U.N. rights chief: Guantanamo chapter not yet closed

Reuters ^ | June 24, 2009 | By Patrick Worsnip

[Oldeconomybuyer]

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The U.N. human rights chief said on Wednesday the United States still had much to do to close the chapter of its Guantanamo Bay prison for terrorism suspects and should itself accept detainees for resettlement.

High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay also warned against "half-measures" and said the role of lawyers and doctors implicated in torture should be examined.

In a statement on Wednesday marking an international day to support torture victims, she again praised Obama for upholding a U.N. ban on torture but said "there is still much to do before the Guantanamo chapter is truly brought to a close."

"Its remaining inmates must either be tried before a court of law -- like any other suspected criminal -- or set free," Pillay said, adding that those who risked ill-treatment in their own countries must be given new homes elsewhere.

Pillay said the U.N. anti-torture convention made clear that those who order or inflict torture "cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinized."

[Oldeconomybuyer]

High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay ...

[Rodebrecht]

I’m not entirely comfortable with what went/goes on at GITMO, but, don’t these U.N. Human Rights people have more major things to worry about, like the violent suppression of protest in Iran.

[ronnietherocket2]

anyone else find this amusing
http://www.admin.ch/aktuell/00089/index.html?lang=en&msg-id=20295
(you do remember who helen keller was, right?)

[2ndDivisionVet]

Since we organized the United Nations in 1945 and provide the lion’s share of their funding (including her salary). why are we listening to this bureaucratic drone? How about working on really repressive regimes like North Korea, Iran, Zimbabwe, etc..