Amnesty International
Feature, 24/12/2003
According to the USA's National Security Strategy, "America must stand firmly for the non-negotiable demands of human dignity", including "the rule of law" and "limits on the absolute power of the state". Its National Strategy for Combating Terrorism concludes by saying much the same thing, and adds: "We understand that a world in which these values are embraced as standards, not exceptions, will be the best antidote to the spread of terrorism. This is the world we must build today".
Instead the USA built a prison camp at its military base in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba and filled it with detainees from around the world, including a number of children. See USA: Rights of children must be respected. AI Index: AMR 51/058/2003, 25 April 2003. and USA: The threat of a bad example: Undermining international standards as "war on terror" detentions continue, AI Index: AMR 51/114/2003, August 2003. Two years after the first of these prisoners arrived, Camp X-Ray and its successor, Camp Delta, have become synonymous with a government's pursuit of unfettered executive power and disregard for the rule of law. As detainees enter their third year held in tiny cells for up to 24 hours a day without any legal process, it seems that the current US administration views human dignity as far from non-negotiable when it comes to "national security".
... International law has been flouted from the outset. None of the detainees was granted prisoner of war status or brought before a competent tribunal to determine their status, as the Geneva Conventions require. None has been granted access to a court to be able to challenge the lawfulness of their detention, as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights demands. Lawyers have been denied access to the detainees, as have relatives. Hundreds of distressed families have become the "collateral damage" of this shameful policy.
... Given the USA's criticism of the human rights record of Cuba, it is deeply ironic that it is violating fundamental rights on Cuban soil, and seeking to rely on the fact that it is on Cuban soil to keep the US courts from examining its conduct. Better late than never, however, there are signs that the courts will not take this lying down. On 18 December 2003, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a decision in a case brought for Libyan national Faren Gherebi, among the first transferred to Cuba and still held there: "Even in times of national emergency - indeed, particularly in such times - it is the obligation of the Judicial Branch to ensure the preservation of our constitutional values and to prevent the Executive Branch from running roughshod over the rights of citizens and aliens alike." The Court continued: "Under the government's theory, it is free to imprison Gherebi indefinitely along with hundreds of other citizens of foreign countries, friendly nations among them, and to do with Gherebi and these detainees as it will, when it pleases, without any compliance with any rule of law of any kind... Indeed, at oral argument, the government advised us that its position would be the same even if the claims were that it was engaging in acts of torture or that it was summarily executing the detainees... It is the first time that the government has announced such an extraordinary set of principles - a position so extreme that it raises the gravest concerns under both American and international law".
More...
http://news.amnesty.org/mav/index/ENGAMR512412032003
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