BANGKOK: South-east Asian regimes known for their human rights violations are receiving a reminder here of how close the US government is to marching in their step , including having the habit of detaining without trial people deemed to be national security threats.

On Friday, a senior US official appealed for more global understanding about a this legal practice, one that is among Washington's cornerstones in its "war on terror" - although it appears to "fly in the face of a historically open legal process (in the United States)".

"I can only hope (that) over a longer period of time, those who question what we have done understand that it was done consistent with our Constitution," US Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told a packed meeting at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

"Our determination to hold individuals as enemy combatants is pursuant to presidential authority," he added. "There is sufficient authority within our legal process for a president, under extreme circumstances after 9/11 and the military engagement in Afghanistan, to deal with (enemy combatants) this way."

Ridge's comments came just over a day after five British Muslims were released from the Guantanamo Bay prison, where the US government has incarcerated over 600 suspects in its 'war on terror' after the Sept 11 attacks.

To rights activists, this release in fact sheds light on just how far Washington is willing to go to sacrifice human rights in favour of national security.

After all, it took the British police barely 24 hours to release the men without any charges. This was in marked contrast to the ordeal they underwent at the hands of US authorities - four of them were held in the Guantanamo Bay prison for two years without a hint of trial or adequate access to lawyers.

Ridge's efforts to justify this post-Sept 11 arrest and detention practice by the US government was seen in some quarters here as an abdication of what the United States had long represented - an upholder of rights and a defender of laws.-Dawn/The InterPress News Service.