United States: A UN expert has urged the United States to apologise for the torture inflicted upon prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, take responsibility for the abuses, and permanently close down the well-known US-operated detention centre in Cuba.

In a recently published report, Ms. Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the UN Special Rapporteur, expressed gratitude to the administration of US President Mr. Joe Biden for granting her access to the facility earlier this year. The UN expert emphasised the urgency of addressing the violations committed against detainees.

Mr. Ni Aolain stated that the torture endured by prisoners at undisclosed locations known as black sites and later at Guantanamo Bay is the foremost obstacle preventing justice for the victims of the 9/11 attacks.

“The importance of apology and guarantees of non-repetition to both the victims of terrorism and the victims of torture betrayed by these practices will be no less pressing in the years ahead,” the report noted.

The Guantanamo Bay detention facility opened in 2002 under US President George W. Bush to house detainees captured during the so-called “war on terror” after al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington, DC, on September 11, 2001.

The prison once housed nearly 800 detainees. Its inmate population is now down to 30, more than half of whom, 16 detainees, have been declared eligible for release by US authorities.

Located at a US military base in Cuba, the prison operates under a system of military commissions that does not guarantee the same rights as traditional US courts.

Rights groups have long denounced rights violations at Guantanamo, including forced feedings and beatings of detainees and a lack of due process, and demanded its closure.

The UN report observed that the abuses are ongoing at the prison facility, highlighting “structural shortcomings and systematic arbitrariness, including in training, operating procedures, and the fulfilment of detainees’ rights to health care, family council, and justice”.

Ms. Ni Aolain commented that every inmate she met lives with the “unrelenting harms” caused by their systematic “rendition, torture, and arbitrary detention”.

The UN Special Rapporteur further remarked that she was the first UN Special Rapporteur to be granted access to Guantanamo to investigate conditions at the facility, a fact she credited to the administration of US President Joe Biden.

“It is this administration that, early on in my tenure, through a process of discussion and engagement, enabled the visit,” Ms. Ni Aolain added.

In addition, Amnesty International commented that the UN’s “scathing” report highlights the need to shut down the detention facility.

WORLD ROUNDUP: Australia to end 70 military vehicles to Ukraine in latest assistance package