US & Britain investigate alleged human rights abuses

The international Red Cross organization is investigating whether or not abuse suffered by British prisoners being detained at Guantanamo Bay could amount to a war crime:

The organisation, which maintains a rigidly neutral stance in public, took the unusual step of voicing its concerns in uncompromising language after the former detainees, known as the Tipton Three, revealed that they had been beaten, shackled, photographed naked and in one incident questioned at gunpoint while in US custody.

The US, of course, maintains that every prisoner at Gitmo is treated humanely, but considering the scandal some time ago concerning the Abu Ghraib prison in the Middle East, can that really be taken at face value? Both the British and American governments are investigating, however, and hopefully a resolution will be reached.

So, the natural thing to wonder--what can we do? There seems to be relatively little that we, as citizens, can do to prevent human rights abuses, real or not--about the most that we can do is write to our leaders and let our opinions be known.

Sadly that's likely to do next to nothing, though, as on paper there's not a single US military talking head that would actually condone the mistreatment of prisoners. So we're stuck in a catch-22. Will a change in our administration result in changes in our military? I suppose time will tell, but I wish that wasn't the case. Most of us agree that we shouldn't even have put ourselves in a position where we had to contemplate such questions.

It's unlikely that this story will be widely covered in domestic media, ironically enough. So we'll have to keep an eye on this story via the foreign press.

Article Author: Ryan Eanes

Ryan Eanes is a freelance writer, designer and producer based in Brooklyn, New York. He is a graduate of Wake Forest University, and is completing a MA in Media Studies at The New School in New York.

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