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http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_26-9-2003_pg7_8

Jimmy Carter speaks out against Guantanamo

Staff Report

Saturday, September 27, 2003

WASHINGTON: Former president Jimmy Carter has said that curtailment of human rights in the name of homeland security undermines the America’s credibility among nations struggling with oppressive governments.

Speaking at the Carter Center in Atlanta this week, he said the Patriot Act, profiling of Muslims and holding suspected terrorists in Guantanamo Bay violated the principles of democracy the United States preaches to the rest of the world.

According to the Associated Press, Carter said, “They have been held in prison without access to their families, or a lawyer, or without knowing the charges against them. We’ve got hundreds of people, some of them as young as 12, captured in Afghanistan, brought to Guantanomo Bay and kept in cages for what is going on two years. It’s difficult for international aid workers to spread the message of human rights to places like Cuba, Africa and the Middle East when the US government doesn’t practise fairness and equality.” The former president who has become a much-respected international figure because of his involvement in and advocacy of several good causes, said, “I have never been as concerned for our nation as I am now about the threat to our civil liberties.”

Mr Carter is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate.