Thursday, 31 May 2007MIAMI ÔÇö The US military announced on Thursday, 31, that a Saudi was found dead in his cell in Guantanamo apparently after taking his own life, with human rights activists and lawyers insisting this was not surprising in view of the harsh situation in the notorious detention camp.
"The detainee was found unresponsive and not breathing in his cell by guards," the US Southern Command in Miami said in a statement cited by Agence France-Presse (AFP).
It said the detainee was pronounced dead by a physician "after all lifesaving measures had been exhausted."
The military did not indicate how the Saudi, who was not identified by name, died.
Lawyer Julia Tarver Mason, whose firm represents eight Saudi detainees, said she has tried so far without success to learn whether the deceased was one of her clients.
"They are in the care of the United States government and that should mean that deaths should not occur," Mason said.
This is the fourth detainee to die of apparent suicide at the infamous detention camp, where the US has been holding hundreds of terror suspects for years without charges or trials.
In June last year, two Saudis and a Yemeni hanged themselves with sheets at the camp.
US officials had stirred worldwide outrage at the time by describing those suicides as "an act of asymmetric warfare" and "a good PR move" on the part of the detainees.
Human rights groups say there have been dozens more suicide attempts by detainees, many of whom are held in isolation.
Not Surprising
In Washington, Amnesty International advocacy director Jumana Musa said the news of another Guantanamo suicide was not surprising.
"When you look at the conditions that people are in, so many people are in isolation so many people held without any kind of certainty. It's a really extreme result of what's a really extreme situation," she said.
"I don't know how many more indications need to be there that Guantanamo is not a good idea."
The US has come under heavy fire over the indefinite detention of Guantanamo detainees.
"In the last year, the conditions at Guantanamo have become even more bleak: the military has increasingly held people in solitary confinement and continued to refuse to allow independent psychological evaluations," said Wells Dixon, staff attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York.
"The United States government is responsible for this man's death and must be held accountable."
Marc Falkoff, who is part of a team of attorneys representing 17 Yemeni detainees, said suicide attempts should be expected given the conditions at Guantanamo.
"We've said all along that the guys are going to try to take their lives and that appears to be what happened here," he added.
"It's just incredibly sad and it wouldn't happen if these guys were just given their day in court."
Attorneys have repeatedly appealed to lawmakers to reverse provisions of the hotly debated Military Commissions Act of 2006, which blocked federal courts from hearing challenges from detainees designated "enemy combatants."
The US Supreme Court in April handed the Bush administration a key victory by ruling dozens of Guantanamo detainees had no right to challenge their detention in federal court.
Defense attorneys said the suicide was likely an act of desperation at a prison camp where detainees are denied access to civilian courts and isolated in their cells for up to 22 hours a day.
"You have five and a half years of desperation there with no legal way out," said Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.
"Sadly, it leads to people being so desperate they take their own lives."
June 1, 2007
Islam Online |
Thursday, 31 May 2007
US
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