Human Rights Watch: Pentagon Denies Access to Guantanamo Trials

[Jack Rabbit]

Press release from Human Rights Watch
Dateline Washington, Tuesday February 24

U.S.: Pentagon Denies Access to Guantanamo Trials
Human Rights Groups Shut Out of Military Commissions

The Pentagon has refused to allow three leading human rights groups to attend and observe military commission trials of detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
In a letter sent last week to U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Amnesty International, Human Rights First (formerly the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) and Human Rights Watch protested their exclusion from the proceedings and urged the U.S. government to rethink its position.
Despite the Bush administration's promise that the commissions would be open to the public, the Pentagon has refused to grant any of these organizations permission to attend the proceedings. Over the last month, the Department of Defense has responded to written requests from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, with a brief statement that it intended only to provide seating for select members of the press and for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
“The Defense Department wants to control who can talk to the journalists covering the trials,” said Wendy Patten, U.S. advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The Pentagon has imposed a gag rule on defense lawyers, who can only speak to the press with the military’s permission. Now it wants to shut out experienced trial observers who could provide the public with independent analysis.”

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