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May 29, 2002
WASHINGTON -- The United States and some of its allies are misusing the war on terrorism to deny basic human rights to thousands of detainees, including hundreds of al-Qaida suspects incarcerated at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, Amnesty International charged Tuesday.
In its annual state-of-the-world report, the organization said the Bush administration has lost its moral authority to criticize human rights abuses abroad through its own failure to guarantee the rights of foreigners detained in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
U.S. officials have been "selective" in applying Geneva Convention guarantees to these prisoners, the report said, and "in suggesting that national security may require compromises on human rights here at home, the U.S. government risks signaling its allies that 'anything goes' in their own human rights practices."
Administration officials replied that tough, speedy measures are needed to destroy al-Qaida and prevent future terrorist attacks like those on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and that prisoners must be kept from communicating with outside accomplices. Many have been held in solitary confinement.
Speaking in support of new powers of search, detention and surveillance that Congress granted the Bush administration, Attorney General John Ashcroft told a Senate subcommittee earlier this year: "One option is to call Sept. 11 a fluke and to live in a dream world that requires us to do nothing different. The other option is to fight back."
Amnesty International officials singled out for criticism the creation of U.S. military tribunals to try alleged terrorists and the indefinite detention of some suspects without access to counsel. Echoing the views of other civil rights advocates, the report said these military commissions establish "a parallel system of justice that concentrates power in the executive branch without a judicial appeals process."
Irene Khan, Amnesty's secretary-general, said that the United States was setting an unfortunate example by refusing to classify suspects held at Guantanamo as prisoners of war, a category that would limit the extent to which they could be interrogated.
"A very dangerous message is sent when the pillars (of human rights) are attacked," Khan said. "The edifice could crumble."
Victoria Clarke, the Defense Department's chief spokeswoman, insisted Tuesday that the detainees are being treated humanely, that they have the right to worship as they please and enjoy more rights than al-Qaida fighters were willing to grant their opponents.
William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty's U.S. branch, told reporters that "the U.S. government fails to understand that human rights are far from an impediment to national security -- they are the foundation."
Schulz said President Bush in recent months has avoided pressing other nations to eliminate human rights abuses for fear of weakening the U.S.-led alliance against international terrorism.
"As it works to maintain a global coalition for its war on terrorism, the U.S. government has instituted a self-imposed gag order, stifling its criticism of the human rights practices of many old and new allies," he said.