KABUL, 15 May 2004 — Human Rights organization Amnesty International has called on the Afghan and US governments to examine prison conditions in Afghanistan following allegations of abuse by American troops.
“Recent allegations of abuse of an Afghan police officer in August 2003 by US soldiers in Gardez highlight the imperative need for a transparent and accountable investigation into reports of human rights violations,” Amnesty said in a statement published Thursday on its website.
After revelations of gross prisoner abuse by American soldiers in Iraq, a former Afghan police officer came forward this week to claim he had been beaten, stoned, deprived of sleep and taunted with questions about having sex with animals in US custody.
“Amnesty International calls on the US and Afghan government to investigate all deaths in custody, including the deaths of two Afghans in US custody in December 2002, and for the results to be made public,” Amnesty said.
“Both governments must ensure that all officers involved in allegations of torture and misconduct are suspended pending the outcome of investigations.” The London-based rights watchdog said investigations should cover prisons run by regional commanders, such as the notorious northern Sheberghan jail under the command of warlord Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum.
Amnesty also urged the US to allow the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission access to its detention facilities. The organization said it had received “consistent reports of torture and abuse of detainees held in US military bases across Afghanistan during the past two and a half years.”
The International Committee of the Red Cross makes regular visits to US detention centers and its feedback is used to modify conditions, a military spokesman said earlier this week. Amnesty said the number of people held in US centers should be made public and authorities should end the practice of “incommunicado detention.”
US forces make up 13,500 of the 15,500 foreign troops on a mission in Afghanistan to “kill or capture” Taleban, Al-Qaeda and other militants.
Meanwhile, six loyalists of an Afghan faction were killed in an ambush in the northern province of Balkh, a spokesman for the faction said yesterday. They included a top police official and several military officers from Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of Balkh province, and belonged to the Jamiat-e-Islami faction led by Ustad Atta Mohammad, Zalmay Yunous said.
“They were killed in an ambush yesterday evening. We are investigating to find who was behind this act,” he said. The attack occurred in Sholgara district, where four other Jamiat officials were recently killed in a similar ambush, Yunous said. He did not blame any specific group for either incident.
Sholgara lies some 60 km southwest of Mazar city and has been the scene of numerous clashes between Atta’s fighters and those loyal to Dostum. Both Dostum and Atta are senior members of President Hamid Karzai’s government in Kabul. Periodic fighting between their forces has undermined Karzai’s bid to unite and rebuild Afghanistan after more than 23 years of fighting.
Afghan and United States troops killed five suspected Taleban militants and captured five others in southern Afghanistan, officials said yesterday. The insurgents were killed on Wednesday when Afghan troops, supported by US soldiers, conducted an operation in Khakriz district about 50 kilometers north of the main southern city Kandahar, military commander Khan Mohammad said.
“Among the five captured are two senior Taleban senior commanders,” he told AFP by telephone. Shah Wali, a close lieutenant to the popular Taleban commander known as “Mulla Brother” was among those arrested, another senior provincial official said.
“Mulla Shah Wali, a close aide to Mulla Brother who is behind most of the attacks, was also captured,” the official told AFP, asking not to be named. A US military spokeswoman said she had no reports of the incident.
Kandahar, some 480 kilometers southeast of Kabul, and the surrounding provinces of Helmand and Uruzgan have been hard hit by a wave of violence which has left dozens of people, including one US soldier, dead over the past few weeks.
