11/06/2006
Yasser Al Zahrani
Authorities in Saudi Arabia have released the names of its two nationals who committed suicide at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. It says procedures have been set in motion procedures to repatriate the bodies. The official Saudi news agency has identified the dead as Manei al-Otaibi and Yasser al-Zahrani. The third man to die was from Yemen. The US military says it has launched an inquiry into the deaths. Human rights groups are again calling for the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba to be closed. Shami Chakrabarti, from the human rights group Liberty, has accused the US of being inhumane in its treatment of the detainees. "Now that these suicides have happened, I think what we know about people in this kind of closed-in environment is that suicide can become contagious," he said. "Now that the first three have happened, others will know that this is possible and there are desperate, desperate people in Guantanamo." "And it's desperation that comes from a life without hope." The American Commander at Guantanamo Bay says the suicides were acts of warfare, rather than acts of desperation. Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth has disputed that view. "These people are despairing because they're being held lawlessly and there's no end in sight," he said. "They're not being brought before any judges, they're not being charged and convicted for any crime, there's no sentence involved. "They're simply being held until the the end of the so-called 'war against terrorism', which we all realise may never come."
SOURCE: ABC.net.au |
