- US treatment of Camp X-Ray prisoners will boost recruits
to Islamic terrorist groups, a Hamas extremist warned last night.
-
- Amid fears that America is committing political suicide
by ignoring world concerns about the suspects, Hassan Yousef said:
"The
US is doing wrong by treating prisoners like this.
-
- "But in the end it's going to benefit Muslim groups
like us because people will sympathise and the number of sympathisers will
swell."
-
- Yousef spoke out after pictures of a shackled al-Qaeda
suspect being taken for interrogation on a stretcher brought fresh
condemnation
of conditions at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. In Britain, MPs spoke
of "barbarism" and "snatching defeat from
victory."
-
- Labour MP Tam Dalyell said: "There is a hooligan
element in the US administration who take pleasure in defying world
opinion."
-
- Writing in the Washington Post Adam Burton, Professor
of International Relations at Oxford University, warned the Americans that
Camp X-Ray was a "PR disaster" and the row that followed "a
dialogue of the deaf."
-
- But the grimmest warning came from Hamas chief Yousef
who said there was "no doubt" the shocking pictures would incite
young extremists to join a holy war.
-
- Hamas is responsible for most suicide bomb attacks in
Israel in the past 16 months. Speaking in the Palestinian West Bank town
of Ramallah, Yousef told The Mirror: "America's position to the Arab
world after September 11 is encouraging people to join Islam.
-
- "Its treatment of prisoners in Cuba will add to
this. They are terrible pictures. Tens of thousands of people have already
joined Islam since the US attacked Muslims.
-
- "If the US continues what it is doing then this
will keep rising, which will be good for us.
-
- "It is human nature - people sympathise with the
weak and those who have been treated unjustly.
-
- "There is an Arab saying 'When someone does
something
wrong to you, in the end it may benefit you'. This is very true in this
case."
-
- Last night it emerged that two of the 158 prisoners at
Camp X-Ray are being treated for mental disorders and two for malaria,
which they caught in Afghanistan. The other two were "getting
better"
after treatment for stress and manic depression.
-
- The latest pictures from the base show a suspect who
had just had surgery being stretchered away.
-
- Pentagon officials first said prisoners were being
transferred
around the camp. Then they admitted they were being taken for
questioning.
-
- X-Ray Petty Officer Krystyna Johnson said: "If a
detainee can walk, he walks. If he can't walk, and must be moved, we carry
him on a stretcher."
-
- Base commander Brigadier General Mike Lehnert said
prisoners
were being treated as close as possible to the terms of the Geneva
Convention.
-
- He added: "The questioning is within normal legal
procedures.
-
- "There is no torture, whips, bright lights or
drugging.
These men are dangerous and can hurt you. But they also require humane
treatment." But his comments failed to ease fears that America's
action
in Cuba and its dismissal of worldwide criticism, was storing dire trouble
for the future.
-
- Mr Dalyell said: "Pictures like this seem to put
the West on the same level as al-Qaeda. They go against everything the
US is supposed to stand for."
-
- Labour MP Vera Baird said: "This is quite appalling.
If the prisoner is strapped down like this to be conveyed across an already
heavily guarded compound, it makes you wonder what happens when he is
actually
interrogated.
-
- "There are huge human rights questions here. It's
about time our government made some very serious representations to
President
Bush."
-
- Another Labour MP, Paul Flynn, added: "These
pictures
confirm that the Americans seem intent on snatching defeat from the jaws
of victory. You can't fight barbarism with barbarism." Lib Dem defence
spokesman Paul Keetch said: "We must not stoop to the depths of
terrorists.
These images will only turn these people into martyrs."
-
- Former MP and war correspondent Martin Bell said:
"We
are supposed to stand for certain civilised values. We do not shackle
prisoners
to stretchers."
-
- Professor Burton warned in the Washington Post that the
US action could unleash a savage reaction.
-
- He said: "The Bush administration has appeared
distressingly
impervious to criticism.
-
- "How it handles this crisis has implications for
detainees held elsewhere - as well as any Americans, or their allies, who
may yet be captured."
-
- Dr Sayed Pasha, of the Union of Muslim Organisations,
urged the Red Cross to take legal action against the US.
-
- He said: "These pictures prove once again that
America
is showing no regard to human rights."
-
- Amnesty International said: "If the prisoners are
being moved on stretchers for medical help, that is acceptable.
-
- But if they are shackled and stretchered off to be
interrogated,
we have serious issues with that."
-
- Sadek Hamid, 30, a Muslim community worker in Manchester,
also warned that the Camp X-Ray pictures will rouse passions among
extremists.
-
- He said: "What's going on there? Is it a detention
centre or a concentration camp? On a wider scale, internationally, it is
not helping.
-
- "People are saying 'If you treat our people badly,
we'll treat your people badly'."
-
- The US is holding 158 suspects, including three Britons,
in open cells.
-
- It says the prisoners are being treated in line with
Geneva. But it refuses to give them prisoner of war status, calling them
"unlawful combatants."
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- http://www.mirror.co.uk
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