjected to enforced disappearance, arbitrary detention, torture and denied fundamental rights under international law – including right to a fair trial – were given adequate remedy and reparation.

The experts are calling on the US to ensure independent and impartial investigations and prosecutions of all credible allegations of violations committed including allegations of extraordinary rendition, torture, secret detention and unfair trial proceedings.

Source : UN News