calendar>>March 24. 2009 Juche 98
KCNA Demands Closure of U.S. Secret Prisons
Pyongyang, March 24 (KCNA) -- The special rapporteur for torture issue of the UN Human Rights Council and the UN special envoy for human rights and anti-terrorism, addressing the recent 10th meeting of the council, declared that an international investigation would be conducted into the secret prisons operated by the United States.

They denounced the atrocities committed by the U.S. as the "most horrible acts," asserting that they would not allow the U.S. to evade its responsibility for them with ease on account of the replacement of the U.S. administration and that the investigation should be continued till everything has been clarified.

This is a proper step taken by the international community against the U.S. which has committed ceaseless human rights abuses in different parts of the world under the signboard of "war on terrorism."

The U.S. set up a secret prison in Guantanamo of Cuba in the wake of the "September 11 incident" and established such prisons in different countries of the world and even on warships.

It arrested many people and has kept them in custody for a long period, ruthlessly violating their freedom and human rights.

26,000 people are now detained, without having even a chance to stand a fair trial, the most elementary human rights.

They are put to beating, sleep depravation, water boarding, sexual torture and other forms of mediaeval torture. Guiltless people are disappearing without being known to the outside, while undergoing unbearable pain.

These are the hideous human rights abuses quite contrary to the humanitarian principles of modern international law including the "Geneva Convention" and international law on human rights.

Precisely for this reason the International Committee of the Red Cross in a report in 2007 defined the U.S. atrocities as "cruel and inhuman contempt of personality" and "torture."

What merits a serious attention is that the U.S. is trying to keep the secret prisons censured by the world.

This is evidenced by the fact that the U.S. attorney general, while announcing the "new standard for the operation of the facilities for 'suspected terrorists'" in Guantanamo on March 13, blustered that it is inevitable to operate these facilities in a way to tighten national security.

These outbursts cannot but sound very surprising as they are let loose without let-up under the pretext of "examining" the closure of the secret prison in Guantanamo.

During the office of the Bush administration the U.S. left no means untried to cover up the operation of secret prisons with such crafty words as "national security".

The new U.S. administration is echoing such words only to reveal its intention not to close them.

The U.S. had better close as early as possible the secret prisons ill-famed for lots of human rights abuses.

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