UN experts urge Guantanamo closure

[Al-khiyal]

GENEVA (Reuters) - Five United Nations human rights experts on Wednesday urged the closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay after last week's suicides there that they said were predictable given the harsh conditions.

The experts, who have repeatedly asked for the detention facility in Cuba to be shut, said the simultaneous suicides of three inmates on June 10 heightened concerns about the mental health of the camp's approximately 460 detainees.

In a statement released in Geneva, the group said the three deaths were "to a certain extent foreseeable in light of the harsh and prolonged conditions of their detention and reinforces the need for the urgent closure of the detention center."

The two Saudis and one Yemeni who hung themselves with clothes and bedsheets were the first prisoners to die at Guantanamo since the United States began holding terrorism suspects at the base in 2002.

Facing indefinite detention, with none of the rights afforded formal prisoners of war or criminal suspects in the U.S. justice system, dozens of the detainees have undertaken hunger strikes and attempted suicide.

The five envoys are: Leila Zerrougui, who reports on arbitrary detention, fellow Algerian Leandro Despouy, who covers the independence of judges, torture rapporteur Manfred Nowak of Austria, Pakistan's Asma Jahangir, who focuses on religious freedom and New Zealand's Paul Hunt, rapporteur for health.

UN experts urge Guantanamo closure

[nesreen]

About time . there have been too many Human violations in that country . so many were not even picked up in Afghanistan , that s the tragedy. some have been sent to Eastern Europe and Arab countries to be tortured before ending in Gitmo. There are some zionist Neocons lunatics in charge of the Whitehouse , who are losing the plot .