By Alok Bhatt
Impunity Watch Reporter, Asia
BAGRAM, Afghanistan – Afghan inmates held in the US’s Bagram military custody center will soon have their first opportunity to exercise expanded rights to challenge indefinite detention. The Obama administration has prepared a new set of guidelines regarding the legal rights of over 600 Afghan inmates detained at Bagram air-base. The administration hopes to implement the new system during this week. The new system will also grant extended rights to an unknown number of captive nationals from numerous other Middle Eastern states. The Obama administration aims to utilize the new system to separate extremist militants from civilians and moderate detractors, all of whom are currently imprisoned together. An anonymous official of the US Defense Department made a statement that “We don’t want to hold anyone [we should not] have to.”
Photo: Prisoners at the Bagram detention center (Source: Associated Press).
Bagram air-base, located 40 miles north of Kabul, has been the US’s makeshift prison since 2002. Though it faces less mainstream controversy than the infamous Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba, human rights organizations have long been voicing distress over the plight of Bagram prisoners. US torture techniques caused the death of two Afghan detainees hung from isolation cells in 2002. Investigative reports have also noted sleep deprivation and abusive interrogations as other torments inflicted upon inmates.
Many Bagram detainees have been imprisoned for up to six years, subject to conditions even more derisory than those at Guantanamo. Unlike the detainees in Cuba, Bagram prisoners had no access to lawyers, were mostly unaware of the allegations against them, and were afforded only meager review of their designation as enemy combatants.
However, after passing Congressional review, the new detention program will assign a non-lawyer official to each detainee in Bagram. With the aid of these officials, inmates will have an opportunity to challenge their detention before a military review board and have access to evidence to support their case.
The local Afghan government seems receptive towards the new prison system. Deputy mayor of Kabul, Wahaad Sadaat, regards the help of US military officials as a “helpful step” in securing inmates’ rights, and believes the US’s “legal assistance is of crucial importance.” However, the Obama administration’s newly proposed system has not eluded domestic skepticism. Ramzi Kassem, professor at the Central University of New York and attorney for a Bagram detainee, berates the new system as a ruse “meant to pull wool over the eyes of the judicial system.” Additionally, many human rights organizations have refrained from comment until they can judge the concrete results of the new system.
The world must wait to see the effectiveness of the Obama administration’s new detention system for the Bagram air base. However, this proposal of new guidelines may signify a shift in the US perspective towards foreign detainees’ rights and the pursuit of more humane practices.
For More information, please see:
Al-Jazeera – US expands Afghan prison rights – 12 September 2009
AlterNet – Very Bad News: Aghanistan’s Bagram Air Base Will Be Obama’s Guantanamo – 22 February 2009
The New York Times – Bagram Detention Center – 20 July 2009
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – New U.S. Plan Reportedly To Let Afghan Prisoners Challenge Incarceration – 14 September 2009
