British security company G4S is refusing to address concerns over its involvement in the running of the US prison at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay.<\/p>\n
Human rights charity Reprieve submitted a complaint to the UK government earlier this year, arguing that G4S has breached OECD Guidelines because of its contract to supply \u2018base support operating services\u2019 at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay. The nature of support services provided by G4S are not made clear, and the company has refused to give further details about the $113 million contract, prompting concerns that G4S could be contributing to the abuse of detainees at the prison.<\/p>\n
In a reply to the National Contact Point, the government body through which the complaint was submitted, G4S made no attempt to address the substantive allegations of the complaint. Instead\u00a0the company\u00a0argued that they have little control over G4S Government Solutions, its wholly-owned US subsidiary that won the Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo contract.<\/p>\n
G4S is a long-standing contractor for the British government, receiving millions of pounds annually in public money. Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo has been called \u201ca shocking affront to democracy\u201d by a former government minister, and \u201ca monstrous failure of justice\u201d by Lord Steyn, formerly one of Britain\u2019s most senior judges.<\/p>\n
The UK Government\u2019s NCP has suggested to Reprieve that it might pass the complaint to its US counterpart, prompting concerns they will avoid responsibility for investigating the it.<\/p>\n
148 men remain held without charge or trial in Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo –\u00a0including British resident Shaker Aamer who was cleared for release from the prison under the Bush administration in 2007 and again under President Obama in 2009. It is UK government policy that Mr Aamer should be returned as a matter of urgency to his British wife and their four children in London, yet he remains detained.<\/p>\n
Kevin Lo, an investigator at Reprieve<\/strong>, said: \u201cG4S is deeply involved in running the legal black hole\u00a0that is\u00a0Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay, and the British public deserves better than the company\u2019s stonewalling of questions. For the UK government to show that its condemnation of Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo is more than just talk, the UK National Contact Point needs to press G4S for accountability and transparency.\u201d 1. For further information, please contact Reprieve\u2019s press office: +44 (0) 207 553 8161<\/a>\/ clemency.wells@reprieve.org.uk<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" British security company G4S is refusing to address concerns over its involvement in the running of the US prison at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo Bay. Human rights charity Reprieve submitted a complaint to the UK government earlier this year, arguing that G4S has breached OECD Guidelines because of its contract to supply \u2018base support operating services\u2019 at Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":136945,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[487,21,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-141611","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-breaking-news","8":"category-human-rights","9":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136945"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n\u00a0<\/span>
\nENDS<\/p>\n