Annan Backs Guantanamo Closure

Update: From the Jordan Times (via Watching America): “It is immensely sad that the U.S. should end up imitating the worst aspects of the very systems it says it wants to ‘democratize.’”

BBC:

Annan backs UN Guantanamo demand

Only a handful of the approximately 500 detainees have been tried The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has said the United States must shut down Guantanamo Bay prison camp “as soon as is possible”.

Mr Annan backed a UN report calling for the closure of the camp where some 500 “enemy combatants” have been held without trial for up to four years.

BBC:

Soldier lifts lid on Guantanamo ‘abuse’

Erik Saar says the US treatment of prisoners hurts its moral standing

A former US soldier who worked on interrogations at Guantanamo Bay has written a damning expose of the brutal, degrading treatment he says was meted out to prisoners there.

Sgt Erik Saar’s book, Inside the Wire, comes with the US military’s treatment of prisoners in the spotlight due to court hearings over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.