Interview: Guantanamo prison features most flagrant human rights violation by U.S.-- academic

HAVANA, July 23 (Xinhua) -- The prison at the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba sees the most flagrant violation of human rights perpetrated by the U.S. administration, a Cuban academic and diplomat told Xinhua in a recent interview.

"This is a topic that has been presented again before the international community, but it is one of the longest human rights violations in U.S. history," said Jose Ramon Cabanas, director of Cuba's Center for International Policy (CIPI).

Speaking about the recent technical visit to the U.S. Naval Station in Guantanamo by Fionnuala Ni Aolain, the United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism, Cabanas said that the final report was "relatively objective and impartial."

Some detainees at the prison had never been taken to court, which violates U.S. law and prisoners there suffered all types of inhuman and illegal practices, including various forms of torture, said Cabanas.

Noting that such abuse is a widespread practice in the context of the so-called U.S. war against terrorism, the Cuban expert said that the U.S. war against terrorism had no direct impact on tackling terrorism but resulted in the emergence of new terrorist groups and organizations across the world.

Cabanas, who served as former Cuban Ambassador to the United States, said that Australian citizen Julian Assange and former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden were victims of a witch hunt for revealing the crimes and human rights violations committed by the U.S. government.

Cuba calls for the return of the territory illegally occupied by the United States at the Naval Station Guantanamo Bay against the will of Cubans, said the academic.

"We continue to call to recover sovereignty in this territory occupied under the Platt Amendment imposed by the U.S. Congress to the Cuban Constitution in 1901," he said.

Cabanas said that after the triumph of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, there have been attempts to use this naval base to increase tensions between Cuba and the United States, adding that the Cuban government has worked for many years to avoid an escalation of the bilateral conflict.

The former diplomat said that, because of the illegal occupation of Cuban territory by the U.S. administration, residents in the neighboring town of Caimanera are deprived of a normal life.

"We have nothing to negotiate with the U.S. administration about this topic. What we only accept is the return of this territory, which has been illegally occupied," he said.