The Hindu : International : Fears over Guantanamo Bay trial standards

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Aug 25, 2004

International

International

Fears over Guantanamo Bay trial standards

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, AUG. 24. As the U.S. military gears up for the trials at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, human rights activists and organisations have objected to the way in which these are being conducted including denial of access to key participants in the Commission's proceedings.

Representatives of the American Civil Liberties Union, Amnesty International, Human Rights First and Human Rights watch have expressed concern that the denial impeded their ability "to effectively access the proceeding's compliance with international fair trial standards."

According to a joint statement of NGO Observers, representatives of these groups, which have arrived at the Base to watch the proceedings that will start later in the day, have been denied by Defence officials a request to meet the presiding officer, prosecution attorneys, military commission translators and law clerks.

The observers have also been denied from accompanying the 53 members of the national and international media who were granted access to detention facilities at the Base.

'Sadistic game'

The Washington Post has reported that an army investigation report which could be released this Wednesday will say that military dogs were used to frighten detained Iraqi teenagers as a part of a `sadistic' game.

"It has nothing to do with interrogation. It was just them on their own being weird," an Army officer familiar with the report says of the two military police dog handlers who terrified the kids.

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