Inmates at the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba have clashed with guards as they tried to prevent a fellow detainee from hanging himself.
The military says there have been 39 suicide attempts in the camp since 2002, and hunger strikes have been common as detainees protest against their continued detention without trial.
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This topic isn't so simple to me. Democracies indeed imprison people during war without trial and attornies. According to international law (whatever that is), and treaties signed by US officials, I don't see where these people captures in Iraq or otherwise as part of the "War on Teror" fit. They do not wear uniforms issued by a military operating under the authority of a nation that signed the Geneva Conventions.
However, I think it is a very wise strategy to NOT TOTURE, and a very bad strategy *to* torture. I am certain that some good fraction f these captured people are indeed tyrant. However, if even in the US our law officers apprehend innocent people (such as the Duke assholes), we must assume that US military personel on battlefields also capture innocent people.
Thus I mostly support you here, Nadir, though I find it absurd to demand attornies and due process for people captured during a war as if this is normal conduct, when it would instead constitute a very novel concept, though perhaps a good one. If you proposed this as such, I would probably support it.
The issue here (aside from torture and horrible living conditions) is one of due process. Until just a few weeks ago, the US refused to release the names of the prisoners at Guantanamo. Because most of the detainees are not military personnel, they have no advocates speaking on their behalf.
Additionally, this undeclared war, the so-called 'War on Terror' will be a never-ending conflict. Terror is a tactic, not an enemy. Therefore, these prisoners could be detained without due process or any recourse forever!
And lets end this question of whether these people are protected by international law or not.
According to the Geneva Convention (as found on the site of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm)
Article 5
Where, in the territory of a Party to the conflict, the latter is satisfied that an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State.
Where in occupied territory an individual protected person is detained as a spy or saboteur, or as a person under definite suspicion of activity hostile to the security of the Occupying Power, such person shall, in those cases where absolute military security so requires, be regarded as having forfeited rights of communication under the present Convention.
In each case, such persons shall nevertheless be treated with humanity, and in case of trial, shall not be deprived of the rights of fair and regular trial prescribed by the present Convention. They shall also be granted the full rights and privileges of a protected person under the present Convention at the earliest date consistent with the security of the State or Occupying Power, as the case may be.
Nadir: I have always believed that US forces should apply the Geneva Conventions to these captured people even though I do not think that the Geneva Conventions apply to them. In your above exerpt, I cannot find where it states that the Geneval Conventions stipulated any more than mere "humanity", exept "in case of trial", in such an occurance would then gain coverage of the Geneva Convention.
Nowhere do I see that non-uniformed personel qualify for the Geneva Conventions under any other circumstance, or that the Conventions stipulate a trial for them. Furthermore, your exerpt states that: "an individual protected person is definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, such individual person shall not be entitled to claim such rights and privileges under the present Convention as would, if exercised in the favour of such individual person, be prejudicial to the security of such State."
Those words seem to damn your cause. However, I do believe that the US military is making a big mistake in failing to derive its policy from an assumption that some high fraction of detainees are innocent, and that they and even many guilty persons are potential US allies, espeically if treated magnanamously by US captors. I favor such great treatment that the populace clammors to be captured.
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