UK: The British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has said that prisoners being held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba should be treated in accordance with the Geneva Convention.
The Prime Minister was pressed on the issue in the Commons yesterday, as international concern mounted about the conditions in which the suspected al-Qaeda fighters - including three people believed to be British nationals - were being held.
Labour backbench MP Mr Kevin McNamara asked if Mr Blair shared the growing concern "that the West was in danger of losing the high moral ground" over the issue.
Mr Blair assured him the prisoners were being properly fed, allowed to shower and exercise and had been provided with copies of the Koran and opportunity to perform their religious observances.
He reminded the House these were "highly, highly dangerous" individuals, but added: "We are a civilised people and we will treat prisoners in a humane way."
Mr Blair sought to defuse mounting anxiety about the civil liberties and human-rights issues surrounding prisoners taken in the conflict in Afghanistan after coming under direct and hostile questioning earlier at a "heated" meeting with Labour MPs at Westminster.
... In the Commons, Mr Charles Kennedy, the Liberal Democrat leader, asked Mr Blair how it could be humane for prisoners to be "hooded, shackled, sedated and kept in cages".