End of Secret Detention Urged
    The Associated Press

    Saturday 29 July 2006

    Geneva - A United Nations rights panel Friday demanded the immediate closure of any secret U.S. detention facilities and said Washington should grant the international Red Cross access to captives.

    The United States "should only detain persons in places in which they can enjoy the full protection of the law," said a 12-page report by the U.N. Human Rights Committee. "It should also grant prompt access by the International Committee of the Red Cross to any person detained in connection with an armed conflict."

    Officials in Washington said the committee was out of bounds in examining U.S. practices outside the United States, but they said they would consider its recommendations.

    The 18 independent experts on the committee, which examines on a rotating basis the record of all 156 signatories to the 1966 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, said U.S. practices violate the rights of detainees and their families.

    In a conference call, U.S. officials in Washington would not confirm or deny reports that there have been secret detention centers in Europe and elsewhere.

    The ICRC is supposed to have access to all prisoners of war under the Geneva Conventions. The committee said it knows of people detained by the United States who it cannot locate at the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.