Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin Interviewed on National Public Radio, PBS Newshour, and Several More Media Outlets About Her U.N. Visit and Report on the Detention Facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba

As reported earlier this week, Professor Fionnuala Ní Aoláin, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism (UNSRCT), briefed reporters on her technical visit to the United States and the detention facility at the U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Monday, June 26 marked the conclusion of the UNSRCT mandate's technical visit to the U.S. Naval Station Guantánamo Bay. 

“I observed that after two decades of custody, the suffering of those detained is profound, and it’s ongoing,” Ní Aoláin told reporters in New York.

“The U.S. government must urgently provide judicial resolution, apology and guarantees of non-repetition,” she added.

Prof. Ní Aoláin's comments came after she released a new report on Monday, which detailed her observations and recommendations after visiting the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay earlier this year - the first such visit by a UN expert.

In a follow-up interview with National Public Radio, she said that one of the ways to begin to change this situation is to implement torture rehabilitation. Ní Aoláin said, "These are elderly, some of them frail, some of the disabled - many men suffering a variety of health, both psychological and physical ailments. In order to get past that, we have to radically transform health care for these men at this detention facility," she told NPR. "We need holistic torture rehabilitation, and that means really fixing and rebuilding the bounds of trust of these men and providing holistic, specialized torture rehabilitation. The U.S. is one of the best countries in the world at doing this. It's a leader in torture rehabilitation. And so we have to bring that capacity to bear into the detention facility.

See the complete media coverage of this report below.