Ghost detainee

Ghost detainee is an official term used by the United States George W. Bush administration to designate a person held in a detention center, whose identity has been hidden by keeping them unregistered and therefore anonymous.^[1]

Extraordinary rendition

Most, if not all, of these detainees have been apprehended and sent around the globe using extraordinary rendition, which is another controversial policy of the Bush administration. Since both are kept from public scrutiny, the exact numbers of prisoners transported and turned into ghost detainees is not known. However, International Human Rights organisations have made estimates as to the use of extraordinary rendition, and the amount of ghost detainees.

Abu Ghraib's "ghost detainees"

The practice of ghosting first achieved widespread attention in 2004 when the Washington Post broke a story suggesting that the U.S. Army and the Central Intelligence Agency were detaining "enemy combatants" at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq with little or no due process.^[2]

The U.S. Army and the U.S. Defense Department have acknowledged that the United States has used ghosting in the past, but have said it was limited to isolated incidences. According to documents obtained by the Post, "unregistered CIA detainees were brought to Abu Ghraib several times a week in late 2003."

The Post cited as evidence a report by Major General Antonio Taguba:^[1]

... in a report describing abuses of detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, [he] blamed the 800th Military Police Brigade, which guarded the prison, for allowing 'other government agencies' — a euphemism that includes the CIA — to hide 'ghost' detainees at Abu Ghraib. The practice, he wrote, 'was deceptive, contrary to Army doctrine, and in violation of international law'.

When news of a detainee known only as Triple X became known to the public in late 2003, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was questioned about him.^[3] Rumsfeld was evasive, and speculated about why someone would want to keep a prisoner hidden from the Red Cross, which is considered a war crime. Rumsfeld also didn't acknowledge signing off on the procedure, but it is now known^{[citation needed]} he did sign off^{[citation needed]} on the practice^{[citation needed]}, and that there have been 100 or more ghost detainees^{[citation needed]}.

Criticism

The practice has been criticized by Amnesty International and other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as improper and illegal because it prevents these prisoners from having contact with inspectors and human rights advocates, while the families of the victims are confronted with the fact of a "forced disappearance". One report by Amnesty International indicates that over one hundred ghost detainees may currently be being held in U.S.-operated black sites.

"Guantanamo has become the gulag our times, entrenching the notion that people can be detained without any recourse to the law. If Guantanamo evokes images of Soviet repression, "ghost detainees" – or the incommunicado detention of unregistered detainees - bring back the practice of "disappearances" so popular with Latin American dictators in the past. According to US official sources there could be over 100 ghost detainees held by the US. In 2004 thousands of people were held by the US in Iraq, hundreds in Afghanistan and undisclosed numbers in undisclosed locations. AI is calling on the U.S. Administration to "close Guantanamo and disclose the rest". What we mean by this is: either release the prisoners or charge and prosecute them with due process.^[4]"

The process of detention without charges lodged or trial by peers violates Article 39 of the Magna Carta, which reads: 39. No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseized, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way harmed--nor will we go upon or send upon him--save by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.

References

Extraordinary rendition

Abu Ghraib's "ghost detainees"

Criticism

See also

References