The suicide of three Guantanamo Bay detainees, which did not come as a surprise to many, is intensifying increasing calls for closing the notorious military prison, Tamam Ahmed Jama reports For some, it was only a matter of time before despair drove some of the hundreds of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay to take desperate measures. Lawyers have been warning for some time that some of the detainees who were deeply depressed would commit suicide. In February, a report by a team of UN human rights experts warned about the serious impact of the conditions at the camp on the mental health of detainees. "We listed the 'totality of conditions' -- including abusive treatment, detention in cages, coercive interrogation techniques, the uncertainty generated by the indeterminate nature of confinement and denial of access to independent tribunals -- [were] having a profound effect on the detainees' mental health," Paul Hunt, UN special rapporteur on the right of detainees to health and co- author of the February report, told the Weekly. "The report expressly concluded that the combination of all these conditions has resulted in a profound deterioration in the mental health of many detainees and that these conditions together constitute a violation of their right to health. When it was published, our report was dismissed by the White House. In the light of recent events, I hope the authorities will now take it more seriously." Following the triple suicide two weeks ago, pressure began to mount on Washington to close Guantanamo Bay. Within days of the deaths, the European Parliament voted on a motion calling the United States to close its military prison in Cuba where about 460 terrorism suspects are being held indefinitely, without charge or trial. Fresh calls for the camp's closure were expected to be made this week at a EU-US summit in Austria, which currently holds the EU presidency. Senior American officials have described the suicides as a 'PR move' and 'an act of warfare'. These comments, which many see as completely inappropriate, have created some controversy. Human rights groups and legal experts say the deaths are the result of the manner in which the US authorities have handled Guantanamo Bay detainees, denying them prisoner of war status and locking them up for years in a "no-man's land" where they are protected by neither American nor international law. "The total, intractable unwillingness of the Bush administration to provide any meaningful justice for these men is at the heart of these tragedies," Bill Goodman, the legal director of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, told the New York Times. Two of the deceased men, Yasser Talal Abdulah Yahya Al-Zahrani, 22, and Mani bin Shaman bin Turki Al-Habardi, 30, were Saudi nationals and the third man, Ali Abdullah Ahmed, 33, was a Yemeni. The three men were in separate cells in Camp One, the highest security section in Guantanamo Bay. In mid-May, two other detainees were found unconscious in the same section of the prison after they tried to end their lives with an overdose of anti-anxiety medication. There has been a total of 41 reported suicide attempts by 25 detainees in Guantanamo Bay since it opened in January 2002. Lawyers for detainees, who say they believe the real number of suicide attempts is higher than the official one, have accused the US authorities of systematically withholding information about suicide attempts and trying to minimise their significance. International criticism of Guantanamo Bay has been growing in recent months. George W Bush has expressed "serious concern" over the death of the detainees. The American president has recently said that he would like to see the camp closed but was waiting for a US Supreme Court ruling, expected later this month, on the legality of his order that terrorism suspects be tried in military tribunals, which are widely seen as not meeting international standards of fair trial. "Guantanamo Bay has been weighing heavily on the conscience of the American people and people all over the world who value fairness and human rights," Katherine Newell Bierman, counter-terrorism counsel for the US Programme at Human Rights Watch, told the Weekly. "Bush says he shares these values. He needs to demonstrate that: if he is going to talk the talk, he needs to walk and the walk." The UN report in February called for the immediate closure of Guantanamo Bay. A UN committee on torture repeated that same call last month. Scores of prominent personalities, including former American presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and world leaders, including the German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, have urged the Bush administration to close Guantanamo Bay. In Britain, a close US ally in the war on terror, condemnations have become more frequent and more forceful. The Attorney-General, the British government's top legal adviser, did not mince his words about the controversial camp in a speech last month. "The existence of Guantanamo Bay remains unacceptable," Lord Goldsmith said. "It is time that it should close. Not only would it be right to close Guantanamo as a matter of principle, I believe it would also help to remove what has become to many a symbol of injustice. The historic tradition of the United States as a beacon of freedom, liberty and of justice deserves the removal of this symbol."
