Posted on 10/12/2006 4:38:06 PM PDT by familyop
LONDON (AP) - The detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is unacceptable and counterproductive, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said Thursday, underlining an increasingly critical British line on the U.S.-run prison from America's closest ally.
Beckett, releasing Britain's annual report on human rights around the world, said that detention without trial of hundreds of suspects was "unacceptable in terms of human rights" and "ineffective in terms of counterterrorism."
The report called for the military camp to be closed and said Britain welcomes U.S. President George W. Bush's statement that he hopes to see it shut down.
"It's widely argued now that the existence of the camp is as much a radicalizing and discrediting influence as it is a safeguard for security," she said.
Beckett's strong words came on the same day that the Court of Appeal upheld the government's refusal to seek the release of three of the six British residents still held at Guantanamo.
Prime Minister Tony Blair so far has gone no further in public than calling the camp an "anomaly" which sooner or later must end.
But two senior legal officials, Attorney General Lord Goldsmith and Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer, spoke out against the U.S. detention policy earlier this year.
In June, Falconer had denounced the detention centre in eastern Cuba as a "recruiting agent" for terrorism, and described its existence as "intolerable and wrong."
In a speech in Washington last month, Falconer said the U.S. policy of "deliberately seeking to put the detainees beyond the reach of the law" was a "shocking . . . affront to the principles of democracy."
Falconer said that was the British government's view, not simply his own opinion.
Goldsmith said in May that "the existence of Guantanamo Bay remains unacceptable."
Nine British citizens were released from the camp in March 2004 and January 2005 after the Foreign Office made formal requests to the United States.
Six British residents who hold other citizenship remain in the camp. They are among hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo accused of links to Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime or al-Qaida. Only a handful have been charged since the camp opened to them in January 2002.
In the case of the six, the government argued that it had no duty to represent the interests of residents who were not citizens.
Attorneys had argued that the three in the appeals court case - Iraq-born Bisher al-Rawi, Jordanian Jamil el-Banna and Libyan-born Omar Deghayes - should have the legal rights available to British citizens because they had been given indefinite leave to live in Britain.
Deghayes' sister, Amani, said the family was not seeking special treatment for him, but only wanted his fundamental human rights to be respected.
"Omar has already been held for over four years without charge or trial, a complete travesty of justice," she said in a statement Thursday.
In last year's report, Britain said improved international human rights would help undermine the propaganda and recruiting efforts of terrorist groups.
However, civil rights groups have criticized the Blair administration's own attitude toward human rights, claiming it had been complicit in the use of secret CIA prisons, the existence of which were acknowledged by Bush in September.
Blair's government has also denied accusations it has allowed the U.S. to use British airports to conduct so-called extraordinary rendition flights, allegedly used to ferry prisoners to and from the secret prisons.
Separately, the report criticized rights abuses in nations including Iran, Sudan, Syria, Cuba and Zimbabwe. Less harshly, the report raised concerns about violations in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Russia and China, and acknowledged there were still major troubles in Iraq and Afghanistan.
We'll give 'em all to you, Margaret!! Let's just land 'em at Heathrow and set 'em all loose in Londonistan, would that satisfy you raving pea-brained addled mind?
OK,....Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett we'll ship them all to personal home address to live with you and you are personally responsible for them and their actions.
OK then, they are all on a couple of C-17s headed toward Heathrow, enjoy!
Hmmm...more bad news.
(British) General Seeks UK Iraq Withdrawal
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1718406/posts
Margaret, I suspect that most members of the current Westminster Parliament are frankly unworthy of being peed on if they were fully engulfed in fire, much less getting elected, but I don't get a vote.
Hey Margaret - eat $hit and bark at the moon you moron.
Agreed the tone out of Londonistan is sharpening. Perhaps because of Ramadan?
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