http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&ncid=721&e=6&u=/ap/20040513/ap_on_re_eu/red_cross_prisoner_abuse
05/13/2004
Red Cross Says Abuse Photos Can't Be Shown
19 minutes ago
By ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS, Associated Press Writer
GENEVA - The international Red Cross agreed Thursday with Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the Geneva Conventions on warfare
forbid the U.S. government from distributing photographs showing Iraqi
detainees being humiliated or abused.
"He has a good point," said Antonella Notari, spokeswoman of the
International Committee of the Red Cross. "The dignity of the people
who are detained has to be respected at all times."
The conventions, which spell out the internationally agreed rules on
the treatment of detainees during warfare, ban exposing prisoners of
war to "public curiosity."
But, Notari said, the same article also forbids violence, intimidation
and insults.
"If you want to quote the article, please quote the whole article,"
she said.
Notari, who has been defending ICRC's policy of complaining
confidentially to governments about prisoner abuses instead of
speaking out, stopped short of criticizing the news media for
publishing those photographs which have already been made public. She
conceded that the previous publication of photographs from the
U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison has shocked the world into acting.
"It's a sad reality in today's world that it took these pictures to
alert the authorities that it was high time for them to take action,"
she told The Associated Press.
"It is true that Amnesty International had reported on abuses
occurring in Iraqi detention earlier and nobody listened. It is true
that we had reported privately earlier."
She noted that the ICRC had been expressing its concerns to U.S.
officials about the practices in Iraqi detention centers for more than
a year before the pictures were made public.
"We do hope that our reports had alerted them earlier," Notari said.
"We had seen some measures taken."
Rumsfeld said on a surprise trip to Iraq (news - web sites) on
Thursday said he would be happy to release all photographs of prisoner
abuse, but that government lawyers had noted the legal restrictions.
The third convention, which covers captured military personnel, says
such "prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly
against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and
public curiosity."
The fourth convention applies a similar restriction to detained
civilians.
"They shall at all times be humanely treated, and shall be protected
especially against all acts of violence or threats thereof and against
insults and public curiosity," it says.
Rumsfeld was making a trip designed to reassure U.S. troops that U.S.
public support for their mission continues despite the prisoner abuse
scandal. He was also getting firsthand reports from the most senior
commanders.
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