Amnesty report: Detainees in U.S. denied basic rights

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A significant number of the overseas nationals detained in the United States after the September 11 attacks are being deprived of their basic human rights, Amnesty International said in a report released Thursday.

The organization accused the U.S. government of arbitrarily imprisoning the detainees and denying them "the right to humane treatment, to be informed of reasons for detention, to have prompt access to a lawyer, to be able to challenge the lawfulness of the detention and to be presumed innocent until proven otherwise."

Other violations it listed include prolonged solitary confinement, heavy shackling and lack of adequate exercise, and it called the high level of secrecy surrounding the detentions "disturbing."

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Six months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, more than 300 of the 1,200 people initially detained -- many of whom are immigrants of Muslim or Middle Eastern descent -- remain in the custody of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, Amnesty International said.

Karen Kraushaar, a spokeswoman for the INS, said her agency is holding about two-thirds of those still in detention, and the others are in the custody of U.S. marshals or authorities at state or local levels.

"The detentions continue to reflect the priority the government is placing on the prevention of further terror attacks," she said.

Only about 100 of the detainees have been charged with criminal offenses, but "not one of those charges was directly related to the events of September 11," said William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA.

The majority of the detainees have been charged with minor visa violations, a charge that Schulz noted typically does not merit shackling and solitary confinement.

"We ask the Justice Department and the INS to abide by its own standards and by international human rights standards in the treatment of these detainees," Schulz said. "To treat detainees inhumanely is to risk breeding hostility and anger against us where before there may have been none."

On the question of solitary confinement, Kraushaar said some detainees have been placed in "administrative segregation" because of "behavioral problems" or for making "direct physical or verbal threats" against guards or other detainees.

In a statement released earlier, the INS said all detainees still in its custody have violated U.S. immigration laws and are being held in accordance with standards made public in November 2000 that require "appropriate, safe and humane conditions of detention of individuals in INS custody."

It said the detainees have access to round-the-clock medical care, recreational facilities for exercise, the right to seek legal counsel at their own expense and contact their consulate, and are allowed use of telephones, law libraries and other materials necessary to defend their case.

"INS also makes reasonable efforts to provide detainees with information in their language and to provide nutritional and ethnically appropriate meals," the statement said.

The agency said detainees who feel they are being mistreated can file a complaint -- anonymously, if they so choose -- with the Justice Department's Inspector General's office.

Amnesty International based its report on reviews of more than 200 cases, compiled through interviews with the detainees, attorneys and relatives, and a review of documents showing that many of the detainees were held for months without being charged.

The organization was granted permission to tour two northern New Jersey detention centers -- the Hudson County Correctional Facility and the Passaic County Jail -- and interview detainees held there.