Rights groups dismiss Guantanamo report

Rights groups have criticised a Pentagon report which found that conditions at Guantanamo Bay were in line with the Geneva Convention.

The US Centre for Constitutional Rights said the 240 prisoners 'continue to be held in inhumane conditions that violate US obligations under the Geneva Conventions'.

However the Pentagon report on the detention centre did also call for the isolation of some inmates to be eased.

Read the CCR report in full

Read the Pentagon report in full

Providing high-security detainees the chance for more social activity was 'essential to maintain humane treatment over time', said Admiral Patrick Walsh, who presented the review findings yesterday.

Rights groups however were unimpressed, citing the report and other policy moves as proof that US President Barack Obama had failed to make a clean break with the previous administration on the treatment of terrorism suspects.

The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday dismissed the report as a 'whitewash' and demanded an independent review of conditions at Guantanamo instead of one carried out by the same US military that runs the prison.

Rights groups last week expressed dismay after the Obama administration argued that inmates held at a prison in Bagram, Afghanistan, did not have the right to challenge their detention in US courts.

The Pentagon review of Guantanamo, required as part of an executive order issued by President Obama in January mandating the closure of the detention camp, was released as Attorney General Eric Holder flew to the US naval base for a first-hand look at the prison.

He will meet US military officers in Guantanamo as the Obama administration determines how to close the camp, a lightning rod for criticism under former president George W Bush.

Admiral Walsh declined to say whether detainees had been subject to torture or abuse since the prison was set up in 2002.