Blogging from the Highlands of Scotland
'From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step' - Diderot

Wednesday 19 May 2004

Abu Ghraib - more inconvenient details begin to emerge

It seems that the US military authorities may have tried to impose conditions on visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to particular cell-blocks at Abu Ghraib, by suggesting that the ICRC schedule its visits, rather than make them unannounced, according to this report in The New York Times.

It is not entirely clear what the reaction of the ICRC was to this suggestion; that organisation traditionally maintains great discretion in disseminating what it reports to detaining powers, as it rightly considers that continuing access to detainees is vital. One wonders whether the military authorities have attempted to exploit this discretion for their own ends. I expect more sordid details will drip-feed into the public domain in coming weeks as those directly implicated seek to mitigate their situations.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Welcome to my comment area. Whilst all comment is welcome you are requested to respect the views of others. To read full terms for use of this facility, please visit my 'Terms of Use' section, linked to under the 'About this Blog' heading at top right of the blog. Note added 12JUL2010 - All comments will now be pre-moderated before they appear in this blog; this is a measure to prevent 'spam' commenting, which has become frequent of late. Thank you.