UN Report Alleges Human Rights Violations in Guantanamo Bay: Al-Nashiri Case Raises Questions [1]
On May 30, 2023, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention issued a report [3] alleging that Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania, Thailand, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the US participated in human rights violations against Abd al-Rahim Hussein al-Nashiri, a Saudi Arabian citizen accused of involvement in the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. Al-Nashiri is currently held in Guantanamo Bay Prison, where the report details that he was subjected to "enhanced interrogation techniques" by the US Central Intelligence Agency , including prolonged nudity lasting from several weeks to several months, sleep deprivation, rectal feeding, and waterboarding. According to the report, the United States Department of Defense appointed an expert in the treatment of victims of torture to conduct an evaluation, who claimed that al-Nashiri was "one of the most severely traumatized individuals she had ever seen." The report concludes that al-Nashiri has been “deprived of a fair trial,” and the findings also apply to other detainees in similar situations at Guantanamo Bay. In response to the report, Poland cited the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) case of Al Nashiri v. Poland [4], where Poland paid restitution for several human rights violations. Lithuania and Romania also pointed to their own cases [5], Al Nashiri v. Romania and Al Nashiri v. Lithuania, respectively. These cases found that Romania and Lithuania allowed al-Nashiri to be transferred out of their territories knowing that he would likely be subject to further undisclosed detention by the US. Afghanistan, Thailand, the UAE, and the US did not respond to the allegations. Al-Nashiri's next pretrial hearing is scheduled to take place at a date between August 21 and September 15.