2007年VOA标准英语-Human Rights Groups Demand Accounting for Missi

By David Gollust
Washington
07 June 2007

Leading human rights groups Thursday called on the U.S. government to account for terrorism suspects they believe were detained by U.S. authorities abroad but whose whereabouts are now unknown. The Bush administration has said it maintained secret overseas detention¹ sites but emptied them last year. VOA's David Gollust reports from the State Department.

In an unusual joint² action, six human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have published a list of 39 terrorism suspects they believe were secretly detained by the United States at one time or another but cannot be accounted for now.

A 21-page report by the rights organizations says the so-called ghost detainees include nationals from several countries including Pakistan, Egypt, Libya and Kenya who were detained in anti-terrorism operations since 2001, and held at least for some time in secret U.S. detention sites.

President Bush acknowledged the existence of secret CIA detention sites abroad in an address last September, but said that the 14 prisoners in them at the time had been transferred to the Guantanamo Bay detention facility.

News reports last year quoted U.S. intelligence officials as saying the secret sites may have held nearly 100 prisoners in the months before the President's disclosure.

The six human rights groups called on the Bush administration to account for the other prisoners, whose cases they said they were able to document from government disclosures and interviews with released detainees, witnesses and relatives.

 

In a talk with VOA, Joanne Mariner³, Terrorism and Counter-terrorism Coordinator⁴ at Human Rights Watch, said the prisoners may have been sent back to their countries of origin or elsewhere for continued detention, and possible mistreatment: "It's possible they were transferred to their home countries, which in the case of several of them is of real concern because their home countries are places like Libya, Egypt and Morocco, places in which the torture of terrorism suspects is commonplace. And we're certainly afraid that they may continue to be held in secret detention in these countries and face abuse there," she said.

In connection with the report, three of the groups including Amnesty International filed a federal lawsuit⁵ under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act seeking disclosure of documents and other information on the ghost detainees.

Amnesty Deputy Executive Director Kurt Goering said in a VOA interview the decision to take the issue to the courts came because the CIA, Justice Department and other agencies were unresponsive to information requests made through regular channels. "We've been essentially⁶ stonewalled. None of the agencies, the five agencies, have delivered or provided any significant information in response to these requests. The CIA has stonewalled completely, there's been absolutely no response. And so in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act regulations, we are through this lawsuit charging that the U.S. government is violating its own laws," he said.

Both Goering of Amnesty and Mariner of Human Rights Watch said the President's September statement did not preclude⁷ the future use of secret detention sites overseas, and that there are reports the practice continues.

At a news briefing however, State Department Deputy Spokesman Tom Casey said there was no reason to believe that the situation has changed since the September speech, suggesting that there were no new secret detainees.

Casey also insisted the detainee issue has not undermined the United States' moral authority to speak out on human rights issues in other countries.

"We recognize that the United States, in our own country, does not always have perfect record and historically has not always done so. That does not lessen⁸ the fact that the United States has been and continues to be the world's leading advocate for human rights around the world, and it's a cause that we believe in, that is part of the values of our country and one that we are going to continue to speak about," he said.

In a speech in The Hague late Wednesday, State Department Legal Adviser⁹ John Bellinger said the issue of terrorist detainees posed an unprecedented¹⁰ legal challenge for the Bush administration, which he said has not ignored, changed or reinterpreted international law.

1 detention   

n.滞留，停留；拘留，扣留；(教育)留下

参考例句：

• He was kept in detention by the police.他被警察扣留了。
• He was in detention in connection with the bribery affair.他因与贿赂事件有牵连而被拘留了。

2 joint   

adj.联合的，共同的；n.关节，接合处；v.连接，贴合

参考例句：

• I had a bad fall,which put my shoulder out of joint.我重重地摔了一跤，肩膀脫臼了。
• We wrote a letter in joint names.我们联名写了封信。

3 mariner   

n.水手号不载人航天探测器，海员，航海者

参考例句：

• A smooth sea never made a skillful mariner.平静的大海决不能造就熟练的水手。
• A mariner must have his eye upon rocks and sands as well as upon the North Star.海员不仅要盯着北极星，还要注意暗礁和险滩。

4 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

5 lawsuit   

n.诉讼，控诉

参考例句：

• They threatened him with a lawsuit.他们以诉讼威逼他。
• He was perpetually involving himself in this long lawsuit.他使自己无休止地卷入这场长时间的诉讼。

6 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

7 preclude   

vt.阻止，排除，防止；妨碍

参考例句：

• We try to preclude any possibility of misunderstanding.我们努力排除任何误解的可能性。
• My present finances preclude the possibility of buying a car.按我目前的财务状况我是不可能买车的。

8 lessen   

vt.减少，减轻；缩小

参考例句：

• Regular exercise can help to lessen the pain.经常运动有助于减轻痛感。
• They've made great effort to lessen the noise of planes.他们尽力减小飞机的噪音。

9 adviser   

n.劝告者，顾问

参考例句：

• They employed me as an adviser.他们聘请我当顾问。
• Our department has engaged a foreign teacher as phonetic adviser.我们系已经聘请了一位外籍老师作为语音顾问。

10 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。