GENEVA (Reuters) - United Nations human rights investigators on Friday called for access to prisoners held by U.S. forces in Iraq , Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay to check that international standards are upheld. In a rare joint statement, they said that key U.N. special rapporteurs on torture, the independence of judges and lawyers, the right to physical and mental health as well as independent U.N. experts on arbitrary detention should undertake a joint mission as soon as possible.
The appeal was issued after U.N. rights investigators held closed-door talks in Geneva on Wednesday on the effects of counter-terrorism measures on human rights worldwide.
It follows an international outcry over mistreatment of Iraqi detainees in U.S. custody at Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, sparked by photographs depicting U.S. soldiers hooding prisoners and using dogs to intimidate them. President Bush said this week that the U.S. government had never ordered and would never order detainees to be tortured.
The investigators would seek to "ascertain, each within the confines of their mandate, that international human rights standards are properly upheld with regard to these (detained) persons," according to the statement.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=1276&e=4&u=/nm/20040625/wl_nm/rights_prisoners_dc
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
