US detention centres violated human rights: UN report

NEW YORK - Secret detention centres set up by the US at Guantanamo Bay and other places after the 9/11 terror attacks have violated basic human rights of detainees, a UN report has said.

The US is among dozens of countries that have kidnapped suspects, said the report prepared by four independent human rights investigators of the UN.

“On a global scale, secret detention in connection with counter-terrorist policies remains a serious problem,” they wrote in the 226-page report which is expected to be presented to the UN Human Rights Council in March, Press TV reported.

“Secret detention as such may constitute torture or ill-treatment for the direct victims as well as their families,” the investigators said, adding that the victims and their families deserve compensation and those responsible should be prosecuted.

The report said that the purpose of the secret detentions was to cover up torture and inhuman treatment of the detainees in an effort to obtain information.

After the Sep 11, 2001 attack, the then US President George W Bush declared a global “war on terror” and set up the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and other “black sites” where Al Qaeda detainees were beyond the reach of domestic courts, the report said.

The investigators said that such facilities were banned under the international law laid out in the Geneva conventions and establishment of secret detention could not be justified under any circumstances.

The study, led by the UN Special Rapporteur On Torture Manfred Nowak and the Special Rapporteur on Terrorism and Human Rights Martin Scheinin, said: “The secret detention policy took many forms”.

“The CIA established its own secret detention facilities to interrogate the so-called ‘High Value Detainees’. It asked partners with poor human rights records to secretly detain and interrogate persons on its behalf.”

Prisoners were held incommunicado and deprived of basic rights to trial, a lawyer, and contacts with their relatives, the report said.

The investigators also cited comments by some former detainees who said that they were subjected to torture including being kept naked or subjected to loud noises or sleep deprivation during their secret detention.

They observed that under the unlawful practice, known as extraordinary rendition, detainees also appeared to have been sent to allied countries, including Thailand, Poland and Romania.

“The CIA appears to generally have been involved in the capture and transfer of prisoners, as well as in providing questions for those held in foreign prisons,” it said.

Asking clarification on what had happened to detainees held in Iraq or Afghanistan, the investigators said “little is known about the amount of detainees who have been held at the request of other states such as the United Kingdom and Canada”.