Outreach Efforts on Guantanamo

UNCLAS PARIS 005388 SIPDIS SENSITIVE DEPARTMENT FOR S/WCI, EUR, EUR/PPD ¶E. O. 12958: N/A TAGS: KISL KPAO PGOV PREL SUBJECT: Outreach Efforts on Guantanamo REF: (A) SECSTATE 139288, (B) SECSTATE 142348 ¶1. (U) Embassy Paris has concentrated recent public outreach on Guantanamo issues in two areas. The Guantanamo detainee issue is a part of regular conversations Mission officers have with private and public interlocutors, and we use the talking points at each of these occasions. We also respond to each letter or petition received from the French public. The Mission receives on average some twenty letters a month on detainee and Guantanamo issues. The Public Affairs Section, which oversees the responses, has incorporated several of the reftel talking points into the text of its new letter. We are using the new text to respond to the French chapter of Amnesty International's recent letter to the Ambassador, for example. That letter asks the Mission to forward a petition, signed by 12,000 people, against torture and degrading treatment of detainees to the President. ¶2. (SBU) GOF interest in Guantanamo has been largely confined to the presence of French citizens. With the already completed transfer in 2005 of all French citizens from Guantanamo, we anticipate little official reaction from the GOF on this issue. Stapleton