Human rights groups, already alarmed by
stories of prisoner abuse in American-run facilities in
Iraq and Afghanistan, have now raised concerns about the
number of secret jails, particularly in Afghanistan. New
York-based Human Rights First claims there are seven undisclosed
centres in Afghanistan, including a CIA interrogation
facility in the capital, Kabul, known as ‘The Pit’.
In a report released this week, it said
the United States was holding suspects in the war on terror
in more than two dozen prisons around the world, with
the biggest number of secret prisons in Afghanistan.
Secrecy surrounding the jails made “inappropriate
detention and abuse not only likely, but inevitable”,
the group said. The US military has confirmed the existence
of only two detention facilities in Afghanistan —
Bagram Collection Point at the main US airbase north of
Kabul and “one transitional collection point”
in southern Kandahar.. “We also have about 18 transit
holding sites,” a spokeswoman for the US-led coalition
Master Sergeant Cindy Beam said.
The US has refused to confirm or deny
the report on secret detention cells.
“We don’t talk about where
each holding site is because it gives our enemy too much
information about where we are and what we’re doing,”
Beam said. But security sources have confirmed to AFP
that the secret prisons exist here.
They said some detainees, suspected members
of the Al Qaeda network, have been held in these secret
jails since the fall of the Taliban regime more than two
years ago. The Central Intelligence Agency, in collaboration
with the Afghan secret service, runs at least five clandestine
jails in Kabul, western and Afghan sources told.
Managed on a daily basis by members of
the Afghan National Directorate of Security, these cells
hold about 20 foreigners believed to be involved with
Al Qaeda, sources say. Most are Arabs from the Middle
East and North Africa.
American personnel working in these centres
don’t wear military uniforms, preferring for the
most part traditional Afghan dress and driving around
in unmarked vehicles. The prisoners are held outside any
legal framework and are regularly moved from one prison
to another.
The International Committee of the Red
Cross, which visits prisoners at Bagram and has recently
been given access to Kandahar, says it is concerned by
the unknown number of people detained “in secret
places” by American forces, a spokesman told AFP.
“We are more and more concerned
about the lot of the unknown number of people captured
in the context of what we would call ‘the war against
terror’ and detained in secret places,” Erof
Bosisio said from Geneva. “We have asked for information
on these people and access to them. Until now we have
received no response from the Americans,” Bosisio
said. Commissioner with Afghanistan’s foremost rights
group, Ahmad Nader Nadery, has called for a “transparent”
detention system and the release of information on all
centres and prisoners.
Whether the prisons are secret or openly
discussed makes no difference as far as the detainee is
concern, according to Nadery’s Afghan Independent
Human Rights Commission.
Some 2,000 prisoners have been detained
in Afghanistan since the early days of the war on terror.
Many have been released or forwarded to Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, while about 390 remain in custody here. Nadery’s
commission has registered three complaints of prison abuse
while the US military is investigating two. One complaint
involves a former police officer who says he was beaten,
deprived of sleep and humiliated while held captive in
2003.
The US is conducting five other inquiries
into the deaths of Afghans, including at least three in
custody. Two of these deaths, which occurred at Bagram
in December 2002, were the result of “blunt-force
injuries”. Meanwhile, a review into US prisons here
is due to be completed within days.
