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HR Watch: "Disappearances" new US tactic

Tuesday, October 12, 2004

In a a 46 page report released earlier today, the Human Rights Watch alleged that 11 al-Qaeda suspect have disappeared from US custody. The report maintains that the United States is refusing to aknowledge the detention of these suspects in order to keep them outside the protection of the law, and consequently without shelter from international conventions on torture. -RoT

(New York, October 12, 2004)—At least 11 al-Qaeda suspects have “disappeared” in U.S. custody, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. U.S. officials are holding the detainees in undisclosed locations, where some have reportedly been tortured.

The 46-page report, “The United States’ ‘Disappeared’: The CIA’s Long-Term ‘Ghost Detainees,’” describes how the Central Intelligence Agency is holding al-Qaeda suspects in “secret locations,” reportedly outside the United States, with no notification to their families, no access to the International Committee of the Red Cross or oversight of any sort of their treatment, and in some cases, no acknowledgement that they are even being held.

“‘Disappearances’ were a trademark abuse of Latin American military dictatorships in their ‘dirty war’ on alleged subversion,” said Reed Brody, special counsel with Human Rights Watch. “Now they have become a United States tactic in its conflict with al-Qaeda.” More.

Complete report issued by HRC.

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