U.S. Care of Prisoners Criticized

The United States has committed “grave violations of human rights” against prisoners held in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the British Parliament said today.

“We recommend that the government make it clear to the United States administration, both in public and private, that such treatment of detainees is unacceptable,” it said in an annual rights report.

The treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military camp at Guantanamo Bay and the rising threat of terrorism has sparked a heated debate in Britain.

Human rights groups have criticized conditions at the camp and interrogation techniques such as sleep deprivation and subjecting detainees to extreme temperatures, some of which the groups say are akin to torture.

The committee report also calls on the British government to make it clear whether it uses intelligence passed on by other countries that may have been gathered using torture.

It says that “to operate a general policy of use of information extracted under torture would be to condone and even to encourage torture by repressive states.”

The committee also called for better training of British troops on the treatment of prisoners.