Gulf Daily News – 12 July 2006
By Kanwal Tariq Hameed
PEOPLE are being urged to join a demonstration in front of UN House, Hoora, at 6pm on Saturday, calling for the immediate release of Bahrain’s three detainees at Guantanamo Bay,
It will also call for the closure of the prison camp, said National Release Campaign Committee spokesman Nasser Al Fadhala. He said that the event would coincide with similar demonstrations being held around the world in front of UN Houses.
HUMAN rights activists in Bahrain have welcomed a decision by the US government to apply the minimum standards of the Geneva Convention to Guantanamo Bay detainees.
Gulf Daily News – 12 July 2006
By Kanwal Tariq HameedPEOPLE are being urged to join a demonstration in front of UN House, Hoora, at 6pm on Saturday, calling for the immediate release of Bahrain’s three detainees at Guantanamo Bay,
It will also call for the closure of the prison camp, said National Release Campaign Committee spokesman Nasser Al Fadhala. He said that the event would coincide with similar demonstrations being held around the world in front of UN Houses.
HUMAN rights activists in Bahrain have welcomed a decision by the US government to apply the minimum standards of the Geneva Convention to Guantanamo Bay detainees.
In an apparent reversal of policy, the White House said yesterday that all detainees held at Guantanamo Bay and in US military custody around the world are entitled to minimum protection under the Geneva Convention.
Bahraini MPs and activists welcomed the move and urged the US government to follow it up by closing the widely criticised prison camp in Cuba. The policy is detailed in a Defence Department memo and follows a Supreme Court decision blocking “unlawful” military tribunals set up by President George Bush for Guantanamo Bay detainees.
The US government has previously said that Guantanamo Bay detainees are not conventional prisoners of war and therefore did not qualify for protection under the Geneva Convention.
“We expect that once prisoners are under the Geneva Convention the conditions and treatment at the prison will improve,” said president of the now-dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR), who has pressured for the release of Bahrainis at Guantanamo Bay.
“According to the Geneva Convention they should be treated as prisoners of war and come under the international humanitarian law which governs situations in a time of war.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International (AI) Bahrain co-ordinator Nasser Burdestani said he hoped Guantanamo Bay would soon become a part of history. “I hear from several sources that there are moves to close Guantanamo by the end of the year – and we hope that this will be the end of this,” he said. “We hope those who are there are given the chance for a fair trial after more than four years of injustice.”
He said people who have been held at the prison should be entitled to compensation.
Meanwhile, parliament first vice-chairman MP Abdulhadi Marhoon said the move was the result of global pressure on the US.
“All of the world supported human rights. As Bahrainis we have had many events to support our detainees – and also the others as human beings. “Americans should understand also that this prison should be closed.
“With Bahraini (prisoners) in it or not, it is against civilisation and human rights, especially because Americans are, as they say, a great democratic country.
Mr Marhoon said the treatment of detainees “brought civilisation backwards by treating people at Guantanamo like latter-day slaves”.
“These are men without rights, their owner controls everything,” he said.
MPs have sent a letter to the US Congress calling for its help in ending the incarceration of three Bahraini detainees still being held at Guantanamo Bay. They are Isa Al Murbati, aged 42, Salah Abdul Rasool Al Blooshi, 24, and Juma Al Dossary, 32