UNITED NATIONS: US authorities must respect the human rights of prisoners taken from the Taliban regime and Al Qaeda network of alleged terrorist groups, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson urged on Wednesday.

At the UN in New York, Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s chief spokesperson said the UN chief supported Robinson’s call. “The Secretary-General has no argument with anything she says,” said Fred Eckhard.

At issue, according to Robinson, is the status of the prisoners as well as their treatment. The US has reserved the right to try the prisoners on its own terms, refusing to call them prisoners of war because this designation would trigger rights protections under the Geneva Convention. Robinson pointed out that the detainees were taken from the ranks of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, which were involved in an armed conflict with the US in Afghanistan, and therefore were combatants in an international conflict.

As a result, she said, their status is defined and protected by the Geneva Convention of 1949, which governs the conditions under which POWs are treated. “A competent tribunal, in accordance with the provisions of the Geneva Convention,” must determine the prisoners’ legal status, she said.

Human rights campaigners have criticized detention conditions. Amnesty International said plans to house detainees in cages would fall below minimum standards for humane treatment, and that temporary cells for the prisoners are smaller than permitted under US standards for ordinary prisoners. US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has said the prisoners “are in an environment that is a lot more hospitable than the environments we found them in.”

Jamie Fellner of Human Rights Watch said the treatment meted out to the prisoners does not meet international standards. “We’re concerned about the conditions, the open cages, the chain link fence enclosures,” said Fellner. Robinson, a former president of Ireland, is the only senior UN official who has publicly urged the United States and Britain to investigate the killings of hundreds of Taliban prisoners in Mazar-i-Sharif, late last year.—Dawn/InterPress Service.