The head of the international Red Cross said he deplored the Bush administration's refusal to allow its delegates to visit detainees in secret detention.
In an unusually strongly worded statement, the neutral agency known for its discretion expressed disappointment that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other officials refused to yield to its demand.
"No matter how legitimate the grounds for detention, there exists no right to conceal a person's whereabouts or to deny that he or she is being detained," said Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, following a series of top-level meetings in Washington.
The ICRC is designated by the Geneva Conventions on warfare as the organization to visit prisoners of war. It is the only independent body the United States allows to visit terror suspects detained in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, but it has long been demanding access to detainees in "undisclosed locations."
[The Boston Globe]
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