EU should accept wrongly-imprisoned Guantanamo detainees, MEPs say

BRUSSELS - A group of European lawmakers has thrown its support behind a campaign calling on EU capitals to grant asylum to 45 men wrongly-imprisoned in the US military base in Guantanamo, Cuba.

"Innocent civilians continue to languish in Guantanamo despite being cleared for release...EU governments should step in and offer this group of persecuted individuals some hope", Dutch green MEP Kathalijne Buitenweg told EUobserver on Wednesday (26 September).

"By not acting the European Union will become responsible for their misery", Ms Buitenweg added.

The campaign, suggesting the relocation of Guantanamo prisoners from right-abusing regimes such as Algeria or Sudan to the EU territory, has been launched by the International Federation for Human Rights along with the Centre for Constitutional Rights.

According to the New York-based centre, there are 113 detainees at Guantanamo base who face potential danger of persecution and torture should they be returned to their home-country. At least 34 of these men have been cleared for release.

"The need for countries to intervene to provide protection for Guantanamo's refugees is critical", the report says and continues to underline that "the possibility these men will be sent by the US government to their home countries despite their legitimate fear of persecution or torture is not an abstract concern".

"We are calling on EU governments to agree to allowing them to be resettled in EU member states", Ms Buitenweg said, adding that the Union should assess each case individually to decide which country a Guantanamo detainee should be sent to.

According to another campaigner, Italian left-wing MEP Giusto Catania, the 27-nation bloc should follow the so-called non-refoulement principle, a principle in international refugee law, under which refugees should be protected from being returned to places where their lives or freedom could be threatened.

Mr Catania suggests that the prisoners are distributed among EU states equally.

Detainees who fear return to their home country include those from Algeria, China, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Libya, Palestine, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, Tunisia and Uzbekistan.

Until now, Albania has been the only country in the world willing to accept a handful of detainees. In 2006, the country accepted eight men – five Chinese Uighurs, one Uzbek, one Algerian and an Egyptian.

Close Guantanamo

With Wednesday's initiative, MEPs have also sent an indirect message to the US, saying Guantanamo prison should be closed immediately.

"It is the black-hole of democracy, the end of rule of law", Mr Catania told EUobserver.

Ms Buitenweg, for her part, described Guantanamo as "a dark chapter in the history of international human rights abuses and EU governments have rightly criticised it in the past".

However, she added that the campaign for the resettlement of wrongly-imprisoned Guantanamo detainees is "a cry for help for individuals" rather than "a political sign" to Washington.