NEW YORK, April 28: The United Nations Security Council should address serious concerns about the detention practices of the US-led Multi-National Force (MNF) in Iraq in its debate on Iraq, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to the Council members on Monday.

“The Security Council should insist that the United States abide by international law for persons detained,” said Joe Stork, Middle East deputy director at Human Rights Watch. “The Bush administration pushed the Security Council to declare that the US-led occupation of Iraq had ended in June 2004, and the end of occupation means that international human rights standards apply — judicial review, access to legal counsel and family members, and a fair trial.”

The watchdog group charged that the United States invokes Security Council resolutions to justify holding thousands of Iraqis for indefinite periods, without judicial review, and under military processes that do not meet international standards.

In the letter, Human Rights Watch said that according to the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (Unami), the MNF was holding 24,514 detainees at the end of 2007. Since the declared end of the US occupation of Iraq in June 2004, detained persons should be provided due process under international human rights law. Security Council Resolutions 1546, 1637, and 1723 allow for internment of Iraqis “for imperative reasons of security,” but the US improperly uses this language to justify holding the detainees without judicial review, as if the operative law were the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of civilians during international armed conflicts.