WASHINGTON, Jan 17: The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Saudi Arabia have reportedly joined those expressing concern over conditions in which Al Qaeda\Taliban suspects are being kept at the US base in Guantanamo, Cuba.

Mary Robinson, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, has warned that the international community risked the values that it fought to preserve if the captives were denied legal rights normally available to prisoners.

Reports quoted an unnamed Saudi official as saying Saudi Arabia was “concerned about American treatment” of the prisoners. At least some of those in Guantanmo, now numbering almost 80, are believed to be Saudi citizens.

There are also British nationals among the prisoners, and British Prime Minister Tony Blair on Wednesday faced a barrage of questions in parliament about the situation in the camp at Guantanamo, where the prisoners are being kept in tin-roofed cages six feet by eight feet and exposed to the climate from four sides.

The US continues to describe the prisoners as “unlawful combatants,” which means that in the American view they are not entitled to the status of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention.

The Washington Post on Thursday lent its voice to the demand that the detainees should be treated as prisoners of war or at least accorded the facilities that are provided under the Geneva Convention. The paper said in an editorial that according to most interpretations of the convention, in the case of a dispute about status, prisoners must first have a hearing before a tribunal.

Pentagon regulations for the conduct of such tribunals were issued in 1997: they call for a three-member panel of military officers, and give each prisoner the right to testify. “Until their status is determined, the United States is bound by international law to treat prisoners as PoWs — and not ‘just for the most part’ (Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s phrase).”