Cuba calls on UN to condemn US over Guantanamo

Cuba said on Thursday that it would ask the UN Human Right Commission to condemn the United States for human rights abuses in its naval base on the Guantanamo Bay.

The move came after the UN body passed a resolution condemningCuba's human rights records with 22 votes in favor, 21 against and10 abstentions.

Accusing the commission of adopting "double standards," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told a press conference that his country would demand the countries which had voted against the island co-sponsor a draft resolution against US arbitrary detentions in Guantanamo.

Their decision on whether to co-sponsor the draft resolution against the United States would test the equity and non-selectivity character of the issue of human rights, said the minister.

The anti-Cuba resolution passed in Geneva Thursday was tabled by Honduras with El Salvador, Peru, Nicaragua, Australia and theCzech Republic as co-sponsors.

Over the past three years, Cuba had not challenged Washington over its human rights abuses at the Guantanamo Bay naval base, where hundreds of suspected al-Qaida and Taliban fighters are being held.

Many detainees have been jailed there for several years without access to a defense attorney and without knowing when theywill be put on trial, Perez Roque said.

In a proposal presented to the UN Human Right Commission on Thursday, Cuba called on the United Nations to demand that Washington provide "information necessary to make clear the living conditions and juridical status of these people."