UN body faults U.S., other states over Guantanamo prisoner torture

Subject : International Relations

Section: Places in news

Concept :

The United States and seven other countries are responsible for torture and illegal detention of a Saudi prisoner awaiting a death penalty trial at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, a UN watchdog has ruled.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention also hinted that the systematic use of Guantanamo to hold suspects rounded up in Washington’s “war on terror” after the September 11, 2001 attacks, might in some cases amount to crimes against humanity.

Guantanamo Bay:

Guantanamo Bay is a bay in Guantanamo Province at the southeastern end of Cuba.
It is an inlet of the Caribbean Sea.
The strategic importance of the bay is that it is close to the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti that links the Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and Panama.
This strategic importance was recognized during the Spanish-American War, in 1898, when U.S. marines landed there.
Since the 1959 revolution, the Cuban government has protested the U.S. presence and periodically has threatened to seize the base.
Often called “Gitmo” by naval personnel assigned there, it is used primarily as a U.S. fleet training base in the Caribbean Sea.