u.s. defends guantanamo

US rejects Guantanamo closure call,The US is holding 490 men at the detention centre
17 February 2006

The White House has rejected a call from the United Nations for the closure of the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, insisting detainees held there are "dangerous terrorists".

A 54-page report published on Thursday detailed the findings of five UN experts who had sought to interview detainees at the detention centre but were refused by American authorities.

It recommended the US "close down the Guantanamo Bay detention centre and to refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment."

A spokesman for the White House, Scott McClellan dismissed the report as "a rehash" of previous allegations made by lawyers acting on behalf of some Guantanamo detainees.

"These are dangerous terrorists that we're talking about that are there," he said, "we know that al-Qaida terrorists are trained in trying to disseminate false allegations."

McClellan said the UN makes many serious investigations of human rights abuse but "this was not one of them."

He said the military treats all the prisoners humanely. ...

The five UN experts who authored the report had sought invitations from the US to visit Guantanamo Bay since 2002.

Three were invited last year, but refused in November after being told they could not interview detainees.

Only the International Committee of the Red Cross has been allowed to visit detainees at the camp, but the organisation keeps its findings confidential, reporting them solely to the detaining power. ...

The UN report's findings, which were being made public, were based on interviews with former detainees, public documents, media reports, lawyers and a questionnaire filled out by the US government. ...
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