RP activists picket US Embassy for Guantanamo prison closure
Associated Press
First Posted 15:21:00 01/11/2008
Filed Under: Human Rights, Prison
MANILA, Philippines -- Human rights activists picketed the US Embassy in Manila on Friday to demand the closure of the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, where they say hundreds of terrorist suspects were being tortured and held illegally.
"We are appealing to President Bush and the US government to close Guantanamo Bay now," Aurora Parong, director of Amnesty International in the Philippines, said on the sixth anniversary of the opening of the military detention center.
She said the prison camp holds and tortures detainees without charge and "is an insult to peoples of the world who believe in human rights and the rule of law."
About 30 protesters carried yellow streamers that read, "No deals on torture" and "Close Guantanamo now!"
"We want to make it clear, Amnesty International is against terrorism but terrorism should be fought within the framework of human rights and justice, and within the rule of law," Parong said.
US officials said they were holding 275 men at Guantanamo on suspicion of links to terrorism. Authorities have said they plan to prosecute about 80 of them before military tribunals.
American officials have repeatedly denied allegations of torture at Guantanamo as part of terror interrogation efforts that began in 2002 after the September 11 attacks.
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