New York: A federal appeals court ruled that the US government can keep secret the identities of detainees who claim they ve been abused at the prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan reversed a lower court judge regarding eight files containing records documenting allegations of detainee abuse by military personnel and documents containing reports of allegations of detainee-against-detainee abuse.
The misconduct alleged to have been carried out by military personnel included spraying detainees with water hoses, striking them, using pepper spray against them and splashing them with cleaning products.
A three-judge panel of the appeals court found that the detainees and their families have a privacy interest in their identifying information. The government had argued that the detainees faced possible harm if their identities were revealed.
The appeals court said that The Associated Press, which sought the identities, had not shown how the public interest would be served by disclosing them.
The appeals court said victims of abuse were entitled to some protection of personal information that would be revealed if their names were associated with abuse because it was the type of information that people would ordinarily not wish to make known about themselves.
"Certainly they have an interest in both keeping the personal facts of their abuse from the public eye and in avoiding disclosure of their identities in order to prevent embarrassment," it said.
