GCC states urged to pressure US
http://archive.gulfnews.com/region/Bahrain/10095345.html
01/07/2007 10:34 PM | By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief
Manama: A rights watchdog has called for pressure from Gulf Cooperation Council countries on the United States to release their citizens held at Guantanamo Bay.
“The GCC states should assume their crucial role in protecting the rights of their citizens by using their long-standing and extensive ties with the United States to demand the repatriation of the Gulf nationals who have been incarcerated for five years,” vice-president of the now-dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) Nabeel Rajab told Gulf News on Sunday.
GCC states urged to pressure US
http://archive.gulfnews.com/region/Bahrain/10095345.html
01/07/2007 10:34 PM | By Habib Toumi, Bureau Chief
Manama: A rights watchdog has called for pressure from Gulf Cooperation Council countries on the United States to release their citizens held at Guantanamo Bay.
“The GCC states should assume their crucial role in protecting the rights of their citizens by using their long-standing and extensive ties with the United States to demand the repatriation of the Gulf nationals who have been incarcerated for five years,” vice-president of the now-dissolved Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) Nabeel Rajab told Gulf News on Sunday.
The activist said the GCC states should emulate the example of Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh who last month called on the United States to hand over Yemeni citizens who are held without trial at Guantanamo Bay.
“We urge the GCC governments to take similar steps to demand the return of their citizens who are being illegally detained at the prison,” the activist said, ahead of the fifth anniversary of the day when the men were first brought to Guantanamo Bay on January 11, 2002.
“January 11 will mark the fifth year in an ongoing humanitarian travesty. The human rights of detainees and their families have been violated for too long. It is time to bring home the remaining people from Guantanamo Bay,” Rajab said.
Two Bahrainis are still held at Guantanamo after the authorities released three in 2005 and one in 2006.
According to Rajab, Yemen’s move indicates that other countries in the region could speak out directly on behalf of their own citizens against the US government’s “disastrous policy in the war on terror”.
“The Gulf and US governments have long-standing and extensive ties. We expect that if this demand was made by such a close ally to the United States, it would surely merit some positive action from their government,” he said.
Rajab said the United States blatantly violated Articles 9, 10 and 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by continuing to hold prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, which he likened to “legal equivalent of outer space” since detainees cannot be tried in US courts while the US government refuses to grant them full PoW status.
“For these reasons, BCHR joins countless … international rights organisations in calling for the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp to be shut down and for the immediate repatriation of GCC citizens who are being held there extrajudicially,” he said.