Despite the near-universal outrage generated by the photographs coming out of Abu Ghraib, and the evidence suggesting that such practices are being applied to other prisoners held by the USA in Afghanistan, Guantánamo and elsewhere, neither the US administration nor the US Congress has called for a full and independent investigation.
Instead, the US government has gone to great lengths to restrict the application of the Geneva Conventions and to “re-define” torture. It has sought to justify the use of coercive interrogation techniques, the practice of holding “ghost detainees” (people in unacknowledged incommunicado detention) and the "rendering" or handing over of prisoners to third countries known to practise torture. The detention facility at Guantánamo Bay has become the gulag of our times, entrenching the practice of arbitrary and indefinite detention in violation of international law. Trials by military commissions have made a mockery of justice and due process.
Stati Uniti e Gran Bretagna hanno tradito la causa del
rispetto dei diritti umani per attuare la loro guerra al
terrorismo. Lo ha dichiarato ieri il segretario generale di
Amnesty International, Irene Kahn, durante la presentazione
del rapporto annuale dell'organizzazione. Kahn ha
condannato la situazione della base militare americana di
Guantanamo dove sono ancora detenuti centinaia di
prigionieri arrestati, per la maggior parte durante la
campagna militare statunitense in Afghanistan. Amnesty ha
definito Guantanamo "il gulag del nostro tempo".
