KABUL, 22 August 2004 — A UN human rights expert yesterday slammed US military authorities in Afghanistan for barring him from visiting detention centers and pronounced a Kabul prison “inhuman.” Cherif Bassiouni said: “The lack of giving an opportunity for people to go and see these facilities is a lack of transparency that raises serious concerns about the legality of detention ... and conditions of those detainees.”
Former prisoners say they were tortured and abused while in US custody, raising concerns that scandal over the mistreatment of prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison earlier this year was not an isolated episode. The US military, which had earlier this month been expected to release an internal report into allegations of prisoner abuse, turned down his request to visit centers where suspected militants are held.
Bassiouni was allowed to visit Kabul’s notorious Pul-e-Charkhi jail, run by the Afghan authorities, where some 725 members of the Taleban militia and their Pakistani allies are being held.
Bassiouni pronounced conditions there “inhuman” and said the prisoners should be freed. “These persons should be released immediately. There is no legal, human or even political justification to keep them,” he said. But added that at least he had been allowed in to see the prison.
The rights controversy was stirred by the arrest of three US citizens in Kabul in early July for illegally detaining and torturing Afghans. The leader of a vigilante group, Jonathan “Jack” Idema said no torture was used during interrogations and his group colluded with US security agencies as well as the Department of Defense. The US authorities have denied any link with Idema’s group, and their trial resumes on Monday.
He also accused Afghan warlords such as Uzbek Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum of violating human rights. Bassiouni said that many of the violations in the war-torn country are being committed by “warlords and drug lords”.
“These constitute gross violations of fundamental human rights and include extra judicial execution, torture, arbitrary arrest and detention, inhuman conditions of detention, forceful seizure of private property, child abduction, trafficking of children and slave-like practices with respect of women,” he said.
Bassiouni specifically criticized Dostum, an Uzbek leader in northern Afghanistan who is running in the country’s Oct. 9 presidential elections. The general detained some 3,200 Taleban fighters as well as Pakistani nationals who were fighting for the Taleban in the northern city of Shiberghan.
