EU must not be wimpish over Guantanamo Bay

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Tue 30th Sep 2003

Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP calls for united EU protest against the third-class justice being meted out to detainees in Guantanamo Bay. She is pictured here with Azmet Begg, father of Moazzam, one of the detainees designated for a military trial.

Baroness Sarah Ludford MEP, European Liberal Democrat justice spokeswoman and co-organiser of a public hearing of Guantanamo Bay detainees' families and lawyers in the European Parliament today (30th September), says:

"Where is the united diplomatic protest by the EU to President Bush? If the EU stopped being wimpish and spoke with one strong voice we could surely have real weight to reverse the third-class justice meted out to foreigners there."

"The Americans talk of democracy, liberty and the rule of law, but they are not affording these rights to anyone in Guantanamo Bay. Practising double standards is destroying US moral authority in the world and fomenting more hatred and terrorism."

"The EU has a duty to tell Bush and Rumsfeld what Colin Powell is telling them - that the US is shooting itself in the foot with human rights abuses leading to dozens of suicide attempts in this 'gulag'."

"The US wants European states to agree a UN resolution on internationalising the occupation of Iraq; I demand of Tony Blair in particular that we use our clout in the Security Council to make release or fair trials for the detainees a pre-condition."

Notes

US citizen John Walker Lindh was dealt with in a civil court with the protection of the US constitution, but the 20 Europeans and the other 650 non-Americans are caught in the Catch 22 between detention without charge or a military 'kangaroo court'.

Detainees from across the EU - Spain, France, Sweden and the UK- are represented, and family members include Azmet Begg who spoke so memorably at Liberal Democrat conference last week about his son Moazzam, one of 2 British citizens designated for a military trial (the other being Londoner Feroz Abbasi). We are currently aware of several Londoners detained in Guantanamo Bay.

The European Commission, the US Mission in Brussels, and some Member States are all expected to be represented at the meeting. The EU's 'foreign minister' Javier Solana was invited but did not respond.

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