 LONDON - Leading human rights groups on Thursday called on the British government to intervene in the ongoing hunger strike of an estimated 210 detainees at Guantanamo Bay, the US military base on Cuba.
Amnesty International and the pressure group Reprieve said at least six British residents were among detainees currently refusing food in protest against their continuing detention without charge or trial.
The two groups have written to Prime Minister Tony Blair seeking assurances that ministers will seek a pledge from US authorities to allow independent observers access to all hunger strikers. At a news conference in London, Amnestyâs director Kate Allen said: âReports emerging from the camp concerning the treatment of hunger strikers are disturbing to us, anyway and underline the need for an immediate resolution.â
âWe need to see the UK Government intervening to prevent deaths and injuries and to see that all detainees - including at least six UK residents on hunger strike - are either properly tried or immediately released in accordance with international human rights law,â she said.
Reprieveâs legal director, Clive Stafford Smith, a lawyer who is acting for 40 Guantanamo Bay detainees, said: âConditions there at the best of times are disturbing.
âBut to imagine my clients being held in four point restraints with a tube forced down their noses, after all that they have been through, just makes me sick,â he said.
All the prisoners were asking for was that the US military abide by the Geneva Conventions, added Stafford Smith.
| They are. We've determined that the GC doesn't apply to them. |
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