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  Tuesday  January 22  2002    01: 05 AM

Camp X-Ray

Craig, at BookNotes, had these links which are worth repeating.

Brutal conditions inside Cuban cage

The latest photographs from Camp X-Ray show the harsh, brutal conditions at Cuba's Guantanamo Bay. Dressed in bright orange overalls, some with tight- fitting orange hats covering their shaved heads, the imprisoned terrorists kneel face down behind barbed wire fences as army officers inspect them.

Since their eyes are covered with goggles and their faces hidden by white masks, it is impossible to identify them. Even their manacled hands are covered with black cloth.
(...)

Hicks has not been charged with any crime and public pressure is mounting on the Federal Government to bring him home to face justice, although it is unclear what, if any, laws he has broken.

"It concerns us greatly that he has been in custody for over a month now and still the US has not brought forward any charges or any allegations and they have not allowed him any legal representation," Mr Kenny said.

"If he is not a prisoner of war and they are alleging he is a criminal then he is entitled to be charged, he is entitled to know what those charges are, he is entitled to know the evidence against him and have access to legal representation."
[read more]

Bound, shaved, deprived of sight and sound - how to lose the moral high ground

The photograghs of the prisoners from Afghanistan, bound, shaven and deprived of sense of sight, sound, touch and even smell, confirm the folly of the United States in its determination to go it alone in dispensing justice to those responsible for the mass murders of last September.
[read more]

American action is unlawful, say legal experts

"The status of unlawful combatants that the US has given to them is not recognised in law," he said. "They can be categorised so that they are either people engaged in war against the invasion of Afghanistan or they are suspects linked to the conspiracy surrounding 11 September." To take neither course, Mr Mansfield warned, would be a breach of the Geneva Convention.
(...)

Stephen Solley QC, chairman of the Bar's human rights committee, said the treatment of the suspects was "so far removed from human rights norms that it [was] difficult to comprehend". He said even the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals more than 50 years ago were conducted with some dignity, and access to lawyers had not been an issue.
[read more]