USA: Special Rapporteur denied unmonitored visit to Manning
last updated Jul 12, 2011
United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture (UNSRT), Juan Mendez, has criticised the restrictions the United States government has placed upon him. Mendez was allowed access to Private first class Bradley Manning who disclosed classified documents to WikiLeaks, however, the authorities warned him that the conversation would be monitored. Manning who was transferred in April from Quantico confinement facility to a facility in Kansas, declined the offer from Mendez to visit him due to the restrictive conditions.
- Bradley Manning rally, August 2010, in Quantico, Virginia; Source: Wikimedia Commons, Author: mar is sea Y on Flickr
Monitored visits violate the long-standing rules of the UN which foresee unlimited and unmonitored access to detainees. Already in 2004, former UNSRT Manfred Nowak declined a visit to Guantánamo Bay due to conditions imposed by the US government that the mandate holder could not accept.
A request by Mendez to visit Guantánamo Bay has remained unanswered. Mendez said that a private conversation with Manning was absolutely necessary to establish whether the treatment he received during his detention at Quantico amounted to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
OHCHR: USA: Unmonitored access to detainees is essential to any credible enquiry into torture or cruel inhuman and degrading treatment, says UN torture expert
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