- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
United States is holding terrorism suspects in more than two dozen detention
centers worldwide and about half of these operate in total secrecy, said
a human rights report released on Thursday.
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- Human Rights First, formerly known as the Lawyers Committee
for Human Rights, said in a report that secrecy surrounding these facilities
made "inappropriate detention and abuse not only likely but inevitable."
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- "The abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib cannot
be addressed in isolation," said Deborah Pearlstein, director of the
group's U.S. Law and Security program, referring to the U.S. Naval base
prison in Cuba and Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq where abuses are being investigated.
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- "This is all about secrecy, accountability and the
law," Pearlstein told a news conference.
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- The report coincided with news that Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld ordered military officials to hold a suspect in a prison
near Baghdad without telling the Red Cross. Pearlstein said this would
be a violation of the Geneva Conventions and Defense Department directives.
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- She said thousands of security detainees were being held
by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as locations elsewhere
which the military refused to disclose.
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- "The U.S. government is holding prisoners in a secret
system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision, accountability
of law," said the report.
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- LIST OF DETENTION CENTERS
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- Pearlstein said multiple sources reported U.S. detention
centers in, among other places, Kohat in Pakistan near the border with
Afghanistan, on the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia and at Al Jafr
prison in Jordan, where the group said the CIA had an interrogation facility.
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- Prisoners are also being held at the Naval Consolidated
Brig in Charleston, South Carolina, and others were suspected of being
held on U.S. warships.
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- A defense department spokesman told Reuters he would
comment when he had more information about the report.
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- Pearlstein called for the U.S. authorities to end "secret
detentions," provide a list of prisoners, investigate abuses and allow
the International Committee of the Red Cross unfettered access to detainees.
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- U.S. treatment of detainees came under the spotlight
after disturbing photos were leaked to the media showing U.S. soldiers
abusing Iraqi prisoners.
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- The United States is conducting several investigations
into these abuses but Pearlstein said these were not enough and a full
court of inquiry should be ordered.
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- Families of suspects detained by U.S. authorities have
complained strongly about the lack of information about detainees held
by U.S. authorities since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks against the United
States.
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- Pakistani Farhat Paracha said via a telephone link-up
at the news conference that she tried for weeks to find her husband, Saifullah
Paracha, who disappeared last June when he took a business trip from Pakistan
to Thailand.
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- Paracha said she asked the U.S. and Pakistani governments
to track him down and only learned about his whereabouts when the Red Cross
contacted her six weeks later to say her husband was being held at Bagram
Air Force Base in Afghanistan.
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- "I feel disgusted. It makes my heart sink. I feel
so powerless and so helpless," said Paracha.
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