‘Black Sites’Blacken the White House.docVIP

?Black Sites?Blacken the White House The United States is under increasing international pressure to shut down the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay and eliminate alleged secret prisons DETAINEE IN PRAYER: An unidentified detainee prays inside the detention center at Guantanamo Bay Secret airlines, secret detainees, secret jails. These form the network of a clandestine U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operation, referred to as “black sites” in classified White House, CIA, Justice Department and congressional documents. A Washington Post report on November 2, 2005, brought this situation to the world?s attention, focusing debate on America?s human rights practices and legal system. On June 10 of this year, three prisoners at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, committed suicide by hanging themselves with sheet-braided ropes. This prompted another round of appeals to shut the facility, which has been used to detain alleged terrorists in some cases for several years without access to the U.S. legal system and without trial. The incident has increased the pressure on the U.S. Government to resolve the status of the detainees. The Pentagon said in May that it has, at various times, detained 759 prisoners at Guantanamo since the prison opened four and a half years ago. At present, about 460 prisoners are being held there, while others have been transferred or released. Only 10 prisoners have been charged by the military tribunals set up for that purpose, and no verdicts have been issued so far. Facing indefinite detention with none of the rights afforded to prisoners of war or criminal suspects in the U.S. justice system, dozens of the detainees have undertaken hunger strikes and 23 inmates have attempted suicide a total of 41 times. Human rights groups are calling for an independent investigation into the most recent deaths, and even Britain, the close U.S. ally, reiterated its concern about Guantanamo. The suicide of