June 23, 2005
UN Investigators Say U.S. Stalling on Prison Visits
By REUTERS 
Filed at 6:46 a.m. ET
GENEVA (Reuters) - U.N. human rights investigators on Thursday accused the United States of stalling on their request to visit foreign terror suspects at U.S.-run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay.
They said they had had no reply to their year-old request to probe ``serious allegations of torture,'' arbitrary detention and violations of the right to health and due process at Guantanamo.
``We deeply regret that the government of the United States has still not invited us to visit those persons arrested, detained or tried on grounds of alleged terrorism or other violations in Iraq, Afghanistan, or the Guantanamo Bay naval base,'' the four rights investigators said in a statement.
``The lack of a definitive answer despite repeated requests suggests that the United States is not willing to cooperate with the United Nations human rights machinery on this issue,'' they added.
Their request to visit followed the scandal sparked by photographs taken in the U.S.-run prison of Abu Ghraib in Iraq, showing inmates, some in hoods, being sexually humiliated by soldiers and intimidated with dogs.
The investigators have global U.N. mandates to probe allegations of torture and arbitrary detention as well as ensuring that rights to health and judicial independence are upheld.
Activists have expressed alarm that many people arrested since the Sept 11, 2001 attacks on the United States have been held for more than three years without charges being laid, often incommunicado, in a legal blackhole facilitating mistreatment.
The Pentagon says it is holding 520 men in Guantanamo, mainly detained in Afghanistan. Only four have been charged.