U.N. human rights investigators criticized the United States on Thursday for failing to take steps to close the Guantanamo Bay military prison for terror suspects, which they say facilitates torture and violates international law.
In the first U.N.-sanctioned inquiry into U.S. practices at Guantanamo, the rights experts also criticized the Bush administration for a proposed law they said might permit torture in certain circumstances.
The experts presented their report on Guantanamo and its 450 detainees to the 47-nation U.N. Human Rights Council, a summary of which was released earlier this year.
``We note with the greatest concern that the government has not taken any steps to close Guantanamo,'' the rights experts said in a joint statement read by Algerian Leila Zerrougui, a specialist on arbitrary detention. ``Indeed, a new block has been built and is set to open this month.''
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