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Date: March 28, 2024 Thu

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cuba

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Author: Daskal, Jennifer

Title: Locked Up Alone: Detention Conditions and Mental Health at Guantanomo

Summary: This report documents the inhumane conditions prevailing in many of the camps in which Guantanamo detainees are being held. It describes the severe and often prolonged isolation to which many detainees are subjected and the reported consequences to detainees' mental health.

Details: New York: Human Rights Watch, 2009. 54p.

Source:

Year: 2009

Country: Cuba

Keywords: Mental Health (Guantanamo Bay Naval Base)

Shelf Number: 116510


Author: Bellezza-Smull, Isabella

Title: Will Cuba Update its Drug Policy for the Twenty First Century?

Summary: Cuba has an unprecedented opportunity to avoid such outcomes by proactively upgrading its drug policy as it updates its economy - by building on strengths while adjusting for new vulnerabilities. Among other things, Cuba's National Drug Commission, National Anti-Drug Directorate, and other bodies tasked with formulating and implementing national drug policy should continue to fortify border controls, to develop anti-money laundering measures, and to strengthen bilateral counter-narcotics cooperation. More importantly, they could also emphasize prevention and treatment by decriminalizing the possession of all drugs for personal use, by adopting proven harm-reduction strategies, and by elaborating alternative sentencing procedures for non-violent drug offenders, including low-level traffickers and producers.

Details: Rio de Janeiro: Igarape Institute, 2017. 40p.

Source: Internet Resource: Strategic Note 29: Accessed February 2, 2018 at: https://igarape.org.br/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/08-11-2017-NE-29-Cuba-Drog-Policy.pdf

Year: 2017

Country: Cuba

Keywords: Drug Offenders

Shelf Number: 148935


Author: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights

Title: Towards the Closure of Guantanamo

Summary: This report addresses the human rights situation of detainees held at the U.S. Naval Base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a facility that has become a symbol of abuse around the world. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights ("IACHR") was the first international instance to call upon the United States to take urgent steps to respect the basic rights of the detainees. Just two months after the arrival of the first prisoners in January of 2002, the IACHR called upon the State to ensure that their legal status would be determined by a competent authority, so as to clarify the applicable legal regime and corresponding rights. 2. Since then, the IACHR has closely followed the situation through different mechanisms and has repeatedly called for the immediate closure of the detention facility. As a further and hopefully final step in the monitoring of the situation, the IACHR issues this report in which it provides an assessment of the current situation from a human rights perspective as the basis to issue recommendations designed to assist the State in taking the steps necessary to close the facility. 3. The report, following a rights-based approach, focuses on three main areas of concern. First, it addresses the major issues surrounding the detainees' right to personal integrity, from the authorized use of torture in the early years of the Guantanamo detentions to more current issues such as prison conditions at Camp 7 and the U.S. Government's response to the hunger strikes. The IACHR reiterates its finding that the continuing and indefinite detention of individuals in Guantanamo, without the right to due process, is arbitrary and constitutes a clear violation of international law; reasons of public security cannot serve as a pretext for the indefinite detention of individuals without charge or trial. 4. The report then examines the detainees' access to justice and whether the judicial remedies available are adequate and effective. It analyses important questions that were left unresolved by the landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Boumediene v. Bush, such as the scope of the executive's authority to detain individuals under the Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF) as well as various substantive and procedural questions. The Commission outlines concerns with respect to the operation of presumptions and burdens of proof and their impact on access to effective remedies. 5. This chapter also assesses how military commissions operate in practice and the important challenges faced by detainees when exercising their right to legal representation. It further addresses the exclusive application of a separate regime to foreign Muslim men, an issue that presents an apparent targeting of individuals in relation to nationality, ethnicity and religion. In addition, this chapter analyses the functioning of the Periodic Review Board process established in 2011 as well as the lack of judicial review of claims relating to conditions of detention at Guantanamo. 6. Finally, the report looks at the various legal and political aspects involved in taking steps toward the closure of the detention facility and acknowledges some recent steps taken by the Executive. This chapter assesses the current situation of the three categories of detainees currently held at Guantanamo: detainees cleared for transfer; detainees facing criminal charges before military commissions; and detainees designated for continued detention. The IACHR analyzes the situation of the detainees from Yemen separately, an issue which is of key importance in the closure of the facility. It further elaborates on how transfers should be carried out in order to comply with international legal obligations and the principle of nonrefoulement. This chapter then analyzes the current state of proceedings before military commissions, a system that has proven to be slow, inefficient and out of line with due process guarantees. 7. The report concludes with some data that speaks for itself. According to official information, only 8% of Guantanamo detainees were characterized as "fighters" for Al-Qaeda or the Taliban; 93% were not captured by U.S. forces; and most were turned over to U.S. custody at a time in which the United States offered bounties for the capture of suspected terrorists. Only 1% of all prisoners ever held at Guantanamo have so far been convicted by a military commission; in two of those eight cases the material support conviction was overturned on appeal by federal courts. As of January 2015, the handful of ongoing prosecutions before military commissions remained stagnant at the pre-trial stage, having been in that stage for several years. 8. Based on its close analysis of the human rights situation of detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, in this report the IACHR issues a series of recommendations in order to encourage the United States to properly fulfill its international human rights commitments in taking the steps necessary to close Guantanamo. The InterAmerican Commission also reiterates its call upon OAS Member States to consider receiving Guantanamo detainees in an effort to achieve the goal of closing the prison and to reaffirm the longstanding tradition of asylum and protection of refugees in the region. The recommendations are grouped following the same rights-based approach used in the analysis of the report. 9. With regard to the conditions of detention, the Inter-American Commission recommends that the United States ensure that detainees are held in accordance with international human rights standards; that conditions of detention are subject to accessible and effective judicial review; that detainees are provided with adequate medical, psychiatric and psychological care; and that their right to freedom of conscience and religion is respected. The Commission further recommends that the U.S. declassify all evidence of torture and ill-treatment; comply with the recommendations issued by the Committee Against Torture regarding the investigation of detainee abuse, redress for victims, and the end of the force-feeding of detainees; and establish an independent monitoring body to investigate the conditions of detention at Guantanamo Bay.

Details: Washington, DC: IACHR, 2015. 137p.

Source: Internet Resource: Accessed March 20, 2018 at: http://www.oas.org/en/iachr/reports/pdfs/towards-closure-guantanamo.pdf

Year: 2015

Country: Cuba

Keywords: Detention Facilities

Shelf Number: 149535