What is most alarming about the shackled and blindfolded Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo is the secrecy surrounding their detention, writes Sean Love
Human rights organisations do not act out of sympathy for prisoners guilty of crimes. Amnesty International has been highlighting human rights violations in Afghanistan for over 20 years. We denounced the Taliban for its repressive rule from the moment it came into power in 1996 even while the US government was initially welcoming the overthrow of the mujahideen - themselves responsible for appalling human rights abuses, and many of whom have been involved in the Allied-supported Northern Alliance.
While the Guantanamo prisoners are now the focus of international attention, the world must not forget the thousands of civilians killed in the attacks in New York, Washington DC and Afghanistan, the thousands of prisoners held in Afghanistan nor the hundreds detained under draconian anti-terrorism legislation in countries including the US and the UK whose basic rights - including that to a fair trial - are also being denied.
At Guantanamo it's the secrecy shrouding the prisoners that's most alarming.
Amnesty knows, from decades of experience of the treatment of prisoners, that keeping prisoners incommunicado, restraining them unnecessarily and subjecting them to sensory deprivation are all classic techniques for softening them up before interrogation.
We cannot know whether or not this is the aim of the US authorities because they are shrouding the prison in a veil of secrecy. We do know that these are illegal techniques used by ruthless regimes around the world to get confessions and other information under interrogation.
The US has granted the International Committee of the Red Cross permission to visit the prison, but under the Red Cross protocol their findings will be made privately to the US authorities and not made public unless the US decides to publish them. Amnesty has also asked the US for access to the prisoners so that our medical personnel can see what's happening and tell the world.
We presume these people are prisoners of war. If there is any doubt about their status, it should be determined by a proper tribunal. An independent US court could do this, but neither Donald Rumsfeld, the US Secretary of State, nor anybody else from President Bush's administration is legally entitled to decide whether or not they are POWs.
Everybody - yes, everybody - in detention has certain fundamental rights protected by the Geneva Conventions and other international humanitarian laws, including the right to a fair trial if accused of crimes. Suspects are also supposed to be informed of their rights, which include access to a lawyer, not to be interrogated without their lawyer present and to remain silent without that silence being used against them.
These international laws and conventions were introduced, predominantly in the aftermath of the second World War, by an international community that had witnessed up close the terrible crimes human beings can inflict on each other. The purpose of these laws was not to be "soft" on war criminals, but rather as the best insurance against society stooping to such levels of depravity ever again. What is the proper response to what we understand as "terrorism"? Surely if an act is wrong for others, it is wrong for us; and if it is right for us, then it is right for others.
THE photos released this week of kneeling, shackled prisoners deprived of the use of their senses showed, quite simply, a fundamental violation of human rights. This sensory deprivation technique is similar to that used by British security forces in Northern Ireland in the 1970s. The Irish Government reacted to this treatment by bringing a case to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled that the British methods were inhuman and degrading, in contravention of international law.
In practice, the pictures of the prisoners, as published by US authorities, are most likely to serve as the best recruitment ad for other groups opposed to US foreign policy.
There seems to be no acceptable explanation for why the Guantanamo prisoners are subjected to such treatment. It has been suggested that the face masks are there to limit the risk of TB contagion, but there is no risk as they are being kept in the open and TB only flourishes in overcrowded conditions. Equally, if prisoners are infected with TB, they should be hospitalised and treated accordingly.
There are people who say that the attacks on New York and Washington DC in September were so great that the old rules don't apply, that these men have no rights and should be tortured, or that they pose such a high security risk that they ought to be executed. Amnesty has been hearing similar arguments for decades, and they don't get any more persuasive.
The September 11th attacks were a crime against humanity, and those guilty must be brought to justice - but Amnesty has seen over many years in many countries that justice does not come from a tortured confession, or a violent interrogation. Remove a defendant's rights and you remove the difference between respected governments in the international community and pariah regimes.
If the US has nothing to hide it ought to allow Amnesty officials into the prison, and it should not forget that denying prisoners their internationally-recognised rights can itself constitute a war crime under the Geneva Conventions.
Sean Love is the director of Amnesty International's Irish Section