A Pentagon report has found conditions at the Guantanamo prison to be in line with the Geneva Conventions, but called for the isolation of some inmates to be eased by allowing them more social contact and recreation.
The report also said the government needed to move quickly to help arrange the transfer of a group of Uighurs held at the prison who have been cleared of wrongdoing.
Admiral Patrick Walsh, who presented the review’s findings on Monday, said providing high-security detainees the chance for more social activity was “essential to maintain humane treatment over time.”
“In our opinion, the key to socialization is providing more human-to-human contact; recreation activities with several detainees together; intellectual stimulation and group prayer,” Walsh told a news conference.
The review was met with criticism by rights groups, who cited it as proof that US President Barack Obama had failed to make a clean break with the previous administration on the treatment of “war on terror” suspects.
Guantanamo detainees “continue to be held in inhumane conditions that violate US obligations under [the] Geneva Conventions, the US Constitution and international human rights law,” the Center for Constitutional Rights said.
“The majority of detainees are being held in condition of solitary confinement,” the group said. “Sensory deprivation, environmental manipulation and sleep deprivation are daily realities for these men.”
The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday called the review a “whitewash,” demanding an independent review of the prison.
The Pentagon review of Guantanamo — required as part of an executive order issued by Obama last month mandating the closure of the detention camp — was released as Attorney-General Eric Holder traveled on Monday to Guantanamo to get a first-hand look at the prison.
The review called for swift government action to release a group of 17 Uighurs from China who have been cleared of terror links but remain under detention.
The US government has tried unsuccessfully for several years to arrange the transfer of the Uighurs to a third country, as Washington fears they face the risk of persecution if they return to China.
Human rights groups have urged the government to release the Uighurs within the US to areas where there are Uighur communities.
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
DEFENSE: The US would assist Taiwan in developing a new command and control system, and it would be based on the US-made Link-22, a senior official said The Ministry of National Defense is to propose a special budget to replace the military’s currently fielded command and control system, bolster defensive resilience and acquire more attack drones, a senior defense official said yesterday. The budget would be presented to the legislature in August, the source said on condition of anonymity. Taiwan’s decade-old Syun An (迅安, “Swift Security”) command and control system is a derivative of Lockheed Martin’s Link-16 developed under Washington’s auspices, they said. The Syun An system is difficult to operate, increasingly obsolete and has unresolved problems related to integrating disparate tactical data across the three branches of the military,
RSS