Is Bagram the new Guantanamo?
President Obama has failed to meet his own deadline to close Guantanamo by January 2010, the detention and torture facility remains operative, he now says it will probably close later in 2010, but he does not set a specific deadline.
The adminstration has yet to identify an alternative maximum security detention centre on the US mainland to which they will transfer the remaining detainees, the sites still being considered include U.S. Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and the Standish Maximum Correctional Facility in Standish, Michigan.
Although 40 prisoners are now to be tried in the US, some including alleged 9/11 instigator Khalid Sheikh Mohamed will be tried by Civil Courts and the remainder will be tried by military tribunal.
The remaining detainees are global pariahs, although 90 of them have been cleared for release they are still imprisoned because they are considered to dangerous to be allowed into the US and there is no where else in the world that will accept them.
Dubbed by the Bush adminstration “the worst of the worst,” the twisted logic of the US military deems that even if they weren’t terrorists before their incarceration they may have been so radicalised by their exerience in Guantanamo that if they were released they would take up arms against the US, therefore they must continue stay in detention without recourse to judicial process.
The remainder of the detainees are in a legal limbo, neither charged or cleared, either because there is insufficient evidence to charge them, or, because they have been to badly tortured and mistreated to be able to stand trial.
One possibility is that the US will seek to create more guantanamos in new locations around the globe beyond the jurisdiction of US Justice, one such location is Bagram prison located at Bagram airbase in the ancient city of Bagram near Charikar in Parvan, Afghanistan.
The US military recently concluded an examination of Afghanistan Government and US military prisons in Afghanistan and they have anounced the opening of a new prison on Bagram air base, costing 60 million dollars it will hold 1,100 prisoners.
Brig, General Mark Martins announced that about 700 prisoners will be transferred from the Old Bagram prison to the new Bagram detention facility before the end of the year.
Many afghans question the legality of an occupying power building a new prison to hold But some legal analysts say that a foreign power building a prison on Afghan soil to hold Afghans without charge. Professor of law at Kabul University Nasrullah Stanikzai,, says that according to Afghan and international law, the right to hold citizens against their will belongs solely to a nation’s government.
Professor Stanikzai says “Article Two of Afghan prison law says that building prisons and incarcerating citizens can only be done with the approval of the attorney general and the high court, additionally, only the Ministry of Justice is authorised to arrest and detain individuals. This prison is illegal.”
Meer Ahmad Juyehdah, a member of parliament, echoes this sentiment. “It is the government’s duty to deal with enemies of the state and criminals.” He says that the fact such prisons exist lead Afghans to question just who is in charge in this country.
Despite these protests, the new facility should be an improvement over the old. Fareed Hamidi, commissioner of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (HRC), says that the rooms where the detainees will live as well as other on-site spaces were built in accordance with international standards of detention.
“The Human Rights Commission’s concern,” says Hamidi, “is the way prisoners are dealt with. Are international principles, rules and standards followed or not?”
Hamidi says that one of the jobs of his group is to monitor conditions in jails. Given that organisations like the HRC are usually not allowed into military prisons, keeping tabs on prisoner treatment will be difficult.
He adds that detainees will have access to non-attorney advocates, but the fact that the length of their detention is indefinite raises serious concerns. Hamidi asserts that those held at Bagram have not been found guilty of any crime and no Afghan court has seen evidence against them.
What is known is that prisoners have been treated severely at the old Bagram facility, the torture and homicides took place at the military detention center known as the Bagram Theater Internment Facility, which had been built by the Soviets as an aircraft machine shop during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (1980-1989). A concrete-and-sheet metal facility that was retrofitted with wire pens and wooden isolation cells, the center is part of Bagram Air Base
In 2005, The New York Times obtained a 2,000-page United States Army report concerning the homicides of two unarmed civilian Afghan prisoners by U.S. armed forces in 2002 at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility.
The prisoners, Habibullah and Dilawar, were chained to the ceiling and beaten, which caused their deaths. Military coroners ruled that both the prisoners’ deaths were homicides. Autopsies revealed severe trauma to both prisoners’ legs, describing the trauma as comparable to being run over by a bus. Seven soldiers were charged. The story of the capture and torture of taxi drive Dilawar has been made into a movie called Taxi to the Dark Side.
A BBC report featured interviews with dozens of men who were detainees at Bagram between 2002 and 2008. The men told the reporters that they faced cruel punishment, including severe beatings. “They put a pistol to my ear,” said one man. “They said I had to speak or be shot.”
“They did things you would not do against animals, let alone humans,” said another. Such reports led some to label Bagram “The new Guantanamo”, referring to the U.S. military detention centre in Cuba.
Last summer, a BBC report featured interviews with dozens of men who were detainees at Bagram between 2002 and 2008. The men told the reporters that they faced cruel punishment, including severe beatings.
“They put a pistol to my ear,” said one man. “They said I had to speak or be shot.”,”They did things you would not do against animals, let alone humans,” said another, the terrible reputation of the prison for torture and mistreatment of prisoners has led some to label Bagram “The new Guantanamo.”
Fareed Hamidi, of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), says that the rooms where the detainees will live as well as other on-site spaces were built in accordance with international standards of detention.
“The Human Rights Commission’s concern,” says Hamidi, “is the way prisoners are dealt with. Are international principles, rules and standards followed or not?”
AIHRC has long requested access to the Bagram detention facility, Hamidi says that one of the jobs of his group is to monitor conditions in jails. Given that organisations like the HRC are usually not allowed into military prisons, keeping tabs on prisoner treatment will be difficult.
Hamidi adds that detainees will have access to non-attorney advocates, but the fact that the length of their detention is indefinite raises serious concerns. Hamidi asserts that those held at Bagram have not been found guilty of any crime and no Afghan court has seen evidence against them.
U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McCrystal has previously stated that he wanted to reform the treatment of detainees at Bagram. A detainee review board is part of this reform process, and the new facility has space for the review board to meet. The board would give detainees the opportunity to challenge their detention and even present evidence on their own behalf.
Fareed Hamidi states “New detainee review procedures at Bagram improve the treatment of detainees in principle, but it remains to be seen how well the United States will implement the reforms, AIHRC access to Bagram will help to ensure thet the United States is following procedures in good faith and deploying enough presonnel to review evidence and find witnesses.
The new system will permit detainees to call and question “reasonably available witnesses” and to appear before a military review panel that determines if they should remain in detention. Deatinees will be notified of the reason for their detention and have a personal representative, who will be a US military officer but not a lawyer who will have access to all “reasonably available information” including classified information.
The Afghanistan working group on conflict related detentions consists of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, The Afghanistan Human Rights Organisation, the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association, the Afghanistan legal and social services organisation and other Afghan organisations working on conflict related issues and the group advocates human rights and the rule of law within conflict related detention.
Lal Gul, a member of the Afghanistan working group on conflict related detentions and the head of the Afghanistan Human Rights Organisation said “It is critical that Bagram is no longer seen by Afghans as being outside the law.”