Human Rights Violations at Guantanamo Bay

Paper Summary:

This paper explains that, since January 2002, hundreds of foreign nationals are being held in prison camps at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base without access to any court, legal counsel or family visits because the U.S. government classifies the prisoners as illegal enemy combatants, while refusing to bring them before a "competent tribunal" to determine their status, as required by Article 5 of the Third Geneva Convention. The author points out that list of human rights abuses by the U.S. authorities at the Guantanamo Bay prison camps is long and scandalous starting with their transportation to the makeshift "X-Ray Camp" in January 2002, when prisoners from Afghanistan were shifted in airplanes while being chained and shackled and forced to wear painted goggles and earmuffs so they could not see or hear anything. The paper contends that, if the U.S. administration is interested in restoring its credibility, it should put the Guantanamo prisoners on trial under the due process of law or release them immediately.

Table of Contents
Status of Prisoners Not Revealed
Illegal Position of US Authorities
Human Rights Abuses at Guantanamo Bay
Conclusion

From the Paper:

"In November 2001, President Bush signed a Military Order for the setting up of military commissions to try the detainees at Guantanamo Bay; the commissions were given the powers to hand down death sentences against whose decision there was no right of appeal to any court. The first trials under the Commission were scheduled for December 2004 and would have been a mockery of the U.S. Justice System as the commissions lacked independence; the defendants had no right to choose their own counsel for an effective defense; and lower standards of evidence were acceptable to the commissions including evidence extracted under torture or coercion. This order too was ruled as illegal on November 9, 2004 when a U.S. District Court Judge held that the Bush Administration had overstepped its authority to try such prisoners as enemy combatants in a military tribunal while denying them access to the evidence used against them. The U.S. government has appealed against the ruling."

More papers on Human Rights Violations at Guantanamo Bay:

• Essay # 143949 : "Guantanamo Bay And Human Rights"
• Term Paper # 134930 : "Detainees at Guantanamo Bay: Is Due Process Their Right?"
• Essay # 5377 : "The United Nations and Human Rights Violations"

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