Pakistan demands closure of Guantanamo detention centre

ISLAMABAD: A Pakistani parliamentary panel has demanded immediate closure of the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay as it was in "complete violation of the norms of the civilised world".
In a unanimous resolution, the Committee on human rights of the Senate or upper house of parliament also called for the release of six Pakistanis detained at Guantanamo Bay.
The Committee, which met at Parliament House under the chairmanship of Senator S M Zafar, also discussed reports about the detention of a Pakistani woman at the US Army's Bagram Detention Centre in Afghanistan for over four years. The Pakistani media had recently reported on the issue.
Members of the committee underlined the need for more coordinated efforts to ascertain whether there was any Pakistani woman detained by the US forces at Bagram or Guantanamo Bay.
They directed the ministries of interior and foreign affairs and the human rights division to take up the matter with intelligence agencies to find out whether they had handed over any Pakistani women to the US forces for interrogation.
The panel observed that the issue is of immense importance and all-out efforts should be made to get correct information and to take appropriate steps to get any detained women released. It issued directions to the concerned ministries that bureaucratic snags should not hold up the issue.