# Human-rights groups seek 39 persons "disappeared" in GWOT **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 7, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129 "2007-06-07T15:39:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/1 "2007-06-07T15:39:29Z")
Story [here.](http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USN0644490320070607) The list was compiled by six human rights groups, including Amnesty Inernational and Human Rights Watch. The U.S. has acknowledged detaining only three of the persons listed. The groups have filed a FOIA lawsuit on all of them. Will such a lawsuit produce any of the information sought? Should it? > [@](#): > > Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch said it was unknown if the suspects were now in U.S. or foreign custody, or even alive or dead. > > “We have families who have not seen their loved ones for years. They’ve literally disappeared,” Mariner told Reuters. > > \ > > The groups said the lack of information about the prisoners “prevents scrutiny by the public or the courts, and leaves detainees vulnerable to abuses that include torture.” > > Bush said in September there were no prisoners remaining in custody in U.S. secret facilities at that time. But the report said the transfer of Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi from CIA custody to Guantanamo in April showed the system was still operating. > > “Interviews with prisoners who have been released from secret CIA prisons indicate that low-level detainees have frequently been arrested far from any battlefield, and held in isolation for years without legal recourse or contact with their families or outside agencies,” the report said. If this is true, can anyone defend/justify the practice? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 7, 2007, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/2 "2007-06-07T15:49:23Z")
More details (including some alleged prisoners’ names) [here.](http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070607/ap_on_re_eu/britain_us_detainees) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/3 "2007-06-09T17:50:05Z")
[Here’s](http://hrw.org/backgrounder/usa/ct0607/ct0607web.pdf) the groups’ actual report (pdf file), including known details of each case. On pp. 24-25, you can read about the detention and psychological torture of Khaleed Sheik Mohammed’s two sons (nine and seven years old). ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/4 "2007-06-09T17:54:22Z")
What’s “GWOT”? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/5 "2007-06-09T18:06:52Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] What’s “GWOT”? [/QUOTE] “Global War On Terror” (or “Terrorism”). Also spelled “GWAT” – “Global War Against Terror”. ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/6 "2007-06-09T19:28:56Z")
As opposed to “TWAT”, Total War Against Terror. ---
**Author:** ![Fish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/bc8723/32.png) [@Fish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fish)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 7:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/7 "2007-06-09T19:31:50Z")
Or TWIT, for Terrists W Is Torturing. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![casdave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/c6cbf5/32.png) [@casdave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/casdave)\ **Post date:** [June 9, 2007, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/8 "2007-06-09T20:28:03Z")
Nice to see GW lecturing Putin on human rights isn’t it ? ---
**Author:** ![MovieMogul](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f08c70/32.png) [@MovieMogul](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MovieMogul)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2007, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/9 "2007-06-13T19:14:53Z")
[More on rendition](http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,488149,00.html). Plus this lovely bit: > [@](#): > > But the damage wrought by the secret prisons, renditions and torture-like interrogations is still tremendous. Colin Powell’s former Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson estimates that the US administration has arrested between 30,000 and 50,000 suspects during the past year. Eighty-five percent of them were innocent, according to Wilkerson. “We really have created a mess here. A terrible mess,” Wilkerson says. “This has been incredibly damaging.” ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [June 13, 2007, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/human-rights-groups-seek-39-persons-disappeared-in-gwot/407129/10 "2007-06-13T22:35:40Z")
DON’T ANSWER THIS QUESTION AFTER SEEING “HOSTEL II” 😛