Abuse of detainees still rife in Afghanistan, U.N. says

KABUL, Afghanistan -- The torture and mistreatment of people arrested for conflict-related activities remain widespread in Afghan prisons, the United Nations said in a report released Wednesday, pointing to a continued challenge for the nation's new government.

The report said 35 percent of the 790 detainees interviewed from February 2013 to December 2014 claimed to have been subjected to mistreatment, including beatings with pipes, electrical shocks and near asphyxiation.

There has been only one criminal prosecution for torture since 2010, the report said, adding that oversight within security organizations is lacking and many officials with those organizations do not appear to view torture as illegal.

"Torture is a very serious crime for which there is no justification," said Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights.

The U.N. commended the government for its efforts. The report said there had been a 14 percent drop in such episodes from the previously reported period, which ended two years earlier.

"Afghanistan's efforts to prevent torture and ill treatment have shown some progress over the last two years," the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan, Nicholas Haysom, said in a statement. "More remains to be done, however, and I welcome the new administration's immediate attention to end these practices."

The government, for its part, pledged to start a new program to eliminate torture.

"Despite the positive change, the government of Afghanistan does not see it as enough and remains strongly committed to a complete elimination of any ill treatment and torture in its detention centers," according to a statement from the presidential palace.

The report contained disturbing revelations about the continued illegal treatment of detainees just as the Afghans are taking control of the war started by a U.S.-led coalition in 2001.

The mistreatment was said to have taken place at several facilities throughout the country run by a number of the nation's security services: the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan intelligence agency; the Afghan National Police; the Afghan Local Police; and the Afghan National Army.

For the most part, the detainees were accused of being members of the Taliban or other anti-government groups who were involved in war-related crimes. Typically, torture was said to have been used to obtain confessions.

Extrajudicial killings also came up in the report, with a focus on Kandahar, where the provincial police chief, Lt. Gen. Abdul Raziq, has been dogged by complaints of human-rights violations that include the torture and killing of detainees suspected of being Taliban militants.

On Aug. 4, while speaking to journalists in the Zheray district of Kandahar, Raziq said he was "extremely grateful" to his security forces for "identifying and targeting" insurgents on the spot. That prevented them from being able to bribe corrupt judges for their release, he said.

Other narratives disclosed in the report included accounts of detainees' being electrocuted, being beaten on the soles of their feet and having their fingernails and toenails ripped out to obtain confessions.

The Afghans are not alone in their history of abusing suspects.

The CIA for years ran secret prisons in Afghanistan, including a notorious one known as the Salt Pit, which was in a factory on the plains north of Kabul. The facilities were revealed in a report published in December by a Senate committee, which described practices like waterboarding and sleep deprivation used on detainees.

As of late last year, the Afghans have custody of all detainees in the country, the last of them having been handed over by the Americans when transferring control of a prison in Parwan province.

The international military has not stopped conducting military operations in Afghanistan. The counterterrorism mission continues, with American special operations forces going alongside their Afghan counterparts to root out remnants of al-Qaida or other militant groups. In some cases, the Americans also are authorized to target Taliban militants if they are deemed to be a threat to U.S. forces.

But the Americans apparently do not detain these targets. It is unclear whether that means the captives are simply killed or whether the Afghans take immediate custody of suspects during the joint operations.

"Coalition forces, to include the United States, no longer conduct detention operations in Afghanistan and no longer operate detention facilities in Afghanistan," according to a statement issued Wednesday by international military headquarters in Kabul.

A Section on 02/26/2015

Upcoming Events