Quoting the New York Times, the UK's BBC reports that:
A senior Red Cross official has launched a rare attack on the US detention of al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects at Guantanamo Bay.
Christophe Girod told the New York Times it was unacceptable that the 600 detainees should be held for open-ended terms without proper legal process. His criticism came as a group of American former judges, diplomats and military officers called on the US Supreme Court to examine the legality of holding the foreign nationals for almost two years, without trial, charge or access to lawyers.
Mr Girod said the International Red Cross was making the unusually blunt public statement because of a lack of action after previous private contacts with American officials. "One cannot keep these detainees in this pattern, this situation, indefinitely," he said during a visit to the US naval base where the Taleban and al-Qaeda suspects are being held.
US officials insist there are reasons for holding the alleged fighters and say they will get a fair legal hearing in due course. Opponents say it is already nearly two years since most of the detainees were captured and they should be afforded more rights now.
Mr Girod is leading a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has just completed an inspection tour of the detention camp in Cuba. Although he did not criticise any physical conditions at the camp, he said that it was intolerable that the complex was used as "an investigation centre, not a detention centre. The open-endedness of the situation and its impact on the mental health of the population has become a major problem," he told the New York Times.
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More:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3179858.stmIf Guantanamo was a Russian camp holding, say, Chechens....or a Chinese camp holding Falug Gong, would there be more vociferous US dissent about detention without due process of law?
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