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The Shame of the Prisons

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http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/18/opinion/18sat1.html?_r=1 & oref=login

 

February 18, 2006

Editorial

The Shame of the Prisons

 

Who needs sophomoric cartoons to inflame the Muslim world when you've

got the Bush administration's prison system? One reason the White

House is so helpless against the violence spawned by those Danish

cartoons is that it has squandered so much of its moral standing at

Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. This week, the world got two chilling

reminders of why both prisons must be closed.

 

On Thursday, the United Nations Human Rights Commission issued a

scathing report on the violations of democratic principles, human

rights and the rule of law at Guantánamo Bay: indefinite arbitrary

detentions, hearings that mock fair process and justice, coercive and

violent interrogations, and other violations of laws and treaties.

 

The Bush administration offered its usual weak response, that

President Bush has decided there is a permanent state of war that puts

him above the law. And that is exactly the problem: by creating

Guantánamo outside the legal system for prisoners who, according to

Mr. Bush, have no rights, the United States is stuck holding these 500

men in perpetuity. The handful who may be guilty of heinous crimes can

never be tried in a real court because of their illegal detentions. A

vast majority did nothing or were guilty only of fighting on a

battlefield, but the administration refuses to sort them out.

 

Some members of Congress tried to exert control over Guantánamo Bay

late last year. But their efforts were hijacked by Bush loyalists, who

made matters worse by stripping the prisoners there of the basic human

right to challenge their detentions.

 

Now the only solution is to close Guantánamo Bay and account for its

prisoners fairly and openly. The United States then needs a prisons

policy that conforms to the law and to democratic principles.

 

The U.N. report followed a broadcast by an Australian television

station of previously unpublicized photographs taken at Abu Ghraib in

2003. Many were similar to the pictures the world saw two years ago

when the scandal of abuse, humiliation and torture first broke. Others

show even worse abuses and degradation.

 

All are a reminder that the Bush administration has yet to account for

what happened at Abu Ghraib. No political appointee has been punished

for the policies that led to the atrocities. Indeed, most have been

rewarded.

 

The prison was a symbol of the worst of the Hussein regime. Now it's a

symbol of the worst of the American occupation. Congress should order

it replaced. And perhaps John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed

Services Committee, could keep his promise to dig out the truth about

Abu Ghraib.

 

* Copyright 2006The New York Times Company

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