Press Action ::: Press Action Hero of the Week: JOHN SENTAMU

Monday, February 20, 2006

Press Action Hero of the Week: JOHN SENTAMU

The U.S. government should shut down “without further delay” its detention camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, an independent panel of experts commissioned by the United Nations concluded last week.

The UN report [pdf] also says: “Until the closure, and possible transfer of detainees to pre-trial detention facilities on United States territory, the Government should refrain from any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment…”

The five-member independent panel was composed of Paul Hunt, an expert on physical and mental health; Leila Zerrougui, an expert on arbitrary detention; Leandro Despouy, an expert on judicial independence; Manfred Nowak, an expert on torture; and Asma Jahangir, an expert on freedom of religion.

The report represents a meek gesture on the part of a world body that should be rallying its member nations against the murderous and aggressive foreign policy of the United States. But the United Nations has never had the backbone to seriously challenge U.S. actions around the world. To the UN’s credit, the report contains one of the world body’s strongest rebukes of U.S. policy since the end of the Cold War. And, of course, you won’t hear such sentiment in official Washington. The Democratic leadership, not to mention the Republicans, has refused to call for the closure of the Guantanamo detention camp.

As The Independent of London reported, the UN report “barely registered with a [U.S.] media industry still obsessed with Dick Cheney’s shooting accident.”

While the U.S. media ignored the report, the Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, did his part to shine light on the independent panel’s conclusions. After reading the UN report, Sentamu, the Church of England’s first black archbishop, called on the United States to close the Guantanamo detention camp.

Sentamu, who was appointed to the second-highest post in the church in 2005, told The Independent:

“To hold someone for up to four years without charge indicates a society heading towards George Orwell’s Animal Farm.”

Sentamu’s criticism of U.S. policy at Guantanamo is a positive step. Now, we need to hear unified calls for the U.S. government to shut down its naval base at Guantanamo Bay and vacate the Cuban homeland “without further delay.”