TONY ALLWRIGHT,
Sir, - Stuart McIntyre of Cork Peace Alliance (January 18th) asks whether shaving, shackling, sedating, hooding and caging of Al-Qaeda/Taliban prisoners is moral, just, or noble, and urges they be treated with basic human decency.
Taking account of the behaviour and threats of the prisoners, their treatment is justified:
Shaved: For cleanliness and ease of identification.
Shackled and hooded during the flight to Cuba: for the security of the flight (and bear in mind, the US always shackles its prisoners - even that English au-pair).
Sedated: We were told that only one prisoner, despite being shackled and hooded, was so disruptive as to necessitate this for his flight.
Caged: just a normal prison cell, but with see-through walls so the prisoners' potentially wild behaviour can be observed/controlled.
These men are being adequately fed and watered, have individual toilets, their religious observances are being facilitated, and there is provision for exercise. By any measure, they are being treated with basic human decency. So what on earth are the objectors on about?
As for their status, they are certainly not POWs in the understood sense. They were neither part of a uniformed national army, nor regular civilian criminals. They constitute an entirely new category of prisoner for whom new conventions need to be developed. - Yours, etc.,
TONY ALLWRIGHT,
Killiney Heath,
Killiney,
Co Dublin.